The Fine Line
by N.H. Arawn
Summary: Love and hate are said to be the same emotion, so what does it take for Allen and Kanda to stop hating and start doing something else? And once the line has been crossed, what are the repercussions? AreKan and Yulllen, Lucky, OC.
1. Hate

**Hallo! This is Niamh, and this is my first fanfic EVER. Not just my first adventure in the world of D.Gray-man but also the only time I've ever tried to do something with other people's characters. It's starts out kinda blegh, but chapter 2 is better! TYVM for reading!**

**Disclaimer of Doom: I own Sable and her siblings, but I don't own D.Gray-man or its awesomeness.**

**WARNING: **_**If**_** the plot goes where I want it… there shall be man-lovin'.**

Predawn light filtered through the gray curtains feebly, rain patted on the windowpane like a thousand tiny snare drums, rumbling with the wind. The pair of green eyes that watched the rain as it fell were red from lack of sleep, sunken for similar reasons.

"Oh Hell, Sabe, you might as well just get up." The sleepless figure groaned to herself. Sable Adair had been watching the sky since the sun had gone down on the Black Order's headquarters and she had at long last grown bored of it. Nerves were to blame mostly. It was her first full day as an Exorcist of the Black Order and she didn't want to screw it up in the slightest – which meant spending the entire night thinking about all of the things that could go wrong and all of the impossible ways to fix them. She never planned it that way, but that was how it always turned out.

She sighed and rolled out of bed, her long golden hair following her like a cape. She went through her morning routine stoically, habit winning out over sleepiness, need beating the desire to just curl up in a ball and wait until the day was done. When at last she was clean and her hair brushed, she took her coat – her Exorcist's greatcoat – and pulled it on in front of the mirror; shaking horribly at the image that looked back at her.

A small pointed nose, large green eyes, a generous mouth, high cheek bones, and a scar that marred her forehead her left eyebrow to just below her hairline, as straight as a nail. She could hide that small blemish with her bangs if she wanted, but she never really tried to conceal it more than her natural part allowed. She thought it gave her face character, being it was boring without it.

So with one last sigh and a hurried smile, she darted into the still dark hallway of her new home.

Silence greeted her. Silence and then the chirping of a cricket.

Her heavy boots sounded loudly as she made her way, glancing occasionally at a painting in the hope of finding something that she had seen on the way in the day before. She usually memorized layouts quite well, but it had been brighter then, and she hadn't been running on zero hours of sleep. The corridors faded one into another in her mind, melting until at last she came to the conclusion that, despite her talents, she had managed to get herself hopelessly lost. And, on top of it all, her stomach was starting to growl.

_I stay up all night so that my day will end up perfect and instead I end up doing the one thing that never came to mind; I get lost._ She turned another corner; saw a never ending line of rooms that were exactly identical to the ones she had just passed. _So hungry… I'm going to die if I don't find the cafeteria soon…_ Her thoughts wandered helplessly with her feet, willing her to find the one place that she had not been shown before. Blearily she tromped on, the growing light of day no longer reaching her eyes.

And then she hit something.

"Oh, sorry!" The something chimed before she could even bring it into focus. The white haired young man that stared up at her gave an apologetic bow before continuing. "I wasn't watching where I was going."

She smiled and inclined her head, the way she thought might have been fitting. "No, I wasn't watching either. Um… Could you…erm… point me in the direction of the cafeteria?" She awkwardly squawked, but it was the boy's stomach that rumbled.

He blushed. "I was going there myself. It's right this way." He started off again and she took up pace behind him, glad that her little guide didn't think it ridiculous of her to be lost so easily.

As they went she studied him, trying to guess who he was. Gloved hands, a red line on his left eye, an aura of fluffy adorableness that seemed more fitting for a young child than a young man – he was a ball of contradictions to her eyes. He wore the same style of pants and shirt that she did under her coat, but his coat was missing. She figured he was an Exorcist enjoying some leisurely time.

"I'm Sable, by the way."

"Allen Walker." He grinned from over his shoulder. She had heard that name before.

The two of them came upon the cafeteria just as another man did, his long dark hair swirling behind him in a thick curtain, his soft face drawn into a scowl even before Allen had rang out an obviously unhappy good morning.

"Che," He droned, turning his head away while Sable opened the door. Allen walked in before her unthinkingly while the dark haired man remained outside.

"Should I hold it for you, or are you not hungry?" She asked when he did not move.

"Kanda is a tad antisocial. He'll just—"

"Shut it, Moyashi." Kanda seethed before sidling into the room, glaring all the while. "It isn't proper for a woman to hold a door for a man."

Sable cocked an eyebrow at him as they made their way across to the window where Jerry waited. The cafeteria was nearly empty so early in the morning. "I guess chivalry is not dead after all." Neither Allen nor Kanda answered.

Kanda leaned in the window to speak when he was presented with a plate of soba and tempura, a small dish of wasabi on the side. The oddest thing happened then, though Sable didn't know that it was odd, he smiled from the side of his mouth before walking to a table in the farthest corner of the room. Sable watched him go, psychoanalyzing him the entire way.

She was just about to comment on his cold demeanor when Allen rattled off the paragraph of food he wanted, Jerry nodding gleefully all the while. When he was finished he looked at her with something like pride on his angelic features.

"Comes with being a parasitic type," He attempted to explain.

Sable laughed, the sound was bell-like and soft. "Between the two if us he's going to cook himself to death."

"What?"

As if in response to Allen's question she recited his paragraph exactly, only backward, with an added order of tempura on the end. Allen gapped in shock when their plates came out with equally large mountains of food on them, Jerry cooing sweet lovies at the two of them and blessing their appetites.

He led her to a table that was occupied by Lavi and Lenalee, the two who had directed her around the building the previous evening.

"Morning Sable-san! Morning Moyashi-chan!" Lavi bounced from behind his coffee.

"It's Allen…"

"Morning," Sable said blankly. Lavi watched as she and Allen consumed their inhumanly sized meals, not bothering to make conversation with people like them around. What was the point, really? They'd either not hear him or answer in fifteen minutes time, which would cause him to rethink what he had asked in the first place. So he and Lenalee just watched in half-repressed disgust as Sable and Allen packed themselves with more food than either of them ate in a week.

When at long last the plates were cleared Lenalee leapt into the conversation – she was always one to make the new feel welcome.

"Did you sleep well last night, Sable-chan?"

Sable smiled but shook her head honestly. "No, I was too nervous. And because of that I got lost this morning. Good think Allen found me, or I'd be wandering the halls still."

Lavi gave Allen a look of complete stupefaction. The sweat drop on Allen's head was nearly visible. "Allen Ihavenosenseofdirection Walker _showed_ you how to get here?" He blinked as Sable nodded, her braid waving behind her. "I'm logging this away for the records…"

"Shush! Be nice, Lavi. Even if he has no sense of direction, you don't have to say it so plainly..."

"That was even plainer, Lenalee…" Allen groaned.

"He could have called you Moyashi Ihavenosenseofdirection Walker." Sable attempted to help. Allen's head just sagged onto the table.

As silent as death Kanda approached the table of Allen mockers before he spoke in an even, controlled voice. "Baka Aka."

"Yes Yuu-chan?" When Lavi smiled as he turned to the older man, his one visible green eye sparkled a thousand times brighter, contrasting with his flame colored hair like an emerald before a fire. He might have been Sable's age, but his attitude and coloration made him seem much younger. His face was made longer by the band around his head – which furthered the illusion that he was nothing but a boy. There was something else though, something darker behind his brightness.

"Bookman is looking for you." Kanda said flatly. "And Komui wants to see the Moyashi."

Allen's eyes narrowed. "It's an all new low for you to address me by addressing someone else."

"Che, I didn't even see you there, you're so short."

Allen was standing a moment later. "Maybe if you weren't so busy looking at your feminine reflection in Lavi's eye you'd see more."

"Che, what's the point in seeing you? You pose no threat to me." Kanda shift his weight to his foremost foot, and beneath his focused scowl Sable could almost see him smiling.

Allen made a sound of disagreement that might have been a growl.

Sable saw an opening and took it just as Lavi purposely stood up under the pretense of finding Bookman. "Well, how about you two duke it out later. Otherwise Allen will be late." The two death stares redirected themselves at her; neither Allen nor Kanda cared if he was late. They care only for the pain and suffering of each other.

Lenalee burst into action in order to save the less experienced girl. "Allen! Walk me to my brother's office!" She demanded, standing hurriedly. "I forgot… to get him coffee this morning." It was obvious that she was lying, but Allen was oblivious to this fact, as he was to most anything that wasn't calling him names or threatening his existence. But his response was surprising.

"You don't think I have time to kill Kanda first?" The fangs he smiled with were reminiscent of the ones he displayed when challenged to play poker, but with a twinge of murderous intent. The look was so completely unlike Allen that Lenalee had to take his hand and drag him away, shaking him back to himself as she went.

"Kill me? Baka. I hate stupid people like you." Kanda said the words under his breath by Allen still heard them. Sable's brow furrowed as she watched the two of them interact – the hate was palpable, the auras of loathing were not the kind that came from siblings nor the kind that came from sworn enemies; it was something altogether indefinable that made them treat each other like garbage. She had an idea. She waited until Lavi and the others were gone before she spoke to the ill-mannered man before her.

"Kanda-san," Her curious voice pulled his dark eyes to here like magnets even as he had started to walk away, demanding his attention. "Has it ever occurred to you that you might be able to…well… fight Allen?"

He looked down at the shorter woman with an expression of deepest boredom. "Che, it would be more entertaining to fight a rabbit."

Sable smiled broadly at him, standing up so that she lean closer to his face, better to see the pupils hidden with those dark irises. "Entertaining, maybe, but satisfying? Oh no. Just take him out in the woods one day and give him a nice pummeling – or get pummeled – and you'll both be better because of it."

"You sorely underestimate the likelihood of his death."

"You horribly misunderstand his intentions."

"I understand them perfectly. He's the friendly, naïve type. People like him kill themselves to save others."

"And? Do you have no one you would give yourself up for?" Her tone was biting so he started to grow defensive.

"I wouldn't die for just anyone, thanks."

"Then kill him."

"What?"

"Take him out to the woods and tell him why you hate him so much. Beat it into his skull until he understands or he dies. Isn't that what you want to do?"

Kanda blinked at her a moment. Her seriousness was almost creepy; her dark green eyes were filled with the kind of malicious thoughts that he reprimanded himself for having. And yet, he felt that she knew something about him that he did not, that she could read him like a Bookman. What would he gain by killing that damn moyashi and why couldn't he see it there for himself? And why was he hesitating? _No,_ He thought with finality. _Killing him is not what I want at all._

"Fine. When you see him, tell him I'm looking for him."

**AND… it's my horrible attempt at a cliffhanger. Sorry this was so… boring and horrible. I'm used to books, so things are a little slow to start. Things will get better, I promise!!! --**


	2. Poetic Atrocity

**Here it is! The second horrible installment of The Fine Line. Sorry for the boring start :(**

**Disclaimer of Death: If D.Gray-man were mine, Allen would play poker more. Strip poker. And lose.**

**WARNING: If things keep going how I want, be prepared for man-lovin'.**

Poetic Atrocity

Allen wasn't listening to Komui. He just couldn't register anything anymore. The shock that rippled through him had blocked all of the important information being said – he could hear syllables, read facial expressions, but the meaning was lost in a sea of horrified surprise. He would be working with Kanda Yuu, which was all he had heard before his ears stopped working entirely; his thoughts had instead turned to the millions of ways he could make Kanda suffer while they were tromping across Europe together.

_Make him suffer? What is this? I'm not a sadist…_

_Unless it comes to poker._

"I'm sorry, Komui," He interrupted in a vane attempt to make himself think of something else. "What was that after 'listen very carefully?'"

The scientist in front of him leaned on the papers on his desk, threatening to topple on of them onto the paper covered floor. The disappointed look that creased his face made his glasses fall to the very end of his nose and reflect the light so that his eyes were invisible; the white hat on top of his head fell forward as if it too were dejected. But he was in business mode. Maybe it was the lack of caffeine that made him so. "Everything I've told you is in the packets I've given you. Please read through it and give the second one to Kanda, and be quick about it, you leave tomorrow morning."

Allen nodded and picked up the papers. He had half expected a lecture but he wasn't going to argue if one wasn't forthcoming. He'd just give Kanda his damn papers like he always did, with a smile, then pack his things for the trip to Sweden, no big deal, no big planning necessary, just nice, happy Allen being nice, happy Allen.

And yet he didn't feel nice and happy. After breakfast he had felt like mauling the Japanese Exorcist, and he didn't mean that in a good way.

_Oh well,_ He thought as he turned a corner. _I guess that even I have a fuse in the end._

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Kanda was just trying to read but that was more or less impossible with Lavi in the library. Every ten seconds the guy had another random fact to share, or yet another title to suggest, or some impossible question to ask. It was like reading in front of a hyperactive kindergartener.

"Oi, Yuu-chan, what are you thinking about?"

"How much I miss silence."

"Your face says otherwise. And did you just respond to 'Yuu-chan' without trying to kill me, Yuu-chan?"

Kanda glared at him and fingered the hilt of his sword.

"I'll take that as a yes…" Lavi grinned before launching into a book related conversation with himself.

Kanda's eyes went back to the page before him, because he was not going to leave the library in order to read – the library was there to be read in, it was logical to stay – and he was not going to kill Lavi today, of all days. He wasn't in the mood. He wasn't even sure what he was in the mood for, really. _Silence,_ He flipped a page that he had only half comprehended. _I am in the mood for silence._

But a flicker of white caught his eye as a not-too-quiet-cursed-annoying-moyashi-Exorcist came in, a pack of papers in his right hand, the door knob in his left. Kanda glared at him more out of habit that anything else – he did not actually feel like beating him up instantaneously upon seeing him, most likely because they had not spoke since breakfast.

But the violent inclinations returned when Allen came closer and closer to the couch Kanda occupied.

"You have a mission." Allen said darkly. Darkly? Since when did Allen do anything darkly?

"Where?" Kanda demanded.

"Sweden. With me."

"Che." Kanda took to papers and flopped them down on the oak table that stood between his couch and Lavi's chair. Allen waited as if he expected something else. "What?" He looked up from his text to see the pair of silver eyes studying him intently, drinking him in as if he were water and Allen were dying of thirst. "Did you want something?"

Allen shook his head. "No, you did. Sable said you were looking for me."

_Oh. That._ Kanda suppressed his smile expertly; those that looked at him might have thought his lips were twitching with hate or something. But if they were indeed going on a mission together, that would offer him ample time to beat up the Moyashi and not get in trouble for it.

"It was nothing." He lied.

"No it wasn't. Tell me."

"If I say it was nothing, it was nothing, stupid Moyashi."

"My name is Allen and it _is_ something. If it wasn't something, Sable wouldn't have looked excited."

Kanda put his book down and glared at Allen full on, darning him to say something else, wishing him to butt into his business like Lavi would. "It was _nothing, _Moyashi. Now leave me alone, I'm trying to read."

Allen narrowed his eyes at the dark haired man-woman (in his eyes) on the dark leather sofa. He only wished that he could hit him without getting reprimanded. Heck, he wanted to _kill_ him without feel guilty about it. "Kanda—"

"Speak to me again and I'll kill you."

"Then kill me, it would be better than having to deal with your foul attitude all the time."

"Oi! Moyashi-chan, Yuu-chan, if you talk any louder Panda is going to murder you both." Lavi cooed from behind his novel. "And we all no what happens when the Panda gets angry…"

Kanda would not care if the old Bookman got mad at him but he still respected authority. So he spoke in a quiet voice when he answered, "You best watch your back in Sweden, Moyashi. Mugen and I aren't going to catch you if you fall."

Allen smiled at him brightly, the way he normally did. Only Allen and Lavi knew that the smile was forced. "I was counting on you saying that. Later Lavi!" And with that he waved goodbye to him and slid of the room, fists clenched at his sides.

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The next morning Allen left his room even before the sun could peak over the side of the world. He had done all of his exercises, showered, counted through the things he was taking with him twice, and managed to drop by the cafeteria for half a ton of food before going back for his things. He was tired, though, because he was not used to mornings. Allen thought of himself as a day – day happening between the hours of seven thirty and nine.

Sable caught him in a glomp the moment he turned the second to last corner before the door. It surprised him, being they hadn't known each other in that long.

"Going to be gone long?" She asked when she slid off his shoulder and started walking by his side.

"Maybe a few months. We have to cross the North Sea to Sweden and then take a train to the north." He smiled at her as they turned the corner – it was nice to have someone to say goodbye to. Things had been so quiet recently that he rarely say Lenalee or Lavi before departing.

"Sounds like it will be cold there, if you're going that far north." Sable frowned. "Don't get frost bite while you're there."

Allen laughed lightly, unconsciously pulling his coat tighter already. "I'd be more worried about Kanda. He's the cold one."

Sable giggled at him and grinned from ear to ear. _Oh, this is going to work beautifully,_ She thought. After she had slept the night before things had fallen into place in her mind like the pieces of a puzzle – it was perfect. She and Lenalee had worked it all out before she had come. She knew now why Kanda and Allen hated each other, why they fought, and she was bound and determined to make them see it too. _And they'll be so adorable!!_

"Speaking of Kanda, can you give him something for me? I have a mission of my own so I can't say goodbye." Sable's wide smile was not suspicious in the slightest – or at least Allen kept telling himself that. She was nice. She was normal. She was not suppressing a mental fan-girl squeal.

"Sure." As soon as he said the word she was shoving a paper into his hand, waving goodbye, and apologizing. Somehow her speed at dashing away seemed to surpass that of Lenalee. Maybe it was because she was frightened of what she would do if she stayed there???

"Walk faster, Moyashi or you'll be late."

_Oh, that's why…_

Kanda's voice was almost enough to send him into killing mode, but not quite. He had self control. The fact that Kanda was alive proved it. So instead of turning and saying something unpleasant to the raven haired Japanese man he walked slower, waiting for him to catch up from behind him.

Kanda was surprised when the Moyashi waited for him wordlessly, silver eyes gleaming in the dull hall lights like candles. He seemed paler than normal, not that he wasn't always pale, and the shadow that fell over the left side of his face hid the mark of his curse from sight. Standing there in the dimness Kanda could almost think of Allen as normal.

"Here." Allen held out the paper to him indifferently.

"What is it?"

Allen was tired of Kanda's glare, tired of his reserve – so he offered the paper with more enthusiasm. "No idea, Sable dropped it off."

"Great." There was no enthusiasm in the word. He delicately unfolded the letter and read it silently to himself.

_Moyashi day and Moyashi night_

_I see Your love and glory despite_

_All of the pain that has been caused_

_By two hearts that too long have lost._

_So now I offer You my hand,_

_As we forage a far off land,_

_In hope that Innocence there will be_

_While less than innocent all aren't we._

_So take me in Your arms dear,_

_Hold me close and hold me near,_

_Your long black hair and eyes of blue_

_Will me only to belong to Yuu._

"Kanda?" He had stopped walking a few steps behind Allen, his eyes scanning the paper again and again, a blush growing on his cheeks. "Is something wrong?"

Kanda's heart thumped in his chest like a drum, echoing through his ears and causing his hands to losing feeling. Sable hadn't written this. Sable's name wasn't the one scribbled in cursive at the bottom of this poetic atrocity. And if _Moyashi_ wasn't a confession, Kanda didn't know what was. But what the hell was he supposed to do now? Allen had just handed him a _love poem_ and now he was just standing there, dumbfounded, trying to lean in and see what he had written. And they were going to Sweden together? Possibly for _months_? What was Kanda supposed to do? Just tell Allen that he wasn't interested in boys and move on?

_Well, he _is_ pretty…_ The thought was there and gone in a matter of moments. No. Kanda was not going to think that. He was not allowed to. Besides, if that damn Moyashi was fun to look at, it was only because of his soft, girly features, not because Kanda Yuu liked his tight muscles and his idiotic determination.

When Kanda folded the paper and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket, Allen wasn't sure what to think. There had been a paling, a blush, another paling, and at long last another blush. What did that mean? Allen didn't even want to think about it. If someone was sending around love letters, he didn't want to get one. "Hm?" He prodded only slightly.

"It's nothing," Kanda lied to both of them. If he pretended that nothing odd had happened, maybe, just maybe, everything would be alright. "Let's go."

Allen hummed his accent and the two set off down the hallway with an awkward silence between them.

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Lenalee waited for the two of them at the front gate, fiddling with the paper that rested in her pocket. The plan was flawless. Lavi wrote one horrible poem and one elegant love letter, then Sable and Lenalee delivered them. If it worked, Allen and Kanda would be…closer then ever before. If it failed…well... they weren't going to fail.

When Allen said goodbye to her she slipped the letter gently into his pocket, and the oblivious boy was none the wiser. The two of them walked out of the large doors a good distance apart, moving slowly, not talking, and Lenalee could only smile at their backs as they went.

"Well, the seeds are planted." Sable said from behind her. "Now all we can do is see what sprouts."

**See? Wasn't that better than the first one? I sure think so. Still not that great… kind of… meh, but better than chapter one, for sure. Please tell me what you think! I have ideas for a few more chapters, but I'm open to suggestions.**


	3. Forgiveness

**I got a review!! W00T! I know, you're thinking **_**Wow, Niamh, impressed with one review… you're pathetic…**_** BUT REALLY! My first review EVER. Well, my fist two. I'm so proud… Ehem, on with the actual A/N:**

**I know what I'm doing for the next few chapters, but I could use some suggestions to make the passage of time go faster. It's not like they can warp to Sweden, ya know? Also, things will get better in a tad. Just give me time.**

**Disclaimer of Despondency: If I owned D.Gray-Man, it would be full of horrid spelling errors.** **Just like my fic.**

Forgiveness

Allen had found the paper in his pocket on the train, badly crumpled, but still readable. It was written on rice paper in a delicately masculine script, the care taken in just putting the letters on paper must have been astounding. But it wasn't the writing that shook him; it was knowing that someone was sly enough to get the paper in his pocket without his knowledge. Allen thought of himself as observant when it came to his person (if nothing else), so who could have put it there without him feeling it?

When he started reading it, how it got there did not seem important at all.

_Moyashi-kun,_ the letter began. Moyashi-_kun_? No one called him that. No one at all. Not Kanda, not Lavi, not even Komui. That wasn't helpful as to the writer's identity at all.

_It might seem odd for me to write you like this, but I do not see what else to do. You and I have not grown closer in your time at the Order and that disheartens me to an extent, though I would never say so aloud. What I mean to say, Moyashi, is that I care for you. I trust you. I want to spend time with you. I want you near me. I want nothing more than to _(and here Allen sank low in his seat, praying that the quiet Japanese man on the seat across from him would not look up from his paperwork) _wrap my arms around you and keep you safe. This knowledge is not something I have come completely to terms with, so please understand my reserve and my silence._

_Burn this after you read it. For my sake._

After that there was a simple signature composed of two kanji symbols and two katakana symbols, then two words in perfect, English cursive: _Kanda Yuu_.

The curses that went through Allen's head only served to block out whatever it was Kanda had chosen to say at that moment in time. What was he trying to do by talking anyway? Send Allen into a shock induced seizure? He was already hyperventilating. Already feeling somewhat light headed. He seriously did not need Kanda to act like nothing was going on to help him with his mental problem.

But forget Kanda for a second, how did Allen _feel_?

_He likes me. He seriously likes me._ His brain chanted over and over and over, not bothering to draw a solid conclusion about what that meant exactly. _Okay, so Kanda likes me. But HOW?_

"Moyashi," The topic of Allen's thoughts at last interrupted him, standing up as he spoke. Allen leapt out of surprise, the rice paper note was crushed in his fist when his head came into contact with the luggage rack. He stuffed it in his chest pocket while nursing his head, electing to just pretend he hadn't read it yet than deal with the consequences later.

"Huh, what?" He chimed with his best nothing-to-see-here-smile. Kanda glared at him with normal intensity, dark blue eyes seeming to scan him to his soul.

Kanda sighed to himself. Allen was seriously out of it to have missed two death threats and a suggestion that he just starve to death go unnoticed. "We've arrived. We should get off the train if you're going to eat anything for lunch."

That made Allen's already bright face brighter. The more Kanda looked at him the more joy Kanda saw in him, and the more he wanted to both smile and kick him. Kanda liked dark things, things that were quiet and methodical, not noisy, clumsy, obnoxious, vibrant, happy, enthusiastic, Allen-like things. Yet there was a contradiction there too, with Lavi being his best friend and all. But looking at Allen and comparing him to Lavi was like looking at a cloud and comparing it to a rainbow; they were both bright, but only the one offered a silver lining.

So he picked up both of their bags while Allen was smiling at him like an idiot, white hair falling over his sparkling eyes without him caring. Allen protested but Kanda was not going to listen. A love poem, a ridiculous smile, wandering thoughts – such things could not be ignored without causing problems for everyone.

"Shut up, Moyashi," He glanced back through his veil of dark hair, willing himself not to look soft. "You're too slow without me."

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Sable wiped the steam from her bathroom mirror with a shaking hand, silently cursing both Lavi and Lenalee for putting her up to this. She did not want to abuse her Innocence – that that it was abusing being she honestly wanted to make sure that Kanda and Allen were alright – and she was not used to this power yet. It had developed a few days after she had come to the order, while being curious about her brother Uri.

Simply put, she had seen him in the reflection of her mirror. He had been seated at a desk by a fire, writing one of his books, his gold hair hanging down so that it blocked his eyes from the light. She didn't need to see them to know that they were the same color as hers, deep green, and round and wide set. They were twins after all. His boney hand had scribbled at the page as if his life depended on it, his lips were pressed together with consentration.

The image had faded after a few moments and no sound had accompanied it. Just seeing him, though, had put a smile on her face for the rest of the day.

Gently she put a hand on either side of the mirror and let out her breath, trying not to look at the scraggly mess that was her hair. She'd taken a shower and dressed herself fast enough to keep the steam in tacked, because for some reason it seemed to make seeing easier.

_Kanda-san._ She thought commandingly. _Allen-chan._ She thought directly after. _Show me them._

She felt her Innocence respond from its place in her forehead, the scar that marked its presence let off a faint green light. The reflection before her faded into nothing as the scene came to light.

Kanda and Allen were sharing a table outside of a restaurant, the first looking bored, the other looking very enthralled with the menu. She was looking at them from across the street, like her eyes were the reflection of shop window that on one was looking at, someplace away from the afternoon light. The two of them were talking, but she couldn't hear them.

_Well,_ She thought with a sigh. _He hasn't killed him. Yet._

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"What?" Allen asked over the top of his menu, picking out his sixth item to order. Kanda was looking away from him; the line of his face was so serious it might have been laughable – it would have been if Allen had known the reason.

"I feel like we're being watched." Kanda answered, for once. Something about him was very uncharacteristic, or at least out of place. Since they had been on the train he had been his normal, quiet self, but he had carried Allen's suitcase and suggested they get lunch with the extra time they had before the boat departed. He had also sat at the table with Allen, instead of insisting that they separate and split the check. Even now he was directly answering Allen's questions, not treating him like some half-wit who couldn't tell a creepy sensation from a hungry gut.

Allen scanned the area, waiting for his akuma sensitive left eye to spring into action, but nothing happened.

"I don't see anything."

"I have no interest in what you see with that eye of yours."

"Of course you don't, it's not pretty or nice or pure."

Kanda glared at him from the corner of his eye, leaving his face toward the shop across the street. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Allen shrugged. "Nothing, just pointing out all of the things you find interest in have those qualities, unless it's destruction. I bet you even have flowers in your room at headquarters."

Kanda blanched. Flowers? No. Flower? Yes. He had a flower. But it wasn't something he kept around because it was pretty or nice or pure – it was his own curse that made him keep it. And if he found interest in things that were… flowery, did that explain his sudden fascination with the mellifluous young man in front of him?

_Since when have I been fascinated by him? Did that horrible poem really mean that much to me?_

"A lotus." He said honestly.

"What?"

"I have a lotus flower in my room at headquarters."

Allen blinked at him for a long moment, thinking that confession over. Kanda had spoken of his free-will, without insult. And Allen wasn't really mad at him. He felt… like he was sitting across from someone who he could have a civil conversation with. Until the letter floated through his mind. Then breathing (and therefore talking) became an issue. "Oh."

They sat in silence for their meal. Neither of them trusted his moth to speak.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Seriously? At the same table?!" Lavi looked like he was going to hug Sable right then, but he refrained for the moment. "It took me five years before Kanda would let me sit at a table with him!"

"Yeah, well, you didn't have someone write him a shitty poem." Sable pointed out, grinningly. The three conspirators were huddled in the darkest corner of the library, by a section of books no one usually ventured to. Not many Black Order members read children's books anymore. "Nor did you have _me_ there to help you."

"Oh Sable, you _are_, like Cupid!" Lenalee praised from her chair. They had a notebook on the table between the three of them which was covered in ideas for the next phase of the plan. "And I think Lavi's poem was spectacular!"

Lavi waved her off, rolling his eyes. "That was hardly even poetry at all, really. But the letter was a work of art!"

"We don't have tome to talk about that now, we have to get everything in order for the next stage." Sable said, picking up a writing utensil. "They will call at one of the two of you before they come back, at least."

"And when that happens…"

"We'll be ready."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Allen was sorely disappointed when he and Kanda were forced into a single cabin – not that many other passengers got even that. The room was dark, dank, damp, dreary, and dusty, just the kind of place Cross would have rented for him back in the days of their travels. There was a bunk bed, a single tree-legged table, a night stand with an oil lamp, and a very old looking chair, besides that the place was completely empty. Empty and very, very cold.

The wall by the bottom bunk was warped so that the outside air got in. Allen didn't notice, of course, until Kanda had taken the top already.

And Sable had warned him that it was going to be _cold_. Things would be better if he and Kanda weren't on awkward terms. And maybe, over time, he could talk him into switching off who got the cold spot.

"Kanda," Allen had called when the Japanese man was attempting to disappear quietly out the door.

"What?"

"I'm sorry for what I said yesterday." Maybe he could make points by being both apologetic _and_ honest.

"Che."

"No, really. You aren't narcissistic. I just… get angry sometimes, too, you know?" Allen was looking down at his hands with his feet hanging off the edge of the bed to floor, feeling like a very small child proclaiming that he had taken cookies from the cookie jar. And his heart was pounding. He felt oddly nervous like this; apologizing to the one man he never thought to apologize to. _I wonder if it was the letter,_ He thought absently. _Probably. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying anything if I thought that he hated me._

Kanda shifted on his feet for a moment, not sure what to do. He wanted to be an arrogant bastard and just walk out like he was better than the brat, but… there was that poem. And the Moyashi just looked so… _flowery_ when he was looking shy like that. He couldn't make himself.

"Baka Moyashi," He said it like a curse.

"It's Allen. Say it with me, Al-en."

"Damnit, Allen." Kanda spat, surprising himself and the boy whose name he'd called. "Why do you have to say things like that? I _know_ that I'm not narcissistic; I _know_ that you get angry, but what the hell does it matter? We work together without attacking each other most of the time, so what does it matter if I have flowers in my room? What do I care if you won't touch alcohol for the life of you?" He narrowed his eyes at Allen, damning the horrified look that took hold of that sweet face so suddenly. He had caused that horror. "We're still Exorcists regardless of any of it. So stop apologizing." He turned for the door again, and this time he was going to walk through it, growing guilt and sudden impulses be damned.

"Kanda." Allen's shaking voice though, was not something he had counted on. He stopped again.

"What?"

"I forgive you, too."

Kanda was surprised enough to face him. How had Allen gotten that his apology was accepted out of _that_? Sure, that was what Kanda had intended to say initially, but he had not actually managed it very well. He also had not managed to say that the Moyashi was indeed not that short and nothing like a bean, but he had meant to say that too – or part of him had. Instead he found himself staring in awe at the pair of silver eyes, marred by a crimson line, crowned with a white cloud of hair. He was staring and there was nothing he could do about it.

"And now you're staring at me."

"Che. Do you have any idea how I'm supposed to react?"

"No. Kanda-y?"

Allen watched Kanda flounder for words. Something was obviously bothering him, something he wasn't saying. _It's the note. I know it is. But why am I excited? It's not like I want him to hold me in his arms and protect me or anything…_

He had to come up with something. Kanda was not the kind to stand around and be wordless for more than a half second. "I'm taking a nap." Kanda declared, stepping forward as if that had been his intention all along. Not true. So very not true. But Allen had talked about looking at the see, and he could have time alone to think if Allen went out alone.

"I thought you wanted to go out and see the sea."

"The sea will be there tomorrow."

Allen shook his head and threw himself back on his bed. "True. It'll be there for a while, I guess. Until we get to Varberg." He didn't look up when he heard the floor boards squeaking nor did he glance when he heard the ruffling of fabric. "And then it will be there on the way back, too. Maybe we'll get tired of it after that much ocean..." He broke off to yawn.

Kanda lifted himself up to his bed without using the ladder – it was just easier that way. He had shed his coat so he could use it as a blanket, being ship blankets were of questionable cleanliness at best. "Moyashi," He said when Allen was not talking.

"Hm?" Allen was already drifting – he was more tired that Kanda, having to get up early and not being a morning person was tough work for him.

"No more talking."

"No. No more ta…" And that was it. An early morning, a big lunch, a small argument – that was all it took to put Allen Walker out like a light. His slow breathing echoed through the cabin almost silently, just loud enough to remind Kanda that he was not alone. And somehow, despite his desires, he fell asleep timing his breath to Allen's rhythm.

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**Yeah, I kind of wanted to go on…but I could not make myself. Sorry for the sudden, unpolished ending, but I'm a nooblet, don't hurt me!! I did not want to continue for fear of making some horrid persona mistakes that are threatening to take over my mind and eat it alive. Please, tell me what you think so far.**

**On a lighter note, YAY! Thanksgiving break! You know what that means? That means Niamh will have time to write GOOD chapters! Not, half-assed crap like this! Cheers**


	4. Sweden and Siblings

**Hallo! Just wanted to say thank you soooo much for reading and reviewing! It's so nice to hear what you think of what I write Oh, passage of time problem was solved, which you will see shortly :)**

**Now, on with Niamh's craptastic story!!**

**Disclaimer of Dysfunctionality: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did... I would publish 'dysfunctionality' as a word.**

Sweden

It was hard to tell what time it was with no windows in their cabin, but Kanda figured that he had slept through dinner by the darkness. But he had not been _that_ tired, or at least he had not thought that he was.

Nor had Allen. And his breathing was still as slow and calm as it had been when Kanda had drifted off. That was fine with him though, because he could go out and look at the cold North Sea, and think about the things that demanded thought, even if he did not really want to think about them.

Kanda was exceedingly careful not to disturb the younger Exorcist when he eased himself from his place atop the bed, then he was equally cautious not to step too heavily on the squeaking floorboards. He pulled on his greatcoat and buckled Mugen into place, then gave the room a final, cursory sweep of his eyes. Everything seemed to be in place, though Allen's booted feet were still hanging off of his bed, his jacket open, his nose and cheeks flushed pink for a reason Kanda could not name. He did not want to be curious about the cause. He was supposed to be indifferent to the Moyashi's condition unless it stood to hinder their work.

And yet…

He stepped closer, fully aware that if Allen opened his eyes, he would know that Kanda was staring at him again. With slow, uncertain fingers he barely brushed the skin of his forehead. It was like ice against his hand, a temperature that living flesh had no business being, and the feel of it sent a thrill of fear up his spine. The wall next to the bed seemed to be providing a constant stream of chilled air.

As much as he hated himself for it, Kanda Yuu was worried.

"Kanda?" Allen's voice was very soft, but his eyes did not open. Kanda yanked his hand back as if burned. Being caught _touching_ was a lot worse than being caught staring in his book, _lots worse_. The comparison was not even worth making.

"Go back to sleep, Moyashi."

"You're really warm." His eyes still did not open.

Kanda let out a small 'che' before he answered that. "Baka, you're just cold. Go get in the top bunk before you freeze to death."

Allen could not keep his eyes closed when Kanda said something like that. He opened them to find the older Exorcist sitting on the three legged stool, pulling on his boots without looking at him. The faint light that seeped from under the door painted his ebony hair with shades of silver and blue, reflected strangely gold from his averted sapphire eyes. Allen could not read the expression on those strong features, but he could hear the lack of hate in his voice.

"But that's your bed." He closed his eyes again just as Kanda looked at him. "Besides, I wouldn't want to make you sleep in the cold."

That wasn't a lie. Allen figured that Kanda would be even less fun than he already was if he was cold and sleepy.

Allen's voice was still tired, which struck Kanda as odd. If they had indeed missed dinner, Allen's stomach should have been on high alert, demanding sustenance _now_. Maybe the cold had slowed him down too much, but whatever the case, Kanda wanted him warm. And the Moyashi was just being childish by denying a warm place to sleep. It was all ridiculous.

Allen nearly had a small heart attack when Kanda swept down and picked him up like a child in his arms, one beneath his knees and the other supporting his shoulders. He was so taken aback by the action that he could not find his voice to protest when he was placed gently in Kanda's bed, which was perhaps the warmest, most comfortable place he had ever been. And the entire time he held him Kanda's face was an unreadable mask of stoic indifference, colder than the wind outside.

An icy hand caught Kanda's shoulder when he made to step down from the lower bunks frame. "Thanks," The soft voice intoned behind him, and the hand gave a little squeeze before slowly pulling away.

Without as much as a grunt of acknowledgement, he left.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sable-chan, it's been a week and three days, why haven't they called?" Lavi was having something of a chaotic fit in the library, holding the sides of his head and weeping comically. He had no patience for such things as this, none at all, and his periodic spasms of sadness only proved how little self control he possessed. "They could be dead. They could be lost at sea. They could have murdered each other! Waaaah!" He clutched at his heart, rivers of water running down his colorful face. "Oh, my Yuu-chan must not love me enough to call! And Moyashi-chan must have been thrown overboard by Yuu-chan in a moment of uncontrollable rage! Oh, the horror! The horror!" He continued to rave for a few more minutes until Lenalee managed to somehow calm him, crooning softly about a storm that could have kept them from landing and the wideness of the North Sea.

Sable, on the other hand, just twirled a quill through the end of her braid thoughtfully, her eyes distant. She was not too worried about the lack of contact, but it could become an issue if it lasted much longer. There were, of course, other ways of planting the seeds of love, but they required time, cooperation, corruption, and perhaps the presences of a certain other siblings of hers. Lloyd had always been the matchmaker of the three of them, not Sable; she was just following what she thought that he would do in this situation. Which was wait.

"Damn it," She said under her breath. She did not want to wait. She wanted to see them all lovey-dovey and cute _now_, or at least to know that they were being that way all the way across the world. After ten days together _something_ had to of happened and she wanted to know about it.

But maybe… if they were really careful… and Lenalee was _exceedingly _nice to Komui…

A sly smile crept across her mouth and set her eyes alight. Without looking, Lenalee knew that Sable had a plan.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Ten days. Ten whole days._ Allen looked down at his small bowl of watery stew and nearly cried. _I'm going to die if I don't get more food soon._

Since the night that he had accidentally skipped dinner he had come to learn how important meals were on their ship, the _Lady Eloquence_. Each morning they served salt pork and cheese, every afternoon was stew, and in the evenings they were fed some kind of flavorless white putty that was usually cold. It was all brought out in normal portions and there were never leftovers when he asked. It seemed to him that there was nothing eloquent about the situation.

He was convinced that he was starving to death.

He and Kanda sat across from each other, sipping their soup in silence. The dark haired man had not argued with him at all since that first night, and he turned in early every night, always taking the bottom bunk that was supposed to have been Allen's. Allen did not know what to do about it, so he whispered his thanks every night before he went to sleep, even if the other man didn't hear him.

Kanda watched as Allen drank his lunch thoughtfully, his left hand shook violently every time it brought the spoon to his mouth, but the younger man did not seem to notice. Kanda knew it was the lack of good nutrition doing it, there could be no other reason, but he did not see anything to do about it being death threats had not worked on the cook a few evenings before. The only option was to be very, very, very nice to the Moyashi and hope he did not notice.

"I'm going to walk the deck." He informed Allen, standing up. When the Moyashi's eyes met his he stealthily emptied the contents of his bowl into Allen's – which filled it nearly to brimming.

"Don't get lost."

"Che, only you would."

Allen watched Kanda leave coolly, forever giving off the aura of man who did not want to be approached, did not want to be talked to, and did not want to be stopped. It was not until he looked down at his food that he realized what had happened.

_Ten days,_ He thought again, a small smile playing at his lips. _And then he gave me his stew._

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The two of them left the less-than-well-named _Lady Eloquence_ the instant the option became available, the shorter of the two more than irked at his fellow Exorcist. Kanda had grabbed all of their things without even asking Allen if he minded – he just took charge, took their things, and tromped off the boat, completely ignoring the Finder that greeted them on the dock. Snow was falling around them, which was not a surprising being it was late November, but the snow was wet and heavy and it soaked their greatcoats like any heavy rain would, slowing their progress as they made for the inn that the Order had rented for them. Allen felt that he was going to collapse by the time they came to street it was supposed to be on.

"Master Kanda, Master Walker, there is a lot of information that I need to give you—" The poor Finder, who had introduced himself as Nathan, tromped along behind them, attempting to catch hold of Kanda without being cut in half by Mugen.

"Save it. We're staying here tonight." Kanda ordered without looking. Allen wished that he wouldn't walk so fast. He wished he would be nicer to Nathan also. It kind of felt like the old, angry, annoying Kanda was back now that they were on land.

Nathan kept talking regardless. "The three of us are to take a train from here, Verberg, to Goteborg tomorrow morning. We can go to Ange, which is where the Innocence is reportedly located, directly from there." Allen nodded at him, instructing him to continue. "As you have undoubtedly read in your reports, a number of trains have been derailed there, where the Nora Stambanan connects with the Mittbanan."

By the time the Finder had gotten that far with his story, Kanda had stopped _T e S ow Side Lo g._ Needless to say the building was rather run down, with parts of the sign missing. Indeed he had stared for a few minutes before he understood that this was indeed the Snow Side Lodge and they place that they would call home for the evening.

"So what will we be looking for, exactly?" Allen asked when they came through the squeaking front door and into a simple foyer. A large fire burned in a well kept hearth across from the receptionist's desk, a number of tiny candles lit the place from one end to the other, and not a single light bulb could be spotted. It did make sense though, in a country that experienced horrible storms so often, to use fire for the things that it could be used for instead of electricity.

"We don't know. The reports include anything from a ghost to a ghoul to a giant, train eating worm."

"At least we know where it is."

Kanda went to the desk while Nathan and Allen took up residence in front of the fireplace, he rang the bell twice before a young man answered.

"Sorry, sorry," He apologized as he came from a backroom, waving his thin hands apologetically. He was slightly taller than Kanda with dark hair and deep eyes, and an air about him that made him seem as if he had no problem with anything the world could hand him. Even as he apologized he grinned wholeheartedly, his features dancing with a childlike mischief that reminded Kanda of someone, though he could not say who. "Could I get you three something?"

Kanda nodded. "We should have reservations."

"Reservations?" The man looked shocked. "At _The Sow Side Log_? You must be mistaken. We haven't had reservations here since I was a wee little tot." That sounded odd come from someone who couldn't have been out of his twenties.

Allen blinked at that. "You mean, this isn't _The Snow Side Lodge_?"

The man laughed and the sound rang through the room. "No. That place burned down four days ago. Chimney fire. Travesty. It was a nice place. You're welcome to stay here if you want, though there's only the one room available." He flipped through the books on the desk until he came to a list of prices and vacancies. "Which is very cheap." He added when he found what he was looking for.

Allen looked to Kanda who looked to Allen who then looked to Nathan. Together, they shrugged.

"We'll take it." Allen said thankfully.

"But not yet," Kanda stopped the man from grabbing the room key. He jerked his head in Allen's direction, bringing the man's attention to how very sallow he looked. "He needs to eat fist, and preferably lots."

"Kanda, I…"

"Shut up, Moyashi. You're hungry and you know it." Kanda glared at him, almost daring him to say that he was fine, that he wasn't weak and in no shape to face an akuma. The pair of clear silver eyes that met his gaze was determined, but not stupid. If anything, the Moyashi was looking at him like he wanted to say something ridiculously friendly and warm.

The man at the desk smiled broadly. "Allow me to show you to the kitchen then. I'm afraid that you'll have to wait for me to cook for you though, my sister left a few months ago when she found work in England, so it's just me running the place. The name's Lloyd." He offered Kanda his hand.

"Kanda, and the _moyashi_ over there is Allen Walker."

"Nice to meet you, Kanda and Allen Walker." He said the names as if they went together, like a couple.

Allen gulped. "Ah… no… er… he's Kanda Yuu and I'm Allen Walker. We're not related." As Allen spoke Lloyd lead them away into a room toward the back of the building where a small and cozy kitchen awaited them. Lloyd offered them seats at the table – there were four chairs – before he made his way to the stove, forever grinning.

"Sorry about that, you two just have the look, you know?" The way Lloyd opened cabinets and studied them with his eyes was just like someone Kanda knew, someone he should have remembered. "You two act like you either love each other or want to beat each other's skulls in. Rather hard to say which."

Kanda pretended to be suddenly very interested in the lines of his palm. Allen became impressed with the splendid craftsmanship of the rafters.

_He's like… a male Sable!_ Kanda realized at last. They're faces were nothing alike, their voice dissimilar, but the calculating looks, the assuming remarks, the feeling that this man was looking at him like a creature under a microscope – it was all the same as it was with her. It seemed very strange though, that two people with the same observant air would exist in neighboring countries without knowledge of one another's existence.

"What shall I make you?"

"Soba."

"Always. I never drink."

"Tempura."

"I don't have any rice flour."

"Food?" Allen suggested.

"That, I can do!" Lloyd exclaimed. "Blodpudding, gravad lax, palt, polsa, lutfisk, inlad sill, falukorv, and kroppkakor should do it, right?" He began taking out potatoes, fish, herring – and all sorts of other things that Kanda had never eaten in all of his life and started to cook them without waiting for an answer. He had never seen anyone besides Jerry who was capable of cooking that much at once, and he was surprised even more by what he considered to be 'lots'. Most people thought that Allen's appetite was inhuman and had to be corrected when they made him a slightly bigger plate than normal.

It smelled wonderful. Allen was having trouble containing his excitement.

"Where did you learn to make all of this at once? Everything is perfect!" He was incredulous when Lloyd laid it out for them, wiping his hands on at flowery pink apron that had no doubt belonged to someone else a long time ago.

Lloyd grinned before taking up his own place at the table. "Once again, I have to blame my sister. She was a really big eater before she left, though I never really understood why." His eyes glazed over at happy memories much the way Komui did when he was thinking of something memorable that Lenalee had done. "She could just sit there and stuff her face with anything I cooked for her – never got fat either. Kind of wonder where she is now, she hasn't called in weeks." He sighed and glanced longingly at the phone in the corner of the kitchen. "But she was always forgetting about me anyways."

"Forgetting about you?" Kanda asked, poking a lump of something he could not even begin to pronounce. Potatoes and fish and turnips. Lloyd might as well have offered him dirt for dinner.

"Yeah, Sabe always liked Uri more."

"Sabe?" Kanda blink. There was just no way…

"Short of Sable."

Kanda almost fell off his chair. Siblings? They were brother and sister? How?

Allen was consumed by his food (or his food was so consumed by him) that he did not notice that something was amiss until Kanda wavered slightly in the chair next to him, his face blank with surprise. Mentally he rewound the conversation and played it for himself, listening to what had been said and actually managing to pay attention this time.

"Sable-chan is…Lloyd-san's…" He blinked for a minute. _No…but how many girls can there be named Sable?_

Allen opened his mouth to say something else, to ask if Lloyd's name was actually Lloyd Adair, but he never had the chance. The far wall exploded before his eye could even tell him that something was there.

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**All done! And now the interesting part starts, MWAHAHAHAHA!! Oh, I'm excited. Thank you all soooooo much for reading and reviewing! I know, you're most likely tired of hearing that, but I really do appreciate it! This next scene makes me feel so very evil…**

**Oh, kudos to whoever can tell me why I named the siblings Sable, Lloyd, and Uri. And yes, there **_**is**_** a reason :D**


	5. Accident

**Ah!! I meant to be done with this chapter hours ago, but then this horrible holiday came by and said "No. You must eat turkey with these people and be thankful. And you must not be antisocial." //cries womanishly\\ SO SAD! Ehem… it was yummy though. And I **_**did **_**get done.**

**Now, I would like to apologize ahead of time for my horrible Swedish. It has been eons since I've spoke it and even longer since I've written it. Sorry.**

**Disclaimer of Despair: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did, there would be long paragraphs of superfluous description in the middle of the manga. Because I lack self-control.**

Accident

The wall behind the stove exploded violently, splinters of wood sprayed into the room, snow and bullets riddled the tiled floor less than a moment later. A serpentine mechanical head craned through the new hole, turning its black eyes to the four figures that had until this point, occupied the table. With what might have been a smile the akuma opened its mouth, the gun therein turned to fire.

"Lloyd! Nathan! Run!" Allen called out over the sound of swirling wind and firing guns. He activated his Innocence and vaulted away from the table, his eye taking in the soul of the akuma before him.

Kanda did not bother waiting for Allen to shoot the demon – because Allen was slow and he could do it with his eyes closed and there was just no point in waiting for more danger to come and it wasn't like Allen was in any position to be putting stress on his arm and –

His sword passed through the creature's face like a hot knife through butter, but the sound of bullets was unceasing. Everywhere he turned there was another explosion, another crumbling wall; dust was quickly filling the small kitchen, blocking nearly every dark corner from his vision. Lloyd was gone and he couldn't see Allen. Nathan had vanished as well. What made matters worse was that he couldn't see a single akuma either.

"Moyashi! How many are there?" He called out over the sound of something falling over and breaking.

"Two here!" Lloyd's high baritone voice drifted to him from some distance away, in the direction of the foyer.

"Five total." There was loud explosion from his right and plums of smoke joined with the dusty chaos. Kanda was going to feel than useless if Allen kept it up. "Four!"

Allen dodged a rather slow attack and blasted away at his current pursuer's body, not stopping until he saw the drift of gold leave the akuma's body as the soul within was freed. Where this lot had come from and why there were here he could not even guess – but they were stupid, ones and twos, the kind that the Earl seemed to deem expendable, the kind that would not escape him when he was in good, fighting shape. But he wasn't in shape. After killing two of them he was nearly winded.

"Three!" Kanda's voice was in front of him, his form nothing more than a black silhouette against the clouds of white and gray that had consumed the inn, billows of smoke and clots of dust choked the air and made Allen's eyes water. He could not see the last two akuma.

Kanda was attacking something and shortly after another explosion shook the inn. So there was one left. _Where?_

Allen saw it coming, flying for Kanda faster than any akuma he had seen previously. It did not giggle or call out, or give itself away with a blast of its guns – it flew with great green wings outstretched, fangs barred, and talons reaching. The perfect silence it moved in was eerie like a dream; Allen felt as if time slowed to a crawl as he watched it go.

_No,_ He thought, his feet moving him of there own volition, _I have to stop it, I have to get there, I have to._ He did not have much energy left, his voice was nearly gone from the smoke, he could only get there and kill it before it caught Kanda from behind._ I can't let Kanda die._ His breathing increased with his speed until he though his lungs would burst from use, his heart thundered against in ribcage like a hammer on an anvil. As he leapt, he swung his arm over his head and to the side, hacking the demon into six parts when his fingers passed through it delicately. He smiled to himself; he had done what he had hoped to do. And yet, something was wrong.

Kanda had heard motion behind him, a pounding too fast to be the worn out Moyashi's feet. So he waited patently for the demon to come, then swung his sword precisely at the instant he felt the air move against his hairs of his neck, aiming to cut the thing in two and be done with it. It was a perfect stroke, but it missed its mark tragically. Mugen sliced with sickening ease through the fabric of Allen's jacket and into the flesh beneath, cleaving a wound that went from his right hip to his left shoulder, the spray of gore that splattered across his face was warm like fire, the deep red of lifeblood. A line of crimson danced across his vision before spinning away with his momentum. Allen let out a strangled scream when he slammed into the snow covered tile.

"Moyashi!" Kanda stumbled across the kitchen, sinking to his knees when he came to Allen's side. He couldn't have hit Allen. He hadn't wanted to hit Allen. Yet the pool of blood around him was expanding by the moment, his already pale skin fading to a transparent white. His eyes were wide but closing, his hands clutched around the inch deep gash in his torso. "Dammit, say something!" Kanda, commanded, unthinkingly pressing a hand against the blood soaked material that used to be part of Allen's shirt. There was so much blood. Too much blood. Kanda had to do _something_ to save him.

"It's… Allen…"

"Che," Kanda sighed with relief as he pulled himself closer to the boy and started wondering what to do next. "Keep talking, if you stop talking for an instant, I'll kill you." The table cloth. It lay on the floor beside them in shreds, made of a thick linen that would serve just find as a bandage until he found a doctor. Kanda picked it up and began ripping it into large strips.

"You said… that one has to… look out for himself."

"And?" He pulled open Allen's jacket and ripped his shirt the rest of the way, which exposed his skin fair skin to the stingingly chill air. With hurried fingers he snaked the first piece beneath his ribcage and around him so he could tie it close to the place he was pouring blood.

"Kinda going back… on your word, aren't you?" Allen's eyes were watching Kanda, watching him try to save his life. There was no mask now, no anger. Concern was his face, worry was his eyes, and guilt were the hands he used to bind him; such things seemed so obvious when looking through half-lidded eyes.

Kanda harrumphed at him. "No, you're the selfish, naïve, self-sacrificing type. You are incapable of looking out for yourself. Someone has to do it for you." He started the next bandage, this one slightly lower.

"What's your favorite color?"

"Blue."

"When were you born?"

"June sixth."

"What's your favorite food?"

"Soba."

"How long have you been with the Order?"

"Too long."

"What kind of books do you read in the library?"

"Historical ones. And a few about magic."

"Why are you answering my questions?"

"Because it keeps you talking."

"Why don't you smile at me?"

Kanda almost stopped what he was doing to glare, but thought better of it. He would have a very hard time explaining to Komui that Allen had died while he contemplated his lack of enthusiastic facial expressions. And then he'd have to explain to Lenalee. And then Lavi. And then Sable. And then Jerry. And, on top of it all, he'd never get a horrible love poem ever again.

"I don't smile at anyone, what makes you think I'd smile at you?"

"No one else seems to want… to see you smile." Allen let Kanda move his hand away from the place near his solar plexus so he could tie another bandage. He put it back when he was done. "And…if you smiled at Lavi… he might call out 'strike' or something. I don't think I would."

Despite the circumstances Kanda had to bite down a laugh. Maybe, just maybe, Allen was more observant than he thought if he could come up with an idea like that. Kanda was a little older than Lavi, and Lavi always did go for older women.

_Not that I am anything like a woman!_ His brain reminded him.

"Why wouldn't you?"

There was something in the tone of Kanda's voice that did not make it to his face, something oddly hopeful. Allen remembered that letter he had found in his pocket. How it had said so much and said so little. Could he have meant that he _wanted_ to be a strike?

"Because," He grimaced at a particularly tight knot. "I have self-control."

And, to his surprise and to Kanda's, the older Exorcist grinned at him. It was not the sort of womanish, angelic look that Allen had been expecting, it was soft and light, lopsided and smug, his thin eyebrows arched upward at the same angle as his mouth, his high cheek bones gave the look a masculine quality. And there, in his eyes, was a true sparkle of amusement. Those dark gems gleamed beautifully, bringing out the contrast between his hair and skin.

_Aw, he really is a strike… _Allen's thoughts were so simple and he was so accepting of them, he never even thought to try and not blush.

_He's blushing at me._ Kanda thought without losing his grin. _He should not be blushing at me. And like Hell I should be blushing back._

"Stop blushing, Moyashi, your body needs that blood."

"I said I have self-control; I'm not inhuman." Allen let his left hand be moved away from the place at his stomach while Kanda bandaged it. He found that he did not have the strength to move it back. "I don't think… that I'll be able to walk…to the hospital."

Kanda frowned at him. His eyes were closing slowly; his pallor had gone from bad to worse. He was more than half done now, and the strips of cloth at the top of his chest were functioning beautifully, but it could have been too much already. He would have to do two layers, just to be safe, before he even tried to move him. And he needed to be moved instantaneously.

"Baka," He gave his arm a little pinch that widened Allen's eyes. "I'll carry you."

Allen giggled a little. Why did he feel so warm inside? Why did he want to make Kanda smile like that again? Why did he suddenly not really care that Kanda had just called him a vegetable and an idiot? This was not Allen's normal, logical mind making him feel like this. _Blood loss_. He thought. _Blood loss and that letter._

"Nathan!" Kanda called out into the kitchen. He had finished with the first layer of bandages, but he had also run out of table cloth – the Finder would have real bandages in his pack that Kanda could use. He realized then that he had not bothered to look around the room after Allen had killed the last akuma, nor had he been the slightest bit concerned for Lloyd and Nathan until their presence became necessary to him. He observed that the flames the demons had produced had not caught anything on fire and the smoke was beginning to dissipate. Most of Lloyd's cooking was in heaps around what remained of the table.

Underneath one of the broken table legs was the yellow fabric of an empty Finder's uniform. Gray dust littered the tile around it.

"Che." Kanda nearly cursed.

"What?" Allen asked.

Kanda was glaring horribly again. "Stupid Finder got himself killed. I'll be back. And don't shut up while I'm away."

"You want me to talk still?"

"Yes," Kanda stood up and started walking away from him, glowering like normal. "Get to it, Moyashi."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"It's a phone call. One phone call. It's not like I'll be telling him anything important." Sable explained to a serious looking Komui. "He's my brother. You must understand that bond at least."

Komui adjusted his hat while he studied the young woman before him, trying to pretend like that last little part of her request wasn't tugging at his heartstrings. He did not know that Sable could look in a mirror and conjure her brother's image if she so desired. He did not know that Sable was talking about calling her less-favorite sibling. All he knew was that Lenalee had been holding a handkerchief to her eyes since about a half second into Sable's speech, and she was sniffing on occasion.

He almost wanted to cry himself, and not because Lenalee was crying (_no, no, that would just be ridiculous_). How was her poor, socially awkward brother supposed to run an inn on his own?

_Oh, he's so letting me._ Sable thought with an internal grin. _All she had to do was cry…_

The best he could do was pretending that he did not want to let her break the rules. "Sable-chan what you are asking if very close to something I cannot allow." He folded his hands in front of his face, looking at her thoughtfully. "But I will allow it, because he is your brother and the circumstances are extenuating. But please, be brief."

Sable almost hugged her superior, but managed to restrain herself when Lenalee did it for her.

"Thank you _so much_ Komui-san! I promise that I won't complain no matter where you send me next mission!" And Sable was gone, Lenalee zipping away behind her.

_Sometimes…_ Komui thought as he picked up his coffee cup. _I wonder what the two of them are planning…_

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Kanda had just finished with the good bandages when the phone in the front room took to ringing annoyingly. It wasn't the low, dignified pulse that he was used to either; it was a high, loud, happy ring that gnawed on his nerves.

"_God dag_?" It was Lloyd's voice – quiet and shaking – that sounded when the ringing stopped.

_That bastard!_ Kanda cursed, whirling to face the doorway. _He's been alive this entire time, just staying in the front room while Allen bleeds to death? That coward!_

"Sable! _Syster! Hur Jag har missat du. Nej, allting är böter. Jag rättvis fik två gästerna i idag, ändå de auktoriserat inte förstöra köken. Allvarligt_?" Lloyd wasn't talking hurriedly either, just having a conversation with whoever the Hell was on the other end of the line. Not that Kanda cared. All he cared about was that he had been hiding out when Kanda could have used him. "_Brunn den där er enkel, tid och oavsiktlig möte vilja göra den hända. Verkligen? Det var då märklig. Två mannen kom här och slåss något demonen inne om kök. Jag tro på deras namnen var Kanda och Allen. Den där er häpnadsväckande! Ja Rätt bort._" And if kept it up, Kanda was going to kill him.

"Kanda! It's for you!" Lloyd yelled. "And is it safe for me to go into the kitchen yet?"

Kanda furrowed his brow. For him? But how? He came out of the kitchen to find Lloyd half under his desk and have next to it, the phone in his hand. "Go find out where the nearest doctor is then watch Allen until I come for you." Lloyd did not understand what was going on exactly, but he nodded anyways, disappeared out of the inn without his coat. Kanda gently took the phone in his hand then put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Oh my sweet Jesus it _is_ you!" Sable's voice erupted from the phone. "Lloyd told me that you guys killed some demons and annihilated the kitchen – anything else going on that we should know about? I mean seriously, Lavi is about ready to pronounce you dead being you haven't called in so long."

_Sable speaks Swedish?_ Kanda shook his head – that wasn't what was important here. "There were rough seas and we were delayed. Allen is wounded."

"Oh? Did you beat his skull in like I told you?"

"I sliced him with Mugen."

"Ouch. On purpose?"

"He…was in the way."

Sable noted the reluctance in his voice. "He's not going to die, is he?"

Kanda glared at the circular dial on the phone for her even suggesting it. "I will not allow him."

"I'll have Komui send someone. You two stay put for now – don't worry about the Innocence."

"We're _here_ for the Innoc—"

"You're _there_ for the reason the Order tells you that you are there. I can put Konui on, if you really want him to command you to stay by Allen's side."

Kanda seethed silently, half angry at her and Komui, but still half grateful. Even now, after the ten days they had spent together, after more glares than he cared to count and a grin he would rather not admit, after nearly dying himself and attempting to save the life of that damn Moyashi, he didn't want to leave him. He wanted nothing more in the world than to stay there and be… protective. He wanted Allen safe. Capable of producing more laughable poetry.

"That will not be necessary." He said at last.

Sable grinned on the other end of the line. "Good." The line went dead.

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**Oh, so looooooong! This was the never ending chapter because I am a description whore. I'm sorry. I just…can't hold it in sometimes. Please don't be too angry…**

**And, to answer my previous question… Uri means 'light', Sable means 'dark', and Lloyd means 'gray'. Maybe you should keep that in mind for later… :D**

**I love reviews like I love cookies. Maybe even more being they don't make me fat )**


	6. Thankfulness

**Heya again, Niamh here. I thought it would be nice of me to update again, being tomorrow is hang out with friends day and most likely won't be able to post anything until Monday. Someone asked me how I post so often and the answer is simple: if I don't write, I go crazy, I'm just writing on a fanfic or a change :D**

**I apologize for Lavi's odd behavior. And for Kanda's seemingly erratic thoughts.**

**Disclaimer of Discalimingness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Allen would be tall and Kanda would be short.**

Thankfulness

"Sable-chan, you're going to get all of us in trouble," Lavi whispered sheepishly when she hung up the phone. He was looking seriously frightened from behind Lenalee's shoulder. Every bit of color had drained from his face.

Sable waved her hand at him in dismissal. "Oh please, you know I did the right thing. We can just tell Komui that Kanda's staying to be sure Allen is alright and then he'll send someone out there. Besides, he wouldn't punish me if he knew I was ending the violence between those two." She grinned and flipper her braid over her shoulder so that it bounced behind her. When she smiled like that Lavi could almost think she was innocent.

"But Sable-chan, what if something happens to that Innocence?" Lenalee interjected. "Kanda will never forgive himself."

"Haven't you ever done _anything_ risky, _ever_? These two are your friends! You should worry about them a little more. Let someone else save the world for a change."

"But it's the world, Sable-chan. Friends are important, but if we can't save them both—"

"Ugh, fine. I'll see if I can find it in the mirror. Keep an eye on it until someone else can go get it. Will that work?" Sable actually looked annoyed with Lenalee, which was scary. But what was worse was the look Lenalee was giving her – like she had stepped on a puppy, or killed a kitten, or smashed her favorite doll.

"For now." Lenalee frowned at her. "But if anything happens to it, it'll be your fault."

Sable did not let that bring her down. "Then we have a deal."

"AND!" Lavi took Sable by the shoulders and shook her. "How is Yuu-chan!? After all of this I didn't even get to talk to him! Our plan is ruined! Our hope is lost! He's just going to start being meaner to Moyashi-chan and then they'll come back even worse than before! Who's hurt!? Is Moyashi-chan hurt?! Yuu threw him off of the boat like I said he would, didn't he? Oh, the sorrow! What if he dies?! Wahhhh…"

It was only the connection of a clipboard to the back of his head that made him stop.

"I'm sure that the plan is _not_ ruined." Lenalee corrected, trying to make him stop sobbing their notes. "We just have to go through with everything when they call us."

"Exactly." Sable smiled. "Glad to see that everything is falling into place… sorta."

Lavi picked himself up and looked at his fellow conspirators, an idea flashing through his mind.

"You know we could—"

"No, we stick to the plan."

"Come on, don't be a Yuu, let me talk."

"Che."

"Did Sable just 'che'?"

"That's scary…"

"Okay… so here's my idea…" Lavi leaned in close, explaining everything in infinitesimal detail. When he as through, there was just no denying it. His plan was perfect. Their victims did not even stand a chance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

When Kanda hung up the phone he came to realize that his hand was sticky. Allen's blood was all over him; on his hands, his jacket, his face, in his hair. It was disconcerting in the silence of the foyer.

_The… silence?_

His heavy boots crunched over broken pieces of wood and crisp lumps of snow, more of the weather was swirling in the missing wall while the holes in the others served only to let in the wind. His mind was no focused on that. His mind was focused on the silence that hung over the room like a wet blanket, suffocating his hope.

"Moyashi! I told you not to shut up!" He bellowed upon seeing Allen lying there, eyes unfocused, lips gently parted. He might have looked the part of a sleeping angel with his halo of white hair shining in the fading light.

Kanda's voice shook away the sleepiness that had clouded his mind and brought back the feeling that he was cold. "Sorry Kanda," His voice sounded very far away from him, almost like he wasn't speaking at all. "I'm tired."

"Che," Kanda knelt beside him again, resting a hand on his forehead. He had no qualms about touching the cursed boy now. "It never stopped you before."

"C-cold."

"I noticed." Kanda starting picking at the buttons of his greatcoat, fully aware how ironic it might have seemed. On their first mission together, Allen had pillowed Kanda's head on his coat, giving him comfort while recovering from his wounds – and Kanda had yelled at him for it. Exorcist's jackets were not for comfort. They were for protection. In this case he had convinced himself that his jacket was going to protect Allen from the freezing air, not make him feel better.

With shaking hands he placed it across the small boy's shoulders. The wind bit into his shoulders, caressed his neck with icy fingers, tensed his muscles. It was not warm enough for either of them here but was unsure if movement would be safe.

The front door opened and closed again. "Kanda? Allen?" It was Lloyd. And, God willing, he would have a doctor with him.

"In the kitchen," Kanda called.

The tall man came in the kitchen door shivering, he had gone without his coat after all, and a bedraggled look on his face. His dark hair sparkled with little gems of melting snow; he wrung his hands to warm them, worry creased his eyes.

God was not willing.

"The only doctor in town is stuck up at the Kask mansion until the storm clears. The nearest hospital is about six miles from here, but I don't think he want to walk him that far."

Kanda cursed like a sailor. Allen had never heard Kanda curse like that before, but he had never seen him grin before either – maybe he just saved such things for the days when people died. Whatever the case Allen kind of like it. Emotionally distraught Kanda seemed like more fun than uncaring, indifferent-to-human-life-and-feelings Kanda.

"How long?"

"If this is the worst it gets…" Lloyd gave a little shrug. "Tomorrow, maybe the day after."

"Che." That was just great. What was he supposed to do with Allen until he knew what he could do with Allen?

"If… you don't mind…" Lloyd volunteered. Kanda's face was looking like something out of a nightmare, almost like he was fighting lost hope and anger at the as time. Sable had said that he was usually emotionless, unless he was ripping someone's head off, but he wasn't being that way. Maybe Sable's little plan had done more than she thought. "Could you tell me what happened? I'm no surgeon but I worked as a medic once—"

He was interrupted when Kanda started regurgitating the story. There were no unneeded details, no long pauses for thought. He just said it how it was while Lloyd nodded.

And then Lloyd stopped to think about it. A deep flesh wound, it seemed, something that would undoubtedly kill if left untreated, but could be made less serious through pressure, warmth, and – when the bleeding had stopped – cleaning. If Allen was still breathing after the ten or so minutes it had taken for him to fine where Dr. Johnsen had gone he would more than likely survive the night. And perhaps the next day, given proper care. There was still hope.

"It should be safe for you to take him upstairs to the room you're renting, if you're careful. I'll do what I can to board up these holes. He needs water and heat mostly, so start a fire when you get up there. Preferably in the fireplace."

Kanda che'd at him. Where the Hell else was he supposed to build a fire? The bed?

"Should he sleep?"

Lloyd shrugged. "Might be the best thing for him." He went back into the main room and got Kanda the key.

"You're…talking about me…like I'm not here…" Allen complained from the floor. Kanda did not specifically care if Allen did not like being ignored, he was just thankful to hear his voice. But when had that happened? He could only venture guesses that were most likely untrue. He could blame the poem. He could blame the fact that this was his doing. He could blame any number of things but no one of them seemed to fit. Maybe, somewhere inside, he had always cared for Allen and his voice.

_No, I don't care. I just don't want to see another Exorcist die. That's all._

His thoughts would not allow him to keep that in mind when he lifted the boy into his arms so that his head rested against Kanda's chest. His thoughts wanted to think about what he had done and how it could have been avoided. He did not. He wanted to hate the feeling of someone's cheek against him, despise the sweet scent that filled his nostrils – all while his mind wanted to cling to these things and never let them go. What was wrong with him?

Allen was thankful for the coat across him and the tender arms around him, content to enjoy the salty smell that came from Kanda. Like flowers and sea water, and something woody. It made him tired. So tired.

Then Kanda started walking back toward the foyer and each step was like a dagger jabbed into his chest. Kanda felt the muscles of Allen's back tense against his arm and moved slower, sliding his feet like a dancer in an attempt to keep them both at still as possible. There were no more problems until they came to staircase, which made him stop.

"Wha—" Allen began to ask what had stopped – being he had given up holding his eyes open.

"Quiet, Moyashi, I'm thinking."

_What is with him!?_ Allen's brain demanded. _'Talk Moyashi,' then 'quiet, Moyashi,' less than ten minutes later! Ooh, that's annoying…and…so. Very. Kanda…_

With slow deliberate paces Kanda took to the stairs, each step taking nearly a full second to ascend. The stairs were old and creaky, but located across the inn from the destroyed kitchen walls, so their safety was more or less guaranteed. The once fluffy red rug that covered them only made the going slower; he let out a shuttering sigh when they at last came to the second floor. There were three rooms, each numbered, and a small area that might have at one time served as a den. The den area was located directly over the kitchen and their room was the one closest to the stairs.

Allen heard a key turn in a lock but he could not imagine how Kanda managed such an act without dropping him.

The room was dark, cold, not much larger than their cabin had been back on the ship – but with a fireplace, woodpile, upholstered chair, bed, and window. The wood floor groaned as he crossed to the bed, the wind hollowed lowly in passing, a log shifted in the pile. Kanda breathed in the still air and fought the urge to glance over his shoulder, knowing nothing was there.

"Th-thanks Kan—"

"Che, remember what I said about apologizing?"

"Uh…yeah…"

"That goes for thanking as well." Kanda placed him lightly on the bed before turning to the empty fireplace, sure to divert his eyes away from Allen.

Allen smiled into the shadows. "You're welcome."

Oh how Kanda hated that. Yes, he had meant to thank Allen for stopping the akuma, but he _hadn't_. What gave Allen the ability to welcome him? And why couldn't he just say what he meant? He picked up a number of wood scraps and began constructing what he hoped would be a fitting fire – he was unaware that he was gathering enough wood for twelve.

Allen watched through nearly closed eyelids as the older Exorcist put log on top of twig on top of kindling, hard face pulled into a gloomy scowl. Allen had seen him grin though, really grin, and just the memory of it made him feel better than any flame ever could. The scowl couldn't fool him; Kanda was secretly a happy-go-luck person. He just didn't know it.

The fire cast long shadows across the room when it was lit; the light gave the green curtains a yellow glow and illuminated the ice on the windowsill like diamonds. The musty air became instantly livelier. Allen's eyes followed Kanda from the door to the window to the bathroom, and they did not falter when the Japanese man removed his bloodied shirt and he took to scrubbing his face in the mirror.

_He's watching me,_ Kanda thought as he let down his hair to wash the grimy sections in the sink. _Why is he watching me?_

"Gees Kanda, you could close the door."

"And you can close your damn eyes, Moyashi."

Allen didn't answer and the feeling that Kanda was being watched did not abate. He glared into the mirror and his reflection glared back at him, just as cold as ever. That was good. He didn't show what he was thinking at all. He still looked like he didn't give a damn.

Kanda came back into their room with a dark look; his aura of hatred had grown worse if anything, but Allen stiff remembered that grin. His hands were just gentle enough to get the blankets from under Allen without hurting him, nothing more. He clamored onto the mattress without even trying to be nice about it, threw himself to the far side of the bed without regard for bouncing. He pulled the blankets over them both.

"Ka-Kanda, what are you dong?!" Allen's was incredulous, his voice a half octave higher than it had ever been. A rosy blush blossomed across his pale skin and his once tired eyes found the strength to look surprised.

"Che, you'll freeze to death without me." Kanda said logically, snaking his arm over Allen's shoulders and pulling himself closer. "Body heat."

"Heh…heh, heh, heh," Allen thought his face was going to explode. "Are… you sure?"

Kanda sighed and closed his eyes, somehow managing to sound scolding. "Go to sleep, Moyashi."

_Like I can! _Allen thought. But he was tired. So warm. So comfortable. So very tired. He wasn't sure which mattered more, how sleepy he was or how content he felt. In the end it did not matter which was more important because, slowly, the sound of Kanda's breathing lulled him to sleep. He never saw radiant smile dancing on the Japanese man's lips.

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**A little shorter than the other chapters (about 500 words) but this is where it wanted to end. I'll do what I can when I can, but I doubt anything will be up tomorrow or the day after. But you can still review, even if I'm not posting as quickly!!!**

**And PLEASE tell me what you think! I don't wanna make Kanda look like a girly-man or anything like that…but I might if you don't give me warning. :D**


	7. Something Awful

**I had a horrible time naming this chapter just because there's so much that could be in the title. If you can think of a better one, I'll change it when I do my next update. :D**

**TYVM for R&R! Also, I apologize for Komui's behavior. And for Lavi's. Yeah… you'll see what I mean…**

**Disclaimer of Dread: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…Lenalee would wear pants, damn it.**

Something Awful

Komui had been sleeping on his desk when Lenalee's scream ripped him from a rather exciting dream. The substance was lost the moment his eyes found his sister standing in the middle of his office, feigning disaster, clipboard in hand.

"Sorry Nii-san, you're a really heavy sleeper." She smiled sweetly.

He harrumphed at her before setting his glasses at the right angle on his face and rearranging his hat, trying to look casual. "Ehem. Was there something you needed?"

She grinned. "Sable's brother, the one from Sweden, happened to be housing Kanda and Allen when she called. Allen's hurt and Kanda's staying with him until he's better. Sable and Lavi want to go get the Innocence that's still there and help get Allen back safely."

Komui stared at her for a long moment while he thought about her words, slowly allowing them to sink in. Sable's brother was housing Exorcists? Allen was hurt? Kanda, _the Kanda_, was staying with him until he recovered? Sable, _the laziest Exorcist alive_, was volunteering to go somewhere? Lenalee wasn't demanding to go find out about Allen herself? He saw layers upon layers of possible plotting, but he wasn't one to argue about it.

He nodded.

"Thanks, Nii-san!" Lenalee smiled at him.

"Lenalee," He called her back when she turned for the door.

"Hm?" She gave the little smile that she always had when she was younger, the one that warned of mischief.

Komui pushed himself back in his chair and glanced at the clock, 11:30 PM. It was well beyond normal office hours.

"I don't know what's going on here with you and Sable, but I would like to know one thing."

Lenalee was not one to fake ignorance when her brother was talking in that serious tone. "Alright. What?"

His eyes took on the glossiness of tears and his bottom lip quivered suddenly. "It doesn't have to do with marrying off my darling nee-chan does it?!?!" In a matter of milliseconds his arms were draped around her, his sobs shaking her as he cried into her hair.

Her head fell forward so that her bangs cast her eyes in shadow. "No."

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Allen opened his eyes slowly, frigid morning air disturbing him more than the dull ache in his torso. But what was that ache from again? Oh yes, Mugen. And whose muscled arm was it draped across him, protecting him from the morning chill?

Kanda's.

Memories came rushing back to him in a wave, memories and thoughts and actions that he had nearly forgotten in his wounded state. With agonizing slowness his eyes followed the pale limb that hung over him, followed it two a strong shoulder, to a lithe neck, and to the smooth, calm face of Kanda Yuu. His deep eyes were closed gently, his lips gently parted, a swath of ebony hair lay gently over his chest, which was fully exposed to the dim light. He might have been some great artists painting come to life.

Allen just could not stop staring.

_Look away! Look. Away._

_But I don't want to._

He recalled who Kanda had grinned the day before. How he had insisted that they share the bed for body heat. The words of his letter echoed over and over in Allen's mind, repeated in his own mental version of Kanda's voice: '_I care for you. I trust you. I want to spend time with you. I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around you and keep you safe.'_ Those things – the things that Kanda wanted – almost seemed alright with Allen as well.

Those beautiful eyes opened.

"Good morning," Allen attempted to pretend that he had just woken up and glanced over at Kanda. It was a lie. A horrible lie. He had to have been staring for a good three minutes before he even started thinking about the letter.

"Che, hardly." Kanda glared. He pulled the fallen blankets over his chest and arm, thus covering Allen to his chin as well.

Allen frowned. "What? You aren't getting up yet?" Kanda's hand came forward and took hold of the coat that still rested on Allen's chest and began to tug on it.

"I am, but _this_ is coming with me. Too cold to just get up," He kept pulling, gently, until his clothing had snaked away from Allen – who looked sad. Kanda gave him the look that he always did when he was thinking of him as an idiot.

When Kanda had retrieved his garment and scampered off of the mattress he donned it, watching Allen watch him from the corner of his eye. The younger Exorcist was becoming more and more obvious by the day with those eyes of his, Kanda only wished he knew what exactly he was looking at. It was beyond hope to him that the stupid Moyashi might actually have noticed his warmth, seeing through his mask. But what mask? Hadn't Kanda already talked himself into believing that he just didn't want to see another Exorcist die?

A low rumbling sound shook the room suddenly, sending Kanda into high alert.

Allen laughed lightly, dragging Kanda's eyes back to him. "I'm hungry," He informed with a blush.

"You're hungry a lot for being such a damn moyashi, Moyashi."

"My name is Allen. All-en Walk-er. Really not that hard to say it if you try."

"Che. You're too late now, you're just Moyashi."

"Too late?"

"You didn't correct me soon enough."

"Well, if you keep calling me that I'll start call you something awful. Like…Lemminkäinen."

"What the hell do lemons and canes have to do with me? Or with each other?"

"No, Lemminkäinen…. Never mind."

Kanda sighed at him, looking annoyed. "You seem far too healthy this morning." He frowned on top of his usual scowl as he threw another log on the nearly dead fire. The storm outside did not look like it had weakened in the least, nor did the air feel even a fraction warmer than it had the night before. "How does it feel?"

The younger Exorcist's brow furrowed in thought. "It hurts a little," He pulled his arms out from under the covers and waved them enthusiastically. "But I can move again!" He smiled one of those ridiculously warm smiles that made his eyes into slits, made his cheeks glow.

But Kanda was frowning at him. Seriously glowering at his happiness. With no warning at all the swordsman took hold of the covers and threw them back, exposing Allen's bandaged chest to him. Allen did not stop him when he took hold of his wounds dressing and ripped it aside forcefully. He did however, grab the hand that made to touch his flesh.

He did not need to ask in order to know what was wrong. What had been a grievous gash the previous day was not more than a line of growing scab, the skin had knit itself together perfectly, there was nothing left that would not be gone in a few more days of normal resting. It might not have even leave a scar. Kanda and Allen just looked at it, the first afraid, the other perplexed. How could someone who had no special gifts at mending miraculously make that sort of recovery?

There was only one possible answer that Kanda could see, and the repercussions were impossible for him to comprehend.

His face became pale as emotions ran rampant across his normally controlled visage. Fear, anger, sadness, confusion – they were all there in little bits and pieces, fighting for dominance.

_How could this…how could I…when did I…_

_But I don't. Never have never will_

_Never. Never. Never. Never._

_Zenzen._

_Yet…_

_But… if I do… is this the delay…before…before…?_

"Kanda?" Allen was filled with fear when his fellow Exorcist collapsed onto the floor, his right hand clutched over his heart. His loose hair came forward to cover his face like a shroud, sticking to sweat on his forehead; his eyes were wide with shock. What was happening to him? Kanda had always been the strong, quiet, amazingly pain tolerant Exorcist, he didn't just fall down out of the blue like Miranda. "What's wrong? Kanda!"

He had his back against the wall. His breath was coming in ragged gasps. _Yuu, it does not hurt this much. You do not care that much. If you did, this would have happened when you were awake, not while you were asleep._ Even as he thought to words the mark above his heart gave a spasm, provoking a groan from his throat. _But it's never been this bad before…_

"Kanda, tell me what's wrong." There were hands on his shoulders, hands that should have stayed in the warm bed to get better.

"No."

"Kanda, I can't help unless you tell me."

"Che, it just happens sometimes."

"What is it?"

Kanda smirked at him through the veil of his hair. "You're the last person who should ask that question."

Kanda was _not_ going to tell him. How would that make him look if he told the truth? _I'm cursed like you are, that whole 'I don't touch cursed people thing' was a big lie to make you leave me alone. Oh, and my curse just healed your wounds at the cost of me feeling them. Yeah, not supposed to happen. Not supposed to happen unless… I…I…_

_Which I do not!_

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Che, nothing Moyashi," He pushed Allen's hands away and stood, leaning heavily on the wall for support. Allen looked up at him from his place on the floor, worry creasing his eyes.

"Kanda, please, if there's anything I can do—"

"There's not, Moyashi." Kanda snapped. There was, but he was _not_ going to say it. The curse over his heart allowed him to heal quickly, made him immune to the virus that akuma carried, and he could cure another's wounds the same as it usually cured his, but that last gift had some very detailed requirements. The first of which was that he had to care. Which he did, though he was trying to talk himself out of it. Secondly he had to _like_ the person. Which he _so did not_. And lastly, and perhaps most horribly, he had to be _willing_ to endure what the other person was going through. Which was ridiculous, being he found pleasure in that damned Moyashi's suffering like he found pleasure in… in… something pleasurable.

And, assuming that he really _did_ feel that way for Allen, Allen could give him the one way to escape the pain. He would feel nothing if the person was willing to endure the pain for him, and met all of the other requirements. Which he was sure Allen would not. What reason would he have to? It wasn't as if Kanda had ever given him reason to do anything but dislike him mightily.

"Leave me alone." He insisted. _You don't need to know._

The silver eyes that blinked up at him shone like stars, the hands that took hold of his were as gentle as a breath of wind against his skin.

The pain stopped.

"Tell me, Kanda."

The hand in Allen's shook slightly, the dark eyes that stared down at him were so intense he almost felt as if they were looking through him. He had never noticed before, but Kanda really did have something about him that needed protecting, maybe even more so than Allen did. The only difference was that he needed to be defended from himself. And Allen wanted nothing more than to do that for him. He wanted to stop whatever it was that was causing him pain, take it on himself if need be. He cared, and he was glad to. He liked Kanda, and he would have gleefully admitted it. He freely offered whatever he could give to make Kanda content.

Kanda did not move when Allen stood up and leaned into him, pressing him into the wall. He was more frightened than he had ever been in his life, terrified that this young man who he cared for would let him go – yet equally afraid that he would hold on. He did not know what to do when Allen's arms wrapped around him and pulled him down into an embrace.

"You can tell me anything Kanda," He said softly into his ear. "Anything."

Slowly the Japanese man's shoulder relaxed. What would Allen do if he told him? What would _he_ do if he told him? The Moyashi _had_ written that poem, after all, and taken away the pain with nothing but a touch. And blushed at him. And so many other things. Didn't any of that mean he could say _something_?

"It's nothing, Moyashi." He stood up straighter, pushing the shorter Exorcist away gently. "Nothing important."

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Sable's head rested on the side of the railing, enjoying the feeling of the cool air and wood on her searing face. She'd thrown up four times and they'd only been on the boat for that many hours. She vaguely wondered if she were going for a world record.

"I can ask the cook if he has any ginger if you want, Sable-chan. It's supposed to help sea sickness."

"Hate. Ginger."

"But it will make you feel better, Sable-chan!"

"Don't. Care."

"You're going to die if you don't stop soon." Lavi leaned over slightly so that he could look into her green face. He'd been bugging her like this since she'd started, not once leaving her in peace so she could have a conversation with her insides. She almost wanted to kick him. "Wouldn't that be a horrible way for a parasitic type to go? Starved to death because she couldn't take a little ginger? I can just imagine. If you want, I can explain the details to you – I've read about starvation – though I doubt they'd help with your problem."

She just groaned.

"Just have some ginger. And then, when you feel better, we can have the cook prepare you a special feast of all your favorite—"

She retched again, spilling yet more half digested food into the sea. "Talking. Food. Bad." She stated flatly, her voice hoarse. Why hadn't she let Lenalee come? Oh yes, Lloyd was her brother and she had wanted to see him. Yeah, like she really wanted to if it meant a week of stomach trouble and vomit.

Lavi nodded as if understanding. "I'll go get the ginger."

"T-anks." She tried to grimace at him before having to lean over the side once again. The cool air would have felt wonderful if not for the leaning.

Not too far away, unseen and unfelt, a pair of dazzling green eyes watched Lavi go from the shadows beneath the sail, studied the young blonde woman as she gagged yet again. Gradually, a lipless smile spread across the face that held those sparkling eyes, distorting its human-like features into something crueler.

_At last,_ The watcher thought, running a hand through its hair. _A family reunion._

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**And there you have it, the end of yet another crazy chapter. Did you get your hopes up only to have them crushed? Where you content? Is it still cute? Don't you just love Kanda in denial? I'll never know the answers if you don't review…**

**On a different note, I just wanted to say OMG I LOVE ALL OF YOU WHO KEEP READING AND TELLING ME TO KEEP GOING! It's because of you that I think up new ideas almost on an everyday basis! Hearts and cookies all around!**


	8. Moyashi kun

**Oh no!! Niamh is updating because she could not stop herself from writing for more than 12 hours!! And now she's talking about herself in third person? What's wrong here?!?!**

**Well, to tell you the truth I got done with most of the crazy crap that was supposed to slow me down. So I had time to write, work, clean, go out, and respond to reviews! YAY! It's so early; I might even have time to start the next chapter before I conk out!**

**Disclaimer of Delinquency: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the Lotus curse situation would have been explained hella days ago.**

**WARNING: There is some exceedingly mild shonen-ai (boy-on-boy action) in this chappy, so don't go psycho when you read it… unless it's fangirl psycho. That's ok.**

Allen watched as Kanda left the room silently, a look of deep thought on his face. Had he just hugged Kanda and survived? Was there seriously lightning running up and down his limbs uncontrollably? And was his heart on overdrive for some reason, or had it always been that fast?

When he had held Kanda so close he had felt…different. It was like the world had stopped moving for that one instant, stood still for the two them. His lips burned oddly at the memory.

_Why doesn't it bother me?_ He thought, still looking at the door as he changed his clothes. _I want him. I want to be with him. I…_ but the last word would not come. He sank down on the bed and took the ruined pieces of his coat in his hands, studied the perfect slash that had severed the Exorcist's star in two. His voice shook when he spoke, sounding small and weak against the crackle of the fire. "Do I?"

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Lloyd watched the Japanese Exorcist come down the stairs with an odd look on his face, almost like he wasn't seeing anything around him – and he didn't care if Lloyd talked to him. It was very strange. The man had exuded friendliness like a skunk exuded perfume, so his change in demeanor was completely obvious.

"Ah, morning Kanda! I made lots of food, if Allen feels up to eating." Lloyd's enthusiastic voice evoked a glare from him, a glare that he did not mean.

"Che, take it up to him. I'm going out."

Lloyd's heart sank. Out? Had something happened between the two of them? "But I can't possibly carry all of this up there myself! And you're most likely hungry too."

He had a point there. Kanda hadn't eaten more than a bite of dinner the night before. Maybe he could find a way to deal with his thoughts _and_ that Moyashi at the same time.

"Fine." He sighed the word then moved to lift one of the trays that lie before the hearth, keeping warm in the flame. "How did you cook all of this with the stove gone anyway?" When he had the first tray balanced he took another in his left hand. The balancing act was done very, very carefully.

Lloyd smiled. "Cold, open faced sandwiches don't really require the use of a stove."

Kanda glowered at him as they turned back to the stairs. He had been looking forward to a nice, long, cold walk in the snow to clear his head. That's what he needed. Time alone. Obviously something was wrong with his curse to have it heal someone he did _not_ want to sacrifice himself for, and he needed to think about what it could be. There was also a single thought lingering in the very back of his mind that annoyed him like a bug under his skin, eating away at his resolve and his reason. A thought that made him giddy and hateful at the same time.

_I do not._

_Oh, I so do._

_Do not._

_Lies!_

_If I do, then I feel that way for a least one other person._

_Not true. I only want to run my hands through Allen's hair._

_Since when do I want to run my hands through his hair?_

_Not important. What's important is that I do._

_Ugh, I do not feel like that!_

_Really? Then why am I telling myself that I do?_

_Because I don't?_

_That's ridiculous! I DO!_

_No, I do not!_

_Yes, absolutely I do!_

His internal dialogue did not cease until his eyes caught the doorknob. His thoughts took a different turn then, like what he would do if Allen hugged him again. _Die._ He decided fatalistically. _Killing him isn't really an option anymore, so I'll just die._ And then the door opened.

Allen almost fainted when he saw him, standing in the doorway, food tray in hand, scowling like he hated him for breathing. That look was perhaps the second most attractive he'd ever seen in his life. How could he have not seen it before in Kanda's eyes? That loneliness, that confusion, that hunger. Kanda did not hate him. The soft glow to his features was not caused by a desire for violence, but for a desire for something different.

Allen physically shivered.

Kanda felt that the air in the room had suddenly grown closer when he came in; the silver irises of the boy on the bed almost stopped him dead. When had the Moyashi learned to make a face like_ that_? Komui looked at Reever like that, Lavi looked at Lenalee like that when he thought no one was looking, but no one – _no one_ – ever gave that look to Kanda Yuu. Allen's half lidded eyes glimmered in the winter light and his snow white hair fell so it masked his true expression. In his hands was a folded piece of rice paper that was crumpled as if it had served longer than it should have.

Kanda knew then that he had been lying to himself.

"Lloyd," Allen said brightly. His voice broke the illusion that had settled over him, making him into normal, sweet Allen once more. "Kanda has enough food for both of us on his trays."

Lloyd blinked. What was it with the two of them? _Were_ they lovers or _not_?

"Ok. I'll leave an extra one outside just incase you change your minds," There was something unspoken at the end of that, but Allen did not ask. _Or if you need a snack when you're done,_ Lloyd's mind finished. He skipped out of the room with a smile on his face, wishing that he could call Sable and tell her this splendid new development. Or what he hoped was a splendid new development. It might have been a crappy old one for all he knew.

When he was gone, Allen looked at Kanda as if expecting him to speak.

Kanda sighed and offered him the tray. Allen tucked away the paper and accepted it grinningly.

"So," He chimed, taking a piece of bread and smearing it in caviar, "Going to talk?"

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"I come bearing ginger!" Lavi chimed with far too much enthusiasm. Sable was going to kill him or throw up on him; she hadn't decided which he would think was worse. "Now all you have to do is stop heaving long enough to eat some."

"I have stopped, you nitwit." She had turned away from the side and leaned against it, holding her head in her shaking hands while the wind whipped past her. She was very pale.

Lavi knew from her response that something was wrong, something besides the seasickness. "Are…you alright?"

She sucked in a shaking breath before letting it out again, closing her eyes as she did. She was going to sound crazy, but it didn't really matter. Sure, Lavi was a Bookman in training, but that didn't mean he'd tell. "Have you ever…had the sinking feeling that someone you knew was watching you?"

He rubbed his head for a moment while he tried to remember. "Meh, most of the times I've felt like that, Panda was watching." His face scrunched up in a curious expression, his one clear eye turned to look at her closely. "Why?"

"Because I feel like there's someone here, who I know, watching me."

"That's creep."

"Ugh, yes, it is, and you aren't helping."

"Sable-chan, does being watched make you jumpy?"

"Yes! And irritated, and annoyed, and it puts me in a pretty foul mood."

"I can see that…"

"Lavi."

"What?"

"Just… don't talk to me."

He frowned at her, seriousness taking over for his usually bouncy personality. "Here," He offered her the ginger. "You take it and I'll look around for anyone suspicious."

Sable sighed and took what he offered, trying to calm herself. "Alright. If you see anything odd, call. And don't get distracted by women."

Lavi narrowed his eyes at her and turned away, mumbling about how this was more important than any woman who could catch his eye. They both knew he was lying.

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"It's a curse."

"What's a curse?"

Kanda found himself poking his food again, not really eating it. Allen seemed to have no trouble stuffing his face with caviar and bread and cheese and herring and all manner of things. He didn't realize how lucky he was with those taste buds.

"This," He put his palm over his heart to indicate the tattoo there.

"So…that whole thing about you not touching cursed people…"

"Was a lie to make you leave me alone?"

"Oh." Allen picked up another sandwich and took a bite of it. "What does it do?"

Kanda sighed. This was the hard part. The very hard part. The part he had not been looking forward to. "It is the reason I heal so quickly."

Allen nodded.

"And why I am immune to the akuma's virus."

"Uh huh… get to the point…"

Since when did the Moyashi tell him to do anything? "If someone else is wounded, it can heal them."

Allen stopped eating for a moment, looked unfalteringly at the Japanese man sitting in the chair across from him. "You mean… it healed me?"

Slowly, Kanda nodded. "And I felt the pain that you endured all night when I woke up."

The boy blinked at him, disbelieving. "How come…I've never heard of you doing that before?"

"Che," Kanda rolled his eyes. Yeah, like he'd ever let _anyone_ find out about the two times it had happened before. Well, anyone but the person who'd been there. "Because it does not just _happen_."

Silence. Allen's shoulders slumped when he had to ask him to continue.

"Basically, what it comes down to is…" Kanda's mouth was dry. It had _not_ been this hard to tell Lavi about it – because they were friends and friends cared, so it wasn't a big deal when he'd saved him. "I must have the correct mentality for it to work on you. I must…" _Die now, Yuu. Just drop dead. It would be easier…_ His palms were suddenly covered in a thin layer of sweat despite the cold. "Be willing to die."

Allen froze. Kanda had always told him to look out for himself, told him that he hated self-sacrificing people, and yet… and yet…

"You're saying that, you would die to save me?"

Kanda's bottom lip twitched while he tried to respond. Allen was getting that look again. That look that made Kanda feel like running his hands through that soft white hair and pressing their chests together. The look that made him swallow harder.

"Moyashi, why are you looking like me like that?"

_Because you just admitted that you care and you're looking at me with that same expression you did when I hugged you and I just wanna –_ Allen's thoughts stopped being words there. He stood.

The older Exorcist wasn't sure what was going on or whose idea it was. Suddenly Allen's hand was on the side of his face, softly, tracing the line of his jaw to his throat, angling his face upward. His limbs tingled as his blood turned to fire in his veins, his lips burned for Allen to touch them. He realized then how much a fool he really was. He had denied that he'd even _liked_ Allen and now he was feeling _this_?

"What are you afraid of, Kanda?" Allen held his eyes with his, searching those sapphire pools for even a shred of hate, a scrap of discontent. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because I might have lost you."

Allen brought his lips down on the other man's, desire winning out over the logic that told him how Kanda would pull away, cast him a side, told him that there was just no way he was getting out of this kiss alive, because Kanda's idea of losing him was not Allen's. His right hand came up and ran through Kanda's hair, the supple strands slid through his fingers like black water. The last soft thing he'd ever touch if Kanda killed him for this. But then he felt a hand on his neck, cupping the base of his skull as if to pull him closer.

_He couldn't mean…Kanda's not…_ But the lips against his kissed back, parted ever so slightly, giving his questing tongue entrance to the soft warm within. He collapsed against the other Exorcist when another hand came up and touched the small of his back, drawing him still closer.

Kanda could not believe what was happening. He liked it, but he did not believe it. After all he had said to Allen, all the hate he had directed at him, how were they doing this? And why did it make him so damn happy?

When the kiss broke Allen was straddling Kanda's lap, his hands on either side of his face. The older Exorcist looked at him with eyes as round as dinner plates.

"Lose me? You're silly, Kanda. Why would you lose me from wanting to protect me?" The hand on his neck moved to his shoulder and to his hand, his left hand, and held it tightly.

The worry in Kanda's eyes was completely irrational and more than adorable. "Some people don't want to be protected."

Allen smiled at him and planted a smaller kiss on his lips, abandoned the hand in his so he could touch Kanda's shoulders, feel his spine, he tired to explore the places he had seen but never felt. It was glorious. When they parted he was nearly breathless, the man beneath him was breathing hard as well, looking at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. The look made him giggle.

"Are you going to start calling me Allen now?" He asked, running the fingers of his right hand through his hair again, stopping to toy with the ends of it.

"Che, stupid Moyashi-kun," Kanda smirked as he took him by the collar to yank him fully into his lap. "Like you care what I call you at this point."

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**And, because people don't generally just fall on their beds right away, we shall leave them at a make-out scene, YAY!! I've never really written anything more romantic than a dinner date, so you'll have to tell me how I did. It feels a little incomplete to me, but I'm not sure…hmmm… starting to feel inadequate… bad…**

**Thank you readers and reviewers! If I could, I would hug you all!! And I'm sorry that the 'shadow' from the other chapter didn't really show up here. Gotta have some suspense to keep it going, eh?**


	9. Misguided and the Folly of Self Control

**So, this is the longest chapter to date, sorry, but the last part wanted to go on for days (and I guess that's good, being you don't read the story for Sable anyways).**

**Disclaimer of Digression: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda would have a special mission involving Allen's pants.**

**WARNING: If you haven't figured it out yet, there's man-lovin' in this fic. I don't think it will give you nightmares, but if you're phobic, stop reading. Now. Stop. NOW.**

Misguided and the Folly of Self Control

He had spent two days stalking his query. Two days making sure that everything was exactly perfect. And now, it was time to make his move.

He watched the red haired young man wander the boat, talking to people, swooning at women, generally doing as he had promised Sable. He was observant, that was plane, but he didn't seem to be looking for the right things in those he questioned. He never quiet got around to asking all of the male passengers either.

The girl's seasickness had gone away after she had taken the ginger, but she continued to glance over her should when he came near, their old mental connection perhaps alerting her to his presence. He had not seen her since they were both young, before they had known what the odd scar was on her forehead, before they had know that he had five in the same general area, though for different reasons. Back then they had been close, they had cared, and she had called.

She was looking out over the clear black sea, her hair down for once. It was the same shade of gold that it had always been, like ripe wheat in sunshine. Her cheeks were red from exposure and her nose was a little pink bump in the center of her face.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" He asked her, taking up residence at the rail beside her.

She nodded, not looking at him. "Can you even see beauty in it anymore?"

He laughed, the same belly sort of laugh that she had, only tenor. "Of course I can. Just because I'm different doesn't mean I've lost all sense of humanity."

"Is that why you haven't tried to kill us yet, Uri?" She looked at him then, her green eyes catching his and holding them stubbornly. Her vision flicked around his face, taking in how little he had changed. "Is it your humanity that keeps me breathing?"

His face fell, his emerald irises faded as if marred with dirt. "No."

"Hm." She looked away from him dismissively. "Then why are you here?"

He sighed and turned so that his back leaned against the railing. They were the same height, so he could see her face perfectly even as she looked straight into the horizon. "Because I want to talk to my long-lost, misguided, horribly adorable twin sister?"

When he talked like that, she could almost forget how different they were.

"You know," She pulled her hands out of her pockets to blow on them. "A few weeks back I looked for you and found you in my bathroom mirror, writing one of your damn stories. I thought that maybe you'd seen the folly of your ways and gone back to being normal." She shrugged and put her hands back, looking indifferent. "I guess I was wrong."

"Hey, you're the misguided one so don't go tacking words like 'folly' and 'damn' to me or my works."

"I'm the misguided one? Since when?"

"Uh… since you were five and swallowed a pill bug?"

"That's not being misguided, that's being a child."

"When you tried to kill Lloyd with a pair of high heeled shoes and a strand of dental floss?"

"That was totally your idea."

"Exactly. I misguided you."

"Uri, do you even know what misguided means?"

"To be lead by a blind seeing-eye dog?"

"And you're a _writer_?"

"Oh no, I'm an author. Minor difference of being _published_."

"I cannot believe I'm even talking to you."

"You're not, you're arguing. Now say something else so I can refute it."

"Die in a fire, brother. Die. In. A _fire_."

"Ooo, your non sequitur strikes fear into my soul."

"Is this a hobby for you or what?"

"Mocking my younger sibling by one and half minutes? Oh yes. My favorite hobby. Next to poetry and song."

"What the Hell, I'm second now?"

"You say Hell?"

"Since when am I second?"

"Since when do you say _Hell_?"

"Oi! Sable-chan, I've searched all of the lower decks, half the upper ones and all of the rigging and I can't find – oh," Lavi stopped short when he say Uri leaning on the railing beside Sable a broad smile on his face. "Hello."

Uri shifted upright, grinning at the red head before him. How sad it was to meet someone before you had to kill them.

"Whoa," Lavi said to the grinning man before him. "The two of you could be… just maybe…"

"Twins?" Uri offered. Sable glared at him like death, he somehow managed to look even happier. "Yeah, it's because we are. I'm Uri Adair."

"Lavi."

Lavi wasn't sure if he should laugh or scream. He had spent two long days hunting high and low for someone who Sable would know, someone would have been watching them and her _twin brother_ had been on board the whole time, most likely lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time to approach his sister who he had not seen since she had become an Exorcist. He settled for a sigh.

"I guess your stalker has been found, Sable-chan!" Lavi said.

Sable did what she could to smile back but found herself failing. What was she supposed to do now? If Uri went all Noah she'd have some serious trouble back at the tower.

"Hey Lavi, would you mind giving us a moment?" She asked, nicely – for once.

"Sure, just one question."

"What?" There was no enthusiasm in her asking.

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Half or whole?"

His eyes grew wide. "Both."

"Hmm…" She started counting on her fingers. "Just the three of us are full siblings, but we had eight half siblings last I remember. So ten. Why?"

"Just something to log away for the records…" And with that he left them to speak freely, even though he wanted nothing more than to stay an listen.

Uri leaned against the railing again when the red head was gone, wondering vaguely why he had reminded him of a rabbit. "So, what did you want to say that you had to send Mr. Observant away for?"

Sable looked at him darkly, narrowing her eyes seriously. "When will you attack us?"

Uri blinked at her, sudden fear running through him. She had always been ruthless and brutal as a child, but he had never expected to be on the receiving end of her brutality. "I'm… not planning on it."

She shook her head when she turned back to the sea. "Sure you aren't." She swept her hair over her shoulder, frowning deeper. "You never did plan on it."

When her eyes turned to see him again, he was gone.

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_She'll never know now,_ He thought when he was moving to his next target. _She'll think it was someone else. I just have to be quick about it. It'll be alright. She'll never know. She'll never know. There will be no one left to tell her._

_Just keep telling yourself that, Uri. One day, you might believe it._

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After two days, they had moved on to casual touching. A brush here, a poke there, but nothing as extravagant as that first time they had shared the chair together. Allen did not want to pressure Kanda to continue with their new pastime, so he waited for Kanda to make the next move. What he did not realize however, was that Kanda was trying _not_ to leap on him at every opportunity – unless he was provided with some sort of sign to alert him that he had the right idea. Which, for two _long horrible days_ he had not.

The two had sat on the bed together while they ate lunch, exchanging personal facts, though Kanda was still Kanda about everything and Allen still did not understand half of his logic.

"Well, what do you do in your free time?" Allen asked, trying a different cheese on his bread. Vaguely he wondered where Lloyd kept so much food, and how he could afford it in such a run down inn with no fair.

"Che, exercise, train, read…"

Allen gave him a horribly disinterested look. "You're… boring aren't you?"

Kanda frowned at him. "I don't try to be interesting." He thought about it for a few minutes. "Lavi spends time with me."

Allen laughed, really laughed. Kanda wasn't sure what exactly was so funny. "Sorry…just, not usually how you hear friends talk about each other." Allen grinned at Kanda from around a rather large piece of sandwich, trying to look like he was not fighting a horrible fit of the giggles.

But Kanda was still looking at him with his stony face, raising an eyebrow as if to call him an idiot. Kanda wasn't spilling his guts when Allen asked him to, but he wasn't shutting down coldly either. It was as if at any moment he could revert into indifferent Kanda or turn into touchy-feely Kanda, though which he was closer to was well beyond Allen's understanding. So he kept asking questions and getting half answers, hoping that he might stumble upon whatever substance it was that made the older boy tick. Until he knew, Kanda's mind would remain more or less a mystery.

"What are you thinking of right now?" Allen's voice interrupted Kanda's thoughts.

Honestly he had been thinking about something very, very far from the topic – but not to far from the subject. Something like… how nice it would be to fall asleep holding Allen – really holding him, not like before – or how fun it might be to trace a feather over Allen's limbs without allowing him to fight back, or how different it might be to just give himself up completely to Allen's hands, without regard to ironclad persona he usual held up so well…

"Hallo? Kanda? Allen here, calling from the planet Earth…"

The planet Earth… that sounded important. Why was that again?

"Stop looking at me like that, you're making me blush!" Allen's exclamation finally pulled him from the dreamy state he had taken on. _What's wrong with me?_ Kanda thought, shaking his head. _I care…and now I can't think of anything else? That hardly seems right._ "In order for this to work out you're going to have to stop looking at me like I'm food. I'm not some…piece of Innocence that you've rescued and can now tote around indefinitely…"

"What?"

"Never mind. It was a bad example."

"No, not that. Innocence. You're better aren't you?"

Allen wasn't following his train of thought. "Yeah, but what does that matter."

"And the weather has cleared somewhat."

"Yes…"

"Pack your things, we're going to Ange."

"What?!"

"The reason we _came _to Sweden, baka. Now pack. We're going to where the Nora Stambanan connects with the Mittbanan."

The younger Exorcist was not exactly done with his lunch, but he wasn't sure what Kanda's reaction would be if he told him that. So he grudgingly lowered his food to his plate and started to look for his things.

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Allen wanted his coat. He wanted his coat, a cup of hot tea, and a snuggly Kanda to make him feel warm. Sadly, his jacket was in his suitcase, bloodied and torn beyond use, the second on his list required that he find someone to sell him tea while simultaneously matching Kanda's ridiculous pace, and Kanda just didn't seem in the snuggly mood. If he even _had_ a snuggly mood.

"Che." Kanda intoned when they boarded their train. He had been a mood of the last few days – which had nothing to do with Allen's lack of obvious enthusiasm (or so he told himself) – and finding that their first class window was stuck open a half inch at the top was not making his disposition any better. When Allen took up residence on the left of their compartment he took the seat across from him, attempting not to be assuming.

"We should have called before we left," Allen muttered, flipping through his packet of information in an effort to remind him what they were looking for. It wasn't working. He would read a sentence, glance at Kanda, forget the sentence and have to read it again. The cycle was unending. "What if someone shows up there expecting to find me wounded? They won't have any idea what happened."

"The innkeeper will tell them."

"If they find the inn."

"It's not as if this train goes straight to Ange, we can call from Goteborg if you're really that worried."

Allen – who had his ticket in his hand – frowned deeply. "Then why does it say 'non-stop express'?"

Kanda paled. Slowly he fished his own ticket from his pocket and read it over three times, proceeded to erupt into a string of expletives to foul they made Allen blush. He had bought the tickets requesting 'the line that goes from Verberg to Ange' not 'the express from Verberg to Ange' …Unless they was only one line between the two and Goteborg required a completely separate ticket entirely. _I am seriously an idiot_, He thought finally. How could he not have looked at a guide to tell him this sort of thing?

After a long moment Kanda's dark eyes came up to look at Allen, realization spreading across his face. He swallowed hard before he spoke, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "S-sorry."

_Kanda just apologized to me. Kanda just apologized to me. KANDA just APOLOGIZED to ME. Why has the world not ended?_ Allen blinked in confusion for a moment before his mouth began to work again. "No big deal. We'll just have to sleep on the train."

_No big deal,_ Kanda thought sarcastically. _It's not like we have blankets in our suitcases to keep warm with._

_Body heat!_

_Not unless he wants it._

They settled into silence, Allen looking out the window, Kanda closing his eyes and hugging his sword. The shadows that painted themselves across Allen's face were just too much too look at, his soft, distant stare too tempting to watch. Kanda had self-control. He would not do anything unless invited. Even if he had to gouge out his eyes to stop himself.

_Kanda can just fall asleep on the train, indifferent to my existence, and I have to sit here and try not to stare…_ Allen flipped a page that he had not read a single word on, damning cold around him and the burning heat inside him. _Why hasn't he done anything!? I swear he's a sadist, enjoying how I react to not touching him, not smelling him, not sitting next to him. Sicko. I _kissed_ you, now it's your turn!_

A light snore escaped one of the Japanese Exorcist's nostrils.

Allen growled low in his throat and threw himself down on his seat, lying lengthways across the soft red fabric, his back to that damn, good for nothing, horribly sexy, horribly oblivious, horribly _Kanda,_ man who was with him. Well, if Kanda wasn't going to make a move he'd just have to make another one, get the idea through his head that if things kept up, this was going to be a two way deal, not some one time all you can eat buffet.

And, to make matters worse, his analogies were crappier than usual.

Kanda had only dozed for a moment before his own snore woke him again. Stealthily he opened his eyes to take in what had become of his white hair…_friend_. The sun was sinking below the horizon, dying the sky all manors of pink and blue, streaking the clouds above them with bruises of purple and yellow. It looked like snow again, though none of it was falling yet. The drifts on either side of the road glittered with ice, shone like crushed gems next to firelight.

"Che," He complained when Allen caught his eye, determinedly faced away from him, shivering. Kanda shrugged off his greatcoat – because he'd been warm long enough and he could sleep fine in the cold _and_ because he cared – and walked the two steps it took to put him next to the Moyashi, who was failing at faking sleep. When he put the jacket over the younger boy's shoulders he pretended not to notice that Allen's eyes were half open.

Kanda moved back to his own seat silently, turned in a position very similar to the one Allen had taken up. He was just starting to have thoughts of rejection when a cold, thin arm wrapped around his waist and a jacket came down on his side. He turned around on the small seat to see Allen attempting to squeeze on with him, his face hopeful.

Kanda smiled at him. It was the same, sparkling grin from before. Allen could hardly control his happiness when Kanda turned so that he was half on the seat half on his chest, Allen's head resting gently on Kanda's shoulder. The arms that entwined him made him never want to let go.

"Body heat," He explained innocently. The chest beneath him rumbled with laughter. Allen thought that was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

"If that were true, Moyashi-kun," Kanda lifted his head to place a gentle kiss on Allen's forehead. "You would have been inside my jacket while we walked to the train station."

Allen frowned at him. "It's not my fault that you've been withdrawn for two days!"

"Withdrawn?" Kanda kissed the side of his mouth. "Withdrawn?" He kissed the other side. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to tell what you're thinking? How impossible it is to see if you're reading or trying to seduce me."

Allen made a face that was completely unreadable, but the slight pant in his voice was apparent. "No."

Kanda sighed. _Oh, screw it._ He pulled him very close, pressing his lips down with bruising force, willing the younger Exorcist to see how withdrawn he _was not_. He was met with an equal amount of force and will, the warmth and vigor of Allen's lips in the cold air surprised him, made him want more – but this was not the time, here was not the place, and like hell he was going to do anything extreme before he asked Lavi what the hell he was supposed to do. Lavi would know of course, because he was a Bookman.

"Now go to sleep, Moyashi."

"Bu-but Kanda—"

"Sleep."

"You've got me all—"

"That means no talking. Ah! No touching either! Baka Moyashi."

Allen giggled even while he felt sad. "Fine." He pulled his hand from under Kanda's shirt and instead wrapped his arm around his back. "Night Asagi."

"What?" Kanda glared the boy, who had closed his eyes, a smirk on his face. "What the Hell did you just call me, Moyashi?"

But Allen was feigning sleep again and there was no way he was going to stop. _Just call me 'moyashi' in the morning, Kanda. You'll never know what hit you._

**//blithers\\**

**That was… so… long…**

**And I wrote it in like an hour, what does this mean? It means that Niamh is on a roll, that's what it means! Though, I kinda wonder if this chapter is any good… I mean… if time is effort and I spent like, no time on this, what does that say for my effort:(**

**Notes on the Japanese that I used here and earlier:**

**Zenzen means 'never.'**

**Asagi is a bread of koi that have blue scales – this is a reference to how koi can mean "love/affection" and how Kanda likes blue.**

**REVIEWERS ARE AMAZING! Your emails make my mornings! And my evenings too! Please keep it up; the more you review, the more I feel like writing, the more you get to read, right:D**


	10. Kanda Chex?

**Eek!! I'm sorry that this took longer than normal! I've been distracted by class and family members and other stories and…it's just not fun…**

**But! I am still working on this, have it planned out for a while, and am totally psyched about the next few chapters. That means I'll most likely put them out BAM! two or three in a row, with maybe a day of rest between. If that **

**Disclaimer of Duality: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… things would be…different.**

**WARNING: Woo! Man-on-man action! But nothing extreme…just cuteness :D**

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Kanda Chex?

When morning came – fresh and gold and pure – Kanda did not particularly care for his right arm. He had the oddest sensation that there were pins and needles jabbed inside it, and there was a rather heavy weight resting on his shoulder. And it was breathing on him.

When he opened his eyes, he found the sleeping head of Allen walker cutting off his circulation, and managing to be cute about it.

"Che," He nudged Allen lightly on the shoulder. He did not wake. He decided to take a nicer approach. "It is morning." His voice sounded far too nice to be his own, like Komui greeting him after a long coma or Lavi just being creepy. Even if it worked he'd never say that again.

The white haired boy groaned and buried his face in Kanda's hair. "Five more minutes!"

"Baka, five more minutes and my arm is going to fall off. Now _move_."

Allen's groggy mind decided that argument was not the means by which he would get more sleep, so he would try something different. He lifted himself up ever so slightly and shifted sideways, placing Kanda's hips directly below his, with his face on Kanda's chest bone. "Better?"

The man beneath him sighed in defeat. "What are you going to do when someone comes in to tell us where we are?"

"Nothing. I'll wave."

"And what will that person think?"

"Since when do you care what people think?"

"I don't. But you do."

"Kanda, if I cared what people thought, wouldn't I try to do something about my hair?"

He had a point. _But if he doesn't get off of me I'm going to do something regrettable. _"Che. Aren't you hungry, baka?"

"Mmhmm. Hungry for Kanda."

He sat up. There was no _way_ the innocent, sweet, young, and blushing Allen had just said those words. It couldn't have been real. If he had, it was impossible for him to know what they meant – or to know what they did to Kanda. Allen slid to the floor in a heap, Kanda's jacket going with him. He looked up with round, gleaming eyes that almost made Kanda smile.

"What's wrong?" He pulled the jacket off of his shoulder and took to straightening it; it was wrinkled from the night in the seat. "Did I say something?" The innocent tone in his voice was oddly disconcerting.

Kanda shook his head, glad that for once in his life his intuition was right about Allen not knowing what he was saying. "Nothing. Let's get breakfast."

Allen took the hand that was offered to him and grinned at the man that proffered it. Even if he didn't entirely understand Kanda he could still like him. And he could still hold his hand.

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Uri's boots crunched lightly in the snow, leaving little boot shaped imprints after every step as a reminder of his passing. They made him think of other things that he had left in passing, things that had not faded and things that had. _I guess love is like a footprint in the snow,_ He thought distantly. _If you walk away from it, it will fade, but if you step in the same place every so often, it lasts forever._

"I did not think that you would come." The sultry voice of a man called his attention away from his feet and up to the top of a snow drift. Just the sound of that voice brought his other nature to dominance, darkened his skin and caused the five marks to blossom across his forehead.

"I'm not a traitor, Tyki."

The man on the snow drift smiled slightly, played with the rim of his top hat. "Mayhap you are not but your other half is. You are late, by the way."

Uri glared at him with eyes gone red. "I don't care. Let's get this over with."

Tyki laughed at him while he smoothed the sleeves of his suit, tilted his head at him thoughtfully. "Plans have changed, dear Uri, I won't be joining you." He sighed, as if exasperated. "You can take care of the two here and the Innocence alone."

"What? Why?"

"Think of it…as a test of your strength, eh?" He shrugged coolly; shot him a smile that had the same likeness level in it as a glare. "I will see you at dinner, no?"

"Of course." Uri smiled as nicely as he could before the other man disappeared. Tyki was nicer than some of the other Noah, but he wasn't nice enough. And he talked like he was high and mighty all the time. Being nice and yet still managing to ride the high horse was something that annoyed Uri immensely. Not that he would do anything about it.

He walked to the railway, the one just before most of the train accidence, and knelt down, laying his hand on the iron. "Well," He said casually. "This is going to be just too easy." With that single hand, he lifted the line.

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_Call me Moyashi-kun. Do it Kanda… Call me Moyashi-kun…_

Allen had been dying for him to say it all morning, just so he could get his sweet, sweet revenge. It was going to be fantastic. Allen knew full well that he could be a cunning card player, a sneaky gambler, and one hell of a prankster – this was better than all three of those all rolled into one. And if it worked out, Kanda would never say no ever, ever again. If he failed… Kanda would never call him Moyashi-kun ever, ever again.

_Call me Moyashi-kun…Call me Moyashi-kun…_

And what had been with Kanda's reaction anyways? It wasn't as if Allen had _not_ spent a goodly portion of his life around Cross and his breed, where drinking and partying and gambling and womanizing and…other things were the norm. Heck, he had walked in on enough sexual acts to write a new and improved Kama Sutra. With pictures. In full color.

He knew what he had said about having Kanda for breakfast and he had meant every word of it. Why in Hell had Kanda sat up like that? Did he really think he was that innocent?

_Call me Moyashi-kun…Do it Kanda. Before I make you._

While he thought such things over they came to the dining car – which was more or less empty. As he roved over what they offered, he decided that a light breakfast of three servings would be enough, because he wouldn't want to be too full when his plan finally came into action.

"What are you getting, Moyashi?" Kanda asked over his menu – but he didn't finish the word. It was like he was thinking about saying it, whispering it mentally, but not bothering to actually get the word out. His hand was drifting toward the pot of tea that had been provided.

_Now -Kun! Kun, kun, kun, kun! Say kun dammit!_

"Hmm… I can't even say half the things they offer."

"Che, never mind then."

How hard was it to make him same a useless honorific?!

"Kanda… I've been thinking."

"The Moyashi, thinking? Sounds painful." He lifted the teapot in one hand, held the menu in the other.

Allen glared at him, but the smirk on Kanda's face was enough of an apology.

"Well, if you're going to call me _moyashi_ as a pet name, I should have one for you too."

Kanda spilled tea into his glass, into his saucer, across the linen table cloth, and into his lap. He bit down a number of curses as he stole napkins that were within arms reach – most of them from other tables.

"It is _not _a pet name."

"Hmm… right… so was that other thing you called me a pet name?" Allen scratched the end of his chin thoughtfully, not bothering to help Kanda with his spill. "Sounded like… _moyashi_ but it ended differently. Hmm… Can't seem to recall…"

_Say it. Say it. Say KUN!!!_

"Moyashi-kun?"

His inner laughter was not at all apparent on his face. It was perfect. Kanda was so distracted by the tea he was moping out of his lap that he didn't even notice Allen slide stealthily out of his seat, come around the back of his chair, nor the maniacal grin plastered on his face.

Kanda noticed that Allen had vanished when he felt something on his shoulder, pressing lightly.

"What are you doing, Moyashi-kun?"

Allen lowered himself so that his hand flowed down the front of Kanda's chest, leaned forward so that his mouth was just centimeters from his ear. _So delicious…_

"Well, you've decided that I'm Moyashi-kun, right?"

Kanda wanted to turn around and find out _why_ Allen was breathing in his ear like that, but he didn't. "Maybe."

"Well," His breath was hot and he knew it. The goosebumps that ran from Kanda's jaw to his shoulder proved it. "I was wondering what food – being moyashi _is_ food – I should refer to you as, Kanda." Something warm and wet was tracing the side of his ear delicately; he turned to berate Allen on doing something so obvious in public.

"What do you think you—"

And then he was falling. The sound of metal grating on metal was deafening, the shriek of the breaks and the smell of hot iron filled the car as Kanda caught himself on the back of a near by chair, Allen went tumbling passed him toward the front of the train, inertia forcing him on even when he collided with the nearest piece of furniture. All thoughts of getting back at Kanda were gone from his mind when he caught his hip on a corner and spun toward the wall.

Neither of them knew what was going on.

The loud commotion of passed after a few seconds that seemed to stretch on for hours. The two of them were unharmed when the train stopped moving, though Allen's mind was a little worse for wear. He had had the _perfect revenge_ and now it was _ruined!_ Ruined! Destroyed by some bloody akuma attack or a wreck or some God forsaken –

Piece of Innocence.

"Moya-All-ugh! What the hell am I supposed to call you now?!" And despite the circumstances, Kanda had yet to realize the significance of them stopping.

"Kanda."

"What?"

"Innocence?"

"Che, like you have any."

Allen almost laughed. "No, _the_ Innocence. The train's stopped, baka."

Kanda stopped hanging on to his chair and blinked at Allen. Was he seriously thinking about work? Now? And Kanda wasn't? What had happened? And Allen had called _him_ baka?! And why did he feel like an inadequate fool? _I'm logical and reasonable and I never take things the wrong way – and yet I just joked about that Mo-goddammitwhatthehelldoIcallhim's – innocence. That's why._ He stepped away from his support slowly, careful not to trip on any of the over turned tables.

Together they walked toward the front of the train, minds more or less at the task at hand.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"There seems to have been a problem with the rail system so we had to stop immediately." The driver explained when Allen had kindly requested to speak with her. "We're not a mile out of Goteborg, so it's hard to say what's holding us up."

Kanda looked to Allen to ask the questions – he wasn't the most personable interrogator.

"Is there anyway that we could get off of the train now?" His tone was astoundingly polite, his mannerisms exact. It mystified Kanda how this boy could _lick_ his ear in a semi-public place and then be so calm, collect, and normal not ten minutes later. It was wrong on so many levels. And what made matters worse was that he couldn't call him Moyashi any more. He knew that if he did, Allen would lick him again – which was not good for his self-control – and then call him something even more humiliating. Like _Yuu_.

"Sound like a plan?" He hadn't even known he was spacing until Allen spoke to him. _So much for self-control…_

Allen saw the momentary blank look on Kanda's face and knew that he hadn't heard a word he'd said. The thought amused him as much at it perplexed him. _Oh, well,_ He thought with a small grin. _If he doesn't know what the plan is, he can't argue._

"Off we go! Thank you very much! You've helped us so much!" Allen smiled one of those bright grins and plodded away in the direction of the nearest door, taking Kanda by the hand on the way out. The Japanese Exorcist hadn't the slightest idea what was going on, so he followed with heavy footsteps.

"Che, where are you dragging me?" He asked as they went from car to car, passing doors he did not think he recognized.

"To get our things. We can't go anywhere without them."

So they were walking to Goteborg. When they reached their compartment Allen dropped Kanda's hand and picked up the suitcases, moving so quickly Kanda could almost think that he was excited.

"Who wound you up and told you to go get the Innocence?" He asked, taking his suit case from him and throwing it down on a nearby seat. Allen had forgotten in the mist of all of this that he was still without a coat, which would not be good if there were akuma ahead of them. And Kanda would have to find his golem – or Tim – if they wanted to call the order when they had accomplished their task. There were things they had to do before they marched a mile in the snow.

Allen paused when Kanda's suitcase hit the upholstery, the locks coming undone with a flick of his fingers. With feline grace Kanda reached into his things and pulled out a long black jacket – not the kind that Exorcists wore, but a nice one nonetheless. It was a cold weather coat; the kind that would hang well passed his knees and give room for him to hide his hands if the air was too frigid, composed of wool and lined with something shiny. When the owner of the garment offered it offhandedly to Allen, he almost wasn't sure he wanted to take it.

"It's not going to bite you, Moyashi-kun." Kanda glared. _Oops._

Allen giggled a little before he wrapped his arms around the taller man's shoulders and placed a lingering kiss on Kanda's lips, ran his tongue lightly over the lower one. When his grip lessened somewhat and there was a little space between them, the look Kanda gave him was not surprised or disappointed, just…happy and disbelieving. And, after a moment disapproving.

"Are you going to do that every time I call you Moya—" He did it again, this time longer, and this time when he pulled away, Kanda threw the jacket over Allen's head. "Che, you don't know what's good for you…"

Allen laughed as he pulled the garment off of his head. "Kanda: Breakfast of Champions."

"Stop it. We're going." He pulled the black golem from the folds of his things and stuffed it in his pocket. "And put that damn jacket on before you freeze to death."

_So delicious…_Allen thought again when he was swimming in the very nice, very warm coat. It smelled like Kanda. _And the best part,_ He thought smilingly, _Is that he tastes like Kanda to me._

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Uri threw himself down in the snow next to the bent rail, running his fingernails down the side of his face until he'd drawn blood. It wasn't a pleasant thing, self mutilation, but desperate times called for desperate measures – and this time, he was desperate.

_I hope she doesn't know them,_ He mused, watching the blood from his face dye the pure snow a sinful shade of crimson. _It will just be harder if she does._

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**So… I'm really, really sorry that I couldn't get this to you guys sooner. Classes are back, and I hardly got to write anything today…mostly because my sister invited me over to clean her house and I said yes… **

**BUT! The next part is planned out **_**completely **_**in my mind. I just have to put it on…virtual paper and post it, which – if I stay up late again to get it done – should take about a day to do.**

**Thanks for reading! And once again, sad, sad attempt at a cliffhanger.**


	11. Thinking is Dangerous

**Look! Look! I wrote another one! It's darker this time though… so I apologize to those of you who read this fic for the fluff. There is still some, there will be more, but at this point, it's plot, plot, plot. I feel so bad though… I don't like being mean to characters, even if it makes things better in the long run. //weeps\\**

**Disclaimer of Distress: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I think Allen would cry less.**

**WARNING: This time, there's not just boy-on-boy, there's violence too.**

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Thinking is Dangerous

"Like hell you are." The Japanese man glared down at the smaller boy beside him, determination the only emotion on his face. "You'll get lost."

Allen flopped a black sleeve that was too big for his arm at Kanda, attempted to wave him off. "No I won't! I'll just walk to the nearest phone and walk straight back to the train. Then follow the train to you. If I know where I'm going I don't generally get lost…"

"Che. Right." His voice was dripping sarcasm. "We'll both go."

"What happened to efficiency!?" Allen demanded, stopping in his tracks.

Kanda sighed. He was right. There was no reason for the two of them _not_ to split up – and if anyone was going to look for the Innocence, Kanda was the better choice (for many reasons). Besides, Allen had managed to walk places before without getting lost (though Kanda could not remember an occasion) so his fears were only half-founded, maybe even less.

"Fine, but don't get lost, Moyashi-kun." Kanda had done it on purpose, so when Allen leaned up to kiss him he met him full on, and he did not give way when he felt Allen's tongue trace over his lip. Instead he bit back lightly; Allen's suitcase fell to the ground unthought-of as a hand came up and touched Kanda's shoulder; Allen's lips parted gently and he found himself deepening the kiss, touching the inside of his mouth ever so gently. When they parted, Allen's face was the color of a ripened cherry.

"Since… when… did you…" He was panting. He felt the heat in his face and the warmth in his blood, the growing need to be touched. He had never known that Kanda had this power over him, at least not this strongly. And now the older Exorcist was just smirking down at him, completely calm despite the feeling he had incited.

"It's not important. I shall meet you at the front of the train in fifteen minutes," Kanda was smiling, glad that things were back in natural order. He was not supposed to be wanting Allen all the time if Allen wasn't really wanting him, so this made things balanced – even if he was about to pin that pale body down and tear off all his clothes…

Allen cleared his throat when he had regained a little of his composure. "Shall we?"

They unwound themselves from each other, trying not to look worried. Allen turned north, toward the bulk of the city, while Kanda turned east, the direction of the train station and – hopefully – the Innocence.

Kanda did as much as he could to think about the mission, the task at hand, _anything_ but Allen. It was very, very difficult, but he seemed to manage. He was glad to find that he had some semblance of self-control left, even if it was slowly but surly turning into nothing. He knew that he could only last so long, but how long 'so long' was, he did not know.

He breathed in the crisp, cold air, and allowed himself a small smile. Maybe, if things kept up, he wouldn't need self-control.

The front of the train was not very far away, but Kanda's eyes were not watching wear he was going. Instead, he was thinking. Thinking about the one thing he had tried not to think about. Thinking was dangerous.

He did not realize how far he had gone until a smear of crimson caught his eye, the color showing beautifully against the pristine snow. Immediately his sense went to high alert, his sword came to his hand, all thoughts of romance forgotten. Where there was blood there was death, and where there was death there was usually something connected to the Millennium Earl.

The body in the snow was male, broad of shoulder and lean of limb, with wheat gold hair and a brown parka. It was hard to tell much else from his distance. He could see no pentagrams on the ground from gunfire, but that didn't mean that none were there.

Not six feet away the railway was bent at a ridiculous angle, two of the ties moved to lie on the iron that was supposed to be above them. The metal itself was twisted grotesquely, as if to show the strength of whatever thing that had hurt the man beside it.

Gently he touched the shoulder of the man lying in the snow. He could see that he was breathing, but could not tell if he was conscious. Kanda did not usually concern himself with the wellbeing of those caught in the crossfire, but he wasn't about to just walk past a man who could supply him with information on what was going on here. And there was something going on.

The man groaned. After a moment he blinked open a pair of emerald green eyes bewilderedly, and attempted to sit up. Kanda saw that the side of his face was caked with dried blood, though a fresh supply seemed to be flowing from his head as well, so he pushed him back into the snow – the better to keep him from hurting himself.

"What happened?" He demanded, lowering his sword a little.

That was what Uri had been waiting for.

When Kanda's sword came down the man rolled against him with a tremendous amount of force, too much for a wounded, dying, bleeding man to summon at once. It was the kind of strength that could manipulate an eight inch thick piece of metal without strain. Kanda cursed mentally, threw himself away from the man, turned the blade down, aiming between the man's ribs on the left side, just where his heart would be.

But Uri was faster. His aim was precise. With blinding speed his hand came out and caught the hand that held Muegn, with a savage jerk he wrenched the Exorcist's until he heard the bones snap and the fingers let the blade fall, spinning into the snow. With his left hand he reached across his chest and hit the man in the forehead with the heel of his hand, careful not to use the impossible strength that flowed through him.

_Hm,_ He thought indifferently. _I thought there were two…ah well; I guess I can just make this one tell me where the other is. And maybe have some fun while I'm at it._ Uri sighed as he released his power.

Kanda did not have time to react. The suddenly there was nothing. There was no pain. There was no feeling. There was only light.

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"I honestly don't understand it myself, but I'm fine now! Really!"

"Oh, thank goodness. I was so worried! How are things with you and Kanda?"

Allen blinked at the phone for a moment before he decided that he'd tell her. If he was going to tell anyone, it would be Lenalee. She knew everything about him – but for a few of the things that had happened while he was with Cross – so she was the logical person to tell. Kanda would tell Lavi, Allen would tell Lenalee and in the end, there would be secret except the one that everyone knew – which was the natural order of things.

"Great, actually."

"What?!" Was there a note of sweet enthusiasm in her voice?

"Well… we've… kind of come to understand each other better. Come to… a sort of mutual agreement." Yes, he would tell her, but he was not sure how to go about telling her. Would she understand? Would she even know it was possible? Would she shriek with psychotic glee?

"Eh? I haven't the slightest idea what you're trying to say, Allen-kun."

He sighed. "It's complicated."

She didn't answer, so he swallowed hard and tried again.

"Have you ever read one of those shojo manga?"

"…Yeah…"

"And… you know how sometimes… there are two guys who… kind of… fall in love with… each other?"

"…Yeah!"

"Well… uh… that's like… me and Kanda. Only we haven't—"

She would shriek with psychotic glee.

The shriek was so loud he had to pull the phone away from his ear to avoid losing his hearing. It went on longer than he thought it would too, being Lenalee was usually a well rounded, thoughtful, individual. She was not one to be over excited about something as trivial as this. Not that it was trivial.

"I'm so happy for you Allen-kun!" She chimed when she had stopped.

"But, could you… maybe not tell anyone? I'm not sure how Kanda will feel if word gets out."

He knew she was nodding with her fingers crossed. "I swear I won't tell a soul!"

Allen sighed. "Good. Now I have to go find him. Thanks for being such a wonderful friend, Lenalee!"

"All in a days work, Allen-kun."

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Allen found nothing but empty footprints and a puddle of blood when wandered passed the front of the train. He followed what had to be Kanda's boot prints, but after a while there was hardly anything, a dent in the snow here, a black hair there, but not much. Worry seared into his heart like a knife, twisting with every step he took. He expected the older boy to just pop out of a shadow, unharmed, Innocence in hand, to berate him for being so slow.

But he didn't.

The lonely wind whipped his hair loosely about his face, burning cold fire against his cheeks, hollowing his heart and worrying his mind. Where would he go? It wasn't as if Kanda was one to wander off and get lost, that was Allen's forte. It was more likely for Hell to turn into a frozen wasteland than it was for his dear friend to go off into the wilderness to meet with disorientation and eventual doom.

And still the cold wind tore at his heart, pulled the tears from his eyes.

_Why am I crying?_ He thought in frustration. _Am I… that worried?_ He scanned the empty landscape desperately in answer to his own question. His eyes stopped to examine every lingering shadow, every nook, and then he saw it.

There, lying on its side under the branches of a withered old tree was Kanda's sword.

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His limbs hurt. More than anything else, that was what he noticed.

The shaded light of the sun coaxed his eyes open slowly, and his head throbbed when they took in the silver illumination that reflected from the white stones wall in front of him, yellow from the wooden floor beneath his feet.

It was a house unlike any he had ever seen before. Roofless, with only one room, both the front and back walls more or less destroyed. But what made it strange was that it still had furniture; a desk and chair next to a fireplace, a sofa placed so that one could see out the one remaining window if they wanted to. And at the desk, a gray skinned Noah sat, his booted feet propped on his desk, a notepad in his hand, a pen in his hand left hand dancing across the paper in sweeps and lines.

Kanda shifted his wait experimentally and found that he was slouching in a plush chair, ropes across his arms and chest holding him down. It was illogical – why wasn't he dead yet? If this Noah had been the man in the snow and he had outwitted him, why hadn't he done what he was supposed to do as a Noah.

"Ah, and like a crisp ocean wave on the shores of a white sand beach, so do his eyes contrast with his fair ivory skin." The man at the table smiled lopsidedly, folded his notebook closed and placed it gently on the table. He didn't _look_ like he had the power to break Kanda's arm, but Kanda could remember that he had. "You're not too uncomfortable, are you?"

"Che. Why would you ask that question?"

The Noah came around the side of his desk so he could lean against it, almost casually. "I'm not as much of an enemy as you think I am, Kanda-san."

Kanda blinked at him. He hadn't told this man his name, so how had he known. The Noah smiled.

"Oh, don't look so surprised. Just a touch is all takes for me to learn such forward knowledge." He folded his arms against his chest, sighing. "Like your name, age, Innocence type, favorite color – all of those little things that float around in the front of your mind. Mine is not the greatest gift, but it does have its uses," He took two steps forward, which caused his captive to tense. Kanda had not know until that moment _why_ his limbs hurt, but his bunching muscles told him; his right arm was broken, his left wrist badly sprained, both of his legs felt shattered as well.

So really, the ropes were pointless.

"Che, what could be so dangerous about stealing a name?" Kanda asked aloud. "I am not frightened by you knowing mine."

Uri laughed. "It is not the stealing that is dangerous, Kanda-san. It is the thinking." He grinned that lipless smile that he never allowed himself to use, the one that twisted his face darkly. "Because your thoughts are mine." Uri placed the tips of his fingers on the Exorcist's forehead even as the man tried to lean away. Part of him loved doing this, but another part of him hated it equally much. "Now tell me, Kanda-san, who is with you."

He did not want to think of Allen. He did not want to imagine the things they had done together. And yet he did, because the Noah had asked him who was with him, he did. His mind conjured the image of the white haired boy easily, drawing it into focus, filling in the details until he could almost see it before his opened eyes – eyes that were trying to focus on the man stealing his thoughts.

"Hm, and why are you here?"

Just the question was enough to make him remember and hold the thought in his mind for an instant; the memory of being told where the Innocence was, leaving – receiving the poem. The morning Sable had told him to kill Allen…

The man pulled away suddenly, his face blank, still extended hand shaking. Uri had not wanted someone who knew his sister. After a moment he regained his composure and smiled at the Japanese man. It seemed to him that the two did not know each other well, so doing his job would not be that difficult if he tried not think of it. This was his job. This was his purpose. This was his way of proving that he was not like Sable. He reached out again, careful not to show the man how he closed his eyes to hide his dread.

He did all he could to harden his voice when he spoke.

"Now tell me, Kanda-san," There was a thin layer of malice in the man's voice that made Kanda desperate. How was he supposed to fight human nature and _not_ think the answer to his suggestions? How was he going to get out here with broken legs, Mugen missing, and ropes holding him to a chair? "What is your greatest fear?"

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**Wah! I didn't want to end it like that but I couldn't switch to Allen again and keep it under 2,000 words (generally speaking, if it's an idea that's more than 2,000 words, I can work it into being a chapter, so switching to Allen now would tag another chapter on to this one like a big, run-on chappy). Yeah, so… CLIFFHANGER! And hardly any fluff…**

**I feel like such a mean authoress, but I know it must be done! There are so many more secrets that need to come out, so many more kisses that need to be shared, so many more twists that must be plotted – and this is the only way… //cries womanishly\\**

**Okay. All done. Please, review and tell me how horrible I am. I promise to update ASAP, too! **


	12. Noah

**Oh! The lateness! Must. Write. Faster!**

**Ehem… well, not much of an author's note this time, but to apologize for not starting off with the people you care about. And for the unoriginal title – I could find no inspiration for something more descriptive.**

**Disclaimer of Duh: AH! I'm running out of D-words! I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did, all of the anime openings would be Abingdon Boy's School, because they rock.**

**WARNING: There's Violence! There's Man-lovin'! There's a Frog! (…Yeah, yeah, I know… no one get's Underdog references… Niamh feels old…)**

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Noah

Sable had been standing in the cabin, flipping through the book she had just finished disappointedly when her face went suddenly pale. Lavi watched in fear as she ran her fingers slowly across her face, her expression unreadable as the book tumbled out of her other hand to the floor.

"Sable-chan, are you alright?" He asked when she turned away from him as if to hide her face by the wall.

"Leave me alone for a moment, Lavi." She said in a quiet voice.

_He didn't think that I'd know if he came to see me._ She thought sadly. _You're a fool, Uri. A damned fool. Even if we're not the same person, we are still the same things._

He frowned at the back of her head his one eye worried enough for two. "Is something wrong?"

_The same heart._

She shook her head and pressed her face with bother her hands, desperately, desperately trying to hide the blood. "It's nothing to be concerned with, just please, please, go." Uri was using his powers, she knew, because this never happened unless he did. Beneath her fingers on the right side of her forehead, three cross shaped wounds had formed, lines etched on her skin that would continue to cut themselves deeper and deeper into her flesh until he stopped using his power.

Their power.

A drop of blood slid passed her fingers and splattered on the cabin floor.

_The same soul._

"Sable-chan?" There was nothing but concern in Lavi's voice, but she couldn't show him. She could never let anyone know what she was – what she wasn't. God had bestowed her with her Innocence even before her birth and she had decided not long after that she would not be evil. Even if Uri was. The Black Order would not understand.

_The same Noah._

"Go, Lavi." She closed her eyes and prayed he would leave her. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing…" He said quietly. What was a Bookman to do? Interfere? _Make_ her show him? It took him only a moment to think about it. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around; his eyes went wide at the sight of so much blood. "It's alright," He tried to sound reassuring. "Let me see."

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_How could I have lost him? I didn't even really lose him either, he just vanished. And it's my fault. It's all my fault. If I hadn't of insisted on calling, he wouldn't have wandered off somewhere and had something happen to him._ Allen's thoughts were long lines of consciousness, unending streams of growing chaos. Every so often he would find a footprint, a broken spider's web, but such things did not help his slowly disorganizing mind. _Where could he be?_

_Will I ever find him?_

He pulled Kanda's jacket tighter around him and turned his tear stained face into the wind. Another dent in the snow encouraged him to walk on.

And then he heard someone scream.

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"I've never heard of someone having _two_ worst fears before, Kanda-san," The Noah chimed at him, smiling ghoulishly. The guy really was a sadist. "But, as they say, there is a first time for everything."

_My God, if I knew where Mugen was…_

"So, which shall I treat you too first, my dear Exorcist? Though I'm not sure my talent at fulfilling nightmares is up to either task. Shall I try, Kanda-san? Would you be livelier if I did?"

_I'd cut this man's head off without even thinking about it._

_Che, not that I can move my arms._

_Or much else._

Kanda had not thought of his worst fear when the Noah had asked him, instead he had thought of other things, things that made him want to smile. That had not made the Noah happy at all. He had hit him, over and over again, demanding that he think of his worse fear, all the while breaking his ribs and bruising his cheeks and cutting his lips on his teeth. He has asked the question one last time after Kanda had fallen unconscious, and his waking mind had not been able to refuse the answer.

Now he sagged against his bonds, bleeding from his mouth, eyes half-lidded. He did not even bother making snide remarks anymore. He did not really care if the Noah tortured him, hurt him, took away his Innocence. Those usual threats were wasted on him.

He did, however, care if he died.

And, of course, he cared if Allen was hurt.

If the Noah tried the latter of the two, he'd find himself with a very ill-mannered mute, immovable Exorcist on his hands. Which Kanda aimed to make far more unpleasant than it sounded.

A loud cracking sound pulled him back to the moment at hand, where the Noah had broken off the leg of the desk jaggedly, so that it was pointed like a stake at the end.

_Great_, He thought sarcastically. _What does he think I am a vampire?_

Uri did the best he could to smile but not to smile too much. He had to repeat to himself that this man was an enemy, not a man, and that letting him go would only lead to his own suffering. A test, Tyki had called this, a test of his loyalty. He would have to do this with enthusiasm and cunning if he wanted to seem that way.

He hit the wood against his hand a few times as if to test its strength before his grin grew wider. Kanda just glared at him indifferently.

"Now, my dear Kanda-san, there is only one last favor that I can ask before we end it." The stake stopped mid motion; he ran a finger slowly over the longest pointed piece of wood until he seemed satisfied with it. "Scream for me, Kanda-san. Scream until you lover comes running."

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Lavi's breathing was ragged, his hands unsure, but his eye did not lie to him. There, on an Exorcist's forehead, were the scars of the Noah clan. They were bleeding down her face, tears were welling in her eyes, yet her Innocence – and the thought that it had not be betrayed was encouraging – glowed faintly green in the cabin light.

"Don't," She said soft. "Don't look at me. Please, don't look at me." She repeated it several times while he held her, until there was too much gore and she had to close eyes to avoid being blinded by it.

_She's as scared as I am,_ He realized slowly. _How could she have the marks of a Noah? Why?_

"It's alright," The calmness of his voice surprised her but she could find no lie in it. "I won't…I won't hurt you." He hands stopped trying to cover the wounds so stubbornly and he was able to lower them to her sides. "Come on, I'll get something to clean you up with and if you want to, you can tell me what's going on. Alright?"

Sable did not want to, but she knew she should. Some family secrets just couldn't be kept.

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He knew it was Kanda's voice because he had heard it before, yet the tambour was slightly different – made course by the wind perhaps. Whatever the case was, the sound encouraged him to go forward as the same time that it made his heart sink into his stomach.

_How many times have I wished death on him?_ He wondered vaguely. _And how many times did I _mean_ it?_

When he walked passed a rather decrepit looking stand of trees a small, disintegrating cottage came into view, looking like a pockmark of gray stone on the pristine white hillside. The roof was gone, the walls a disaster, and in the snow outside of what was once the front door there was a footprint.

Allen was not one to let himself get carried away – at least he didn't think he was – so when his feet carried him nearly to that footprint, he was surprised. He crouched low to the ground, getting Kanda's nice coat wet, and accidentally jabbing Mugen's sheath into the snow. He had slung the blade over his shoulder in much the same manner that Kanda did, though the strap was a little big, just like the jacket. He was unused to the weight there just as he was unused to having it hang behind him when he bent low.

"He's never going to hear you if you don't put some effort into it," A voice was saying disappointedly. It was oddly familiar, like something he had heard once in a dream, but it was not the time for thinking such things.

It was time to get his Kanda back. His Kanda. For good.

He heard the distinct sound of blood splashing onto the floor and heard a low groan. Well, he was still alive. Relief washed through him. In absolute silence he glanced in the broken doorway to get an idea of what awaited him within.

Kanda's hair had come undone and hung over his face like a drape masking his features, cords of thick brown rope crossed his chest and arms, wound about his legs to hold him still. His chest was drenched in crimson though his chest still rose and fell with each passing moment, and the fingers of his left hand shook as if enraged. The sight made Allen made beyond reason. The man standing in front of Kanda's chair had a twisted smile on his face, a blooded wooden utensil in his hand. He thrust forward with it, aiming for Kanda's face.

Allen did not know what came over him. It was if someone else were moving his body for him, telling him what he had to do. His left arm changed without him thinking about it as he charged the Noah.

Uri did not even know what hit him.

Allen's metallic fist hit the Noah with a tremendous force, sending him off of his feet and through the far wall. Bits of stone rained down around them as the other walls began falling in. A battle cry like none he had ever uttered tore from Allen's throat, primal in a way that he was not used to. He had always wanted to have the world, always wanted to save those in front of him, always wanted to make a difference in the greater scheme of things; but he had not once felt that not doing so would betray his very existence.

His feet caught on the wooden flooring and he staggered to a halt in front of Kanda's chair, breath burning through his lungs as adrenaline pounded through his veins. He could not explain it, but he was angry. This Noah, this _human_, had been hurting Kanda. Kanda. The one man who, in the instant he had leapt to defend him, had meant more than anything before in his life.

"Kanda!" He took hold of ropes with his giant fingers and ripped them apart, shredding them like threads. He placed a hand on the Japanese man's shoulder to better access his wounds, his left arm deactivated of it's own accord.

That amazing pair of sapphire eyes came up and looked at him unwaveringly, bright with life though yet dimmed by obvious pain. "Che, about time you got here, Moyashi-kun." His words came out slowly, hindered by the slowly swelling right side of his face. He was pretty well beaten, with uneven looking stab wounds in each shoulder, blood from them staining his shirt. His coat was hung neatly over the back of his chair, looking perfectly clean.

"Come on, I'll kiss you when we get back to town." Allen smiled at him, glad that Kanda was not in any danger of death at the moment. Maybe, eventually, from blood loss, but he doubted it.

"Che, my legs are broken." Kanda explained coldly.

"What?"

"The bones in my legs are broken. Not working. Kaput. Time to come up with a plan, Moyashi-kun, because I can't walk." Why, of all the times, did he have to sound condescending now? Allen knew what he had to do. It was doing it that was going to be difficult. "Before that Noah comes back, preferably." Kanda continued, shifting in his chair and grimacing.

Allen hooked both of Kanda's legs over his right arm – ignoring his protests, and looped his broken right arm around his neck, supporting him the same as Kanda had him when he was wounded. Kanda wasn't that heavy, but he knew that carrying him for more than a few miles would be trouble.

"Going somewhere, Allen-kun?" The voice stopped him in his tracks. A cold voice, one that did not seem to hide its loathing. Could the Noah really have recovered from that strong of a hit so quickly?

_Run, run, run._ His mind chanted. But he knew he couldn't. He would just have to talk his way out of it – or hurt the Noah.

"Home." He said quietly. Kanda was as stiff as a board in his arms. "I know that I can't fight you, Noah-san, so I'm not going to turn around and face you. If you will go so lows as to attack someone who is walking away from you, there will be no forgiveness for you when you meet your end." Kanda blinked up at the boy who spoke those words so surely, his face perfectly calm. He had to give him some credit – saying something like that took guts.

The Noah laughed lightly behind them, though it was not an amused sound. "You're a brave boy, I'll give you that Allen Walker. And for that reason, I do not want to kill you so quickly. So tell me this before I let you go," He could hear that the man had shifted behind him, but he was not about to turn around and find out how. "The man you are holding in your arms, does he mean so much to you?"

_That's an odd question to ask an enemy._

"I would die for him," He whispered back. "And he would die for me."

Kanda's felt his heart give a flutter when he heard those words. It was true. He would die for Allen without a second thought, but why, when Allen said it, did it sound like it meant more than anything else? Why did it sound like they were more important than the world? Any why did it make him smile to hear it?

"You're both fools then." Uri said flatly. "And you are never going to save the world." He left them there on that unhappy note, facing away from him, ready to walk forward. He hated it. Why did they all have to be good people? Why couldn't they have been horrible, evil, corrupted?

_Because that's what you are, Uri. You're the evil here._

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"I don't care how much it doesn't hurt; you are going to the hospital."

"Listen to me Moyashi-kun, if you take me there, they are going to want to study me like a lab rat when I walk out perfectly healthy in three days."

"I don't care. Until you _are_ perfectly healthy, you need professional attention."

"Dammit, you're still not listening, _Moyashi-kun_."

"I very well am. God, you could stand to lose some weight, Kanda."

"Please, don't call me God, _Mo-ya-shi-kun_."

Allen couldn't take it anymore. At every corner Kanda was calling him by his pet name, almost as if he _wanted_ to be molested in an ally while most of his bones were broken. So instead he just leaned his neck down and pulled Kanda's shoulders closer, the better to lay a soft kiss on those bruised lips.

He wasn't expecting it to be much of anything, just a casual kiss to make Kanda agree to treatment, nothing more. What he got was a kiss like none before it, a kiss that drew him in and made him thirst for more, hunger for the Kanda's warmth. He lost track of where his tongue was, whether he was being kissed or if he was kissing, if he was standing on a street corner or just falling into Kanda, melting like the winter snow in spring. His knees buckled. Kanda's left hand touched the back of his neck gently, caressing the baby fine hairs there, sending shivers down his spine.

When they parted, Allen would have given his right arm to be somewhere besides an empty street in Ange. Somewhere he could do that again without fear of being seen.

"Che," Kanda groaned. "Still taking me to the hospital, Moyashi?"

Allen frowned down at him, the gears in his mind turning behind his face. "But… I can't… we can't… you're hurt."

So many protests, so few words to express them.

"I'll be fine unless you throw a dresser on me."

Allen laughed. "Alright then," He smiled crookedly. "We'll go to the inn I found, call the Order, and have some time to ourselves."

Kanda rolled his eyes as if disappointed. _Calling the Order can wait._ He thought in annoyance, but he grinned to himself anyways. After all, he could wait. Even if his bones were not done healing, even if every movement he made and every kiss he gave caused him agony, he would still have the opportunity to do so, and that thought made him glad. And the words of one damned Noah weren't going to change that. Ever.

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**So… if you can't guess from the ending… there shall be more fluff soon! Amusing fluff, confused Uri, sad Sable, and dramadramadrama! But hey! It's still happy…ish…**

**Also, I'm thinking of changing the summary of this story a tad, though I'm not sure how. So if you can give me some ideas… that would be fantabulous! **


	13. Awkwardness and Love

**Hello world! It's Niamh again, leaving you an author's note… I noticed when I read through my last few chapters and I realized that I called Ange Goteborg twice… my bad. You can most likely find it and see where I mean if you look. Also, I'm sorry! My typos are SO BAD! I pledge that I shall search for them better for now on :D**

**Disclaimer of Damn: Yes. I have fallen so low as to use 'damn' as a disclaimer word. I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… there would be awkward conversations like the one you are about to read.**

**WARNING: There is a man. There is another man. There is touching. That's right, there's man-lovin'.**

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Awkwardness and Love

Kanda lay on the bed frowning at Allen, trying not to say something astoundingly teasing while someone important was on the phone. The way that the younger Exorcist was responding in nothing but short answers made him think that it might have been Komui. He was wrong.

"So… have you two kissed each other yet?" Lenalee asked excitedly in Allen's ear. He wanted to tell her everything, every detail, but Kanda was sitting right there, frowning at him. He could not exactly go off on how their last kiss had shaken the foundation of the world without causing Kanda to maul him regardless of wounds.

"Yes, a few times." He answered vaguely. _It's my new favorite hobby._

Lenalee made a sound that meant she thought it was adorable. "I'm sure you two are so cute together! I can't wait until you get back to the Order so I can take pictures! I can just imagine, him leaning on you because he's so much taller, you reclining into him… ah! I feel inspired!"

"Aren't you taking this a bit far…"

She giggled. "They're just pictures, Allen-kun. I'm not starting a fan club."

_Right. I bet you're making a members' list right now._ "Of which I'm glad."

"Ah! One more question." She became suddenly silent, almost as if she were afraid to ask. Allen felt his mouth go dry just from the stillness.

"Yes?"

"Who's the _seme_?"

Allen literally felt his heart stop beating in his chest. How could she…why did she…how could he…was she really _that_ interested in their sex life? Was that really something that people thought about? And…and… _why_ did she care? Furthermore, did she seriously think that Allen was that easy – or _Kanda_ was that easy – to have gone that far already? It hadn't even been a month yet! That was not enough time to have grown _that_ close. Allen was _not_ Cross!

"No one."

"What?!"

"No one, yet. I mean." His voice was so quiet Kanda couldn't hear him talking, but he could plainly see the vibrant blush that had spread across his face like a wildfire. Kanda thought that was a nice look on him – it made him look pure at heart.

"Oh," She sounded disappointed. "Be sure to tell me when you two figure it out!"

_Right. I'll do that after I find and tell Kanda's mother._ "I will if I can."

"Che, what's taking so long Moyashi-kun?" Kanda asked softly. "Does Komui really have that much to say about what's going on?"

"Oh," Lenalee said at last. "And Nii-san says to wait on getting the Innocence until the others have caught up with you. Just in case the Noah is still around."

"Understood."

"Have fun Allen-kun! And tell Kanda-san that I said hello."

"I will. Goodbye." He went to hang up the phone but Kanda stopped him.

"Oi, ask if Lavi's there." Kanda's expression was still that cold glare, but Allen thought he saw something else in those eyes. It was like he sincerely hoped the red head would be around to talk to, which was different.

"Oh! Len-er-Komui!" Allen stuttered into the phone. Curses directed at that first syllable that had slipped out of his mouth floated through his mind, growing fouler and fouler as Kanda's glare grew curious. "Kanda wants to know if Lavi is there."

Lenalee's voice took on a slightly more serious quality when she spoke. "Komui? Oh, is he in the room with you?"

"Yes."

"Ah, well Lavi and Sable are the ones coming to meet you. I guess she didn't tell Kanda that when they were on the phone a few days back." She paused for a moment before she continued. "Come to think of it, they should be arriving in Sweden today."

"Oh good, Kanda won't have wait long then." Allen smiled. He had a vague idea that maybe Kanda wasn't just going to tell Lavi about them but also going to ask some questions – because if Kanda knew as much as Allen and Lenalee did, Allen was convinced that he'd have lost what remained of his innocence a few days ago. And then Allen would have been able to give her a real answer. "I'll talk to you later then."

Kanda watched Allen hang up the phone and sighed disappointedly. So Lavi was away on some mission and Kanda would have no one to ask the infinitesimal, prodding questions that he needed to ask. It wasn't as if Allen would know the answers – not that he would even _think_ of asking – so what was he supposed to do until the knowledgeable Bookman was there for him to interrogate? Suffer?

As if in answer to his questions Allen looked at him with half-hooded eyes, ran his tongue across the edge of his lip slowly. _I wonder if he realizes how seductive that is…_

Allen watched the color of Kanda's face go from normal to blushing in the matter of a half second. _All I have to do is look at him and he's about ready to jump me, broken bones and all._ Oh how he wanted to laugh evilly. If it took three days for Kanda to get better, they were going to be three long days – and hopefully making those days so long would make him get better faster. Fast enough to get something done before Sable and Lavi showed up.

"Lavi and Sable should be here tomorrow." He spoke in a tone that was almost sad sounding. "If they don't encounter any bad weather."

Kanda's face visibly brightened. _Oh good, I can tell him and ask questions when he gets here. Though…I assume things like that will be…loud… hmm… I wonder if he'd room separately…_

Allen watched Kanda's thoughts migrate from his brain to his face and back again, his stoic mask all but forgotten now. Allen sat on the edge of the bed so that he could look at that pristine ivory face, the soft dark eyes, his loose ebony tresses. Sure, Allen could make Kanda blush by making a face at him, but Kanda could make Allen blush just by being. He wound his right hand up in the covers while studied the thoughts on Kanda's face and attempted to organize his own.

He had almost lost that face, those eyes, that condescending smirk. A Noah had almost killed Kanda – would have killed Kanda – and Allen would never have been able to see him make that face again. Or touch his skin. Or see him smile. Or see him laugh. Or listen to him call him moyashi. Or anything. He never would have been able to tell him how much he cared, how much he would give just to see Kanda happy. It wasn't as if he hadn't known that Kanda could die before, it was just that he had not realized what that meant.

Losing him would be like losing half of his soul.

"Why are you looking at me like that, Moyashi-kun?" Kanda cocked an elegant eyebrow at him, thus increasing his seducing powers by ten fold. Allen knew that if he weren't about to fall apart, he'd be tearing him to shreds.

Instead he leaned forward and laid his lips gently on Kanda's, with just enough force for them both to know that they were touching. "Because…" He felt the burning of tears behind his eyes and fought them back. He was not going to cry in front of Kanda, he wasn't going to. He wasn't weak like that. Kanda would call him weak for it too, he knew. "Because…" He was going to.

Kanda could not take it. He reached up with his more or less healed left arm and took the younger boy around the shoulders, drawing him into a tight, semi-horizontal embrace. The smaller Exorcist sobbed into his shoulder, tears fell into Kanda's hair as Allen slowly lost control of the emotions that had been turning within him. Kanda did not care though. He just pulled Allen closer. He understood why Allen was crying to an extent, because he had felt something similar when he had nearly killed him with Mugen's blade. He had wanted, somewhere in his heart, to give up any part of himself if it meant that Allen would have been alright, though he had not realized it then. The difference here was that Allen knew, and the fact that that willingness to sacrifice himself truly meant nothing in the end scared him more than anything else ever could.

Kanda wondered if he would cry too, if their roles had been reversed.

He spoke in a soft, gentle voice as he ran his hand through Allen's hair and leaned his head against his, speaking soothing phrases. He felt that they still were not close enough, even if he could feel Allen's heartbeat against his chest; they never could be close enough.

"Kanda," Allen wept quietly.

"Hm?"

"I think I got snot in your hair."

Kanda grinned out of the side of his mouth and placed his right hand on Allen's head, even if it hurt him. He hoped that it said the words he was not yet able to speak aloud. Just thinking it sent a silent tear running down his cheek and into Allen's hair.

_It's alright Allen,_ _I...love you, too._

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"It's complicated," Sable sighed, holding the rag to her face. Lavi was far more open to her than she thought he'd be, but then again he was a Bookman – it wasn't his place to condemn her and call her traitorous by nature.

He smiled at her and poured them each a cup of tea – when the cook had heard that Sable was hurt he'd been more than happy to provide them with it. "It's alright; we've got an hour yet until we get to shore."

She smiled and thanked him for the tea, just as normal as she had ever been. "Well then… where should I start?" She tried to look at him as if she weren't at all disconcerted by this, as if she were perfectly willing to be straight forward about everything. It wasn't true. She wanted to have her secrets and keep them too, but that wasn't about to happen.

"The beginning sounds good to me," He took up his seat on the bunk bed and tried to look like he wasn't frightened out of his mind.

She sighed. "Well, you already know that Uri and I are twins," She spun the cup in her hand without drinking it. "But… why we're twins isn't normal."

"How so?"

"Before we were born…" She shook her head, that wasn't a good way to explain it. "We… weren't supposed to be twins. But my Innocence made us into two people. A Noah cannot be an Exorcist and an Exorcist cannot be a Noah, so the parts of us that were compatible with the Innocence became me, and the parts of us that were a Noah became Uri." She looked up at him, her green eyes catching the lamplight like emeralds. "You follow?"

Lavi nodded slowly. It made sense, though he wasn't exactly sure how it would work. "But, if that's true, why do you have the marks?"

So this was the part that made her want to tell him that it was none of his business. "Some of what was Noah did not become Noah, and some of what was supposed to be Exorcist did not become Exorcist. So…"

"You're part Noah." He said flatly.

"And he's partially compatible with my Innocence." Sable nodded.

Lavi frowned at that. If she was part Noah, then… did that give her any of the superhuman abilities that the Noah had? And if did, why hadn't she told Komui that she had them? "So what does that mean? I mean, you're obviously still good, still normal, still…you."

She almost wanted to thank him for saying that. "I might seem normal but I'm not. Neither is Uri."

He gave her the look that meant that she wasn't explaining anything.

"One of my brother's powers –" It sounded very odd to her to say that – "Has to do with seeing the thoughts that are at the forefront of someone's mind, the things that linger there in the light of your focus. I have the opposite talent. I can see the latent things, the hidden truths, the dark secrets people hide even from themselves. I try not to look too deeply at people, for fear that I will awake whatever part of me is… like them."

It made sense. Sable had been analytical from the beginning, able to get along with even _Kanda_ at their first meeting. No one who was normal could have done that. But she did not abuse her gift, she did not give people away, she did not harm anyone or claim to know things or even make awkward jokes with it. She was good. She always had been.

And then an idea struck him.

"Sable-chan," His suddenly blank expression made her worry that whatever was on his mind was something dark. "Was it that power that caused you to have me write that poem for Kanda?"

She laughed a real laugh, not a twisted, sadistic laugh or a false one. "I said that I _try_ not to use it, not that I _don't_." And the smile that went with her confession was just as well meaning as the rest of her.

_She's fine._ He concluded. _Nothing Noah about her._

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Kanda sneezed violently and with a suddenness that ruined the romantic moment they had been sharing. Allen blinked up at him with an expression that was half amusement and half disgust.

"Kanda."

"Hm?" He wiped at his nose with one of his fingers.

"I think you got snot in my hair."

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**Heeheehee! I just love the two of them together! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! So cute! Ah. I totally want to write more fluff… the urge… must not – deny – the urge.**

**What did you think? I'll never know unless you tell me… love and bubbles to my reviewers! **


	14. The Awkwardness of Love

**Niamh loves reviews, she really does. And the more you give her, the more she wants to write the M-rated sequel to this – but that will only happen when this is done.**

**Which it is not. Yet.**

**I'm sorry if this feels shorter than normal, it's not really that short, just has a lot of big blocks of stuff. Sorry… I get carried away…**

**Disclaimer of Defeatism: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…there would be more thought bubbles. Dirty ones.**

**WARNING: THIS FIC CONTAINS SOME SERIOUS NEAR MAN-LOVIN' AND SOME BAD JOKES. . **

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The Awkwardness of Love

"Che, don't be stupid, Moyashi."

"I'm not being stupid, I'm being safe."

"Get your ass up here before I come get it."

"I said no."

"And I said yes, _Moyashi-kun_."

Kanda had him with that word and he knew it. Perhaps it was the masochistic part of Allen that refused to go against the silent agreement he had made with himself. He had wanted to sleep on the floor to avoid hurting Kanda further, but the other man seemed hell-bent on getting him in bed, even if he had to play dirty to do it. Allen didn't mind playing dirty though, because that was what he was good at. So if Kanda _really_ wanted him in bed, he'd just take off all of his clothes or something awkward like that. Not that that would cause him to die blushing or anything.

Allen had had to talk him out of taking a bath with him also – though he had to admit that it was tempting. He promised himself that if Kanda was well enough to stand without pain in the morning, they'd get what remained of the flaking snot in their hair out together.

"Dammit Kanda, you know I'll kick you or something."

"Che, you're legs are so small, it wouldn't even matter if you did." There was a lilting note of humor in his voice that made Allen seriously want to kick him. Well, seriously, but not severely. He wanted to be teasing back, really, but it was late, he was tired, there was just no beating Kanda at word games anymore. At first Allen had been surprised that Kanda could argue so well, could twist his words to mean something they normally did not – but then he remembered; Lavi was his best friend. Lavi was odd enough to spend hours in the library writing for his own amusement.

Allen pushed himself from the make-shift bed he had made on the floor so he could glower up at the dark figure that resided on the bed. Sure, he understood that this was perhaps their last chance to cuddle without anyone knowing, but Kanda seemed almost…almost…

_Ah! Don't even think the word, Allen. Don't. Even. Think it._

"I'm not doing anything with you if I get in that bed."

"Che, sleeping isn't anything, is it?"

There wasn't even a shred of honesty in his statement. Allen sighed. Well, if Kanda _did_ start something, Allen would finish it. He would not begin anything that would leave either on of them sore in the morning, but if it happened, it happen – _que será, será_ as they say and all that. Allen tried to make a habit of taking things as they came, so if Kanda was going to—

_Ah, such thinking will be the death of me._ He cringed, as he traveled the three steps to the bed, mentally beating myself for imagining Kanda in the throes of passion. But beating himself for it just made him think of it again and the cycle continued until a pair of well muscled arms took him by the shoulders and pulled him onto the mattress with a yelp. It was hard to think of anything but the moment when Kanda was holding him.

"I thought your arm was broken," Allen almost cooed at Kanda.

"Che, it was. Forearms do not have very thick bones; they heal quickly." He explained, pulling the younger boy under the covers with him. He smiled into the darkness when he felt Allen's bare chest touch his momentarily, the breath caught in his throat momentarily at the contact.

Allen shivered lightly as he settled so that he was facing the older man, their heads fit perfectly on the pillow beside each other so long as Kanda reclined against the headboard a little. He found it strange that the two of them fit so well together, found it amazing that when he found himself leaning in to place his lips momentarily on Allen's the boy was leaning back at him. They met somewhere in the middle afterward, a place that let Kanda lay his head on Allen's and wrap his arms about his shoulders while they were comfortable, Allen placed his head in the warm place under Kanda's neck.

After a few moments of lying silently in the dark, Kanda's fingers found there way to Allen's chest where they brushed ever so lightly against his skin. It was hard for him to explain why he wanted that contact, but he did. Partly it had to do with how Allen had cried on him, that glowing emotion that filled his chest when he thought about how much he meant to Allen and how much Allen meant to him. He wanted to show Allen what that meant to him. It was more important than anything he had ever known. He felt that he had to convey Allen's worth to him, had to touch him in order let him know. He wanted to somehow prove through contact that he… that he…

"I love you."

The words were so quiet Allen wasn't even sure that he'd heard them. His mind was suddenly a blank slate of nothingness, his hands felt suddenly cold. It was not as if he had not expected this – indeed he had been somewhat hopeful to one day hear those words – but it still shook him. His breath burned in his lungs but they refused to function; his eyes would not blink in the stillness. For a moment that felt like an eternity he could not even bring himself to ask if Kanda had said that fateful phrase.

Kanda could not believe it. He had wanted to _think_ it, not _say_ it. Being caught _saying_ was far worse than being caught _touching_ or _staring_ as far as he was concerned. Silence permeated their small room like a thick fog, filling every corner of the room with agonizing slowness. An inexplicable pain blossomed in his chest in the quiet; his fingers shivered against Allen's skin, the contact was the only thing that let him know that the younger Exorcist was even there.

After what might have been a full minute, Allen found his voice in the darkness. "I'm glad." He pushed himself closer; Kanda's palm was flat against his chest, the fingers shaking like leaves in the wind.

"Glad?"

He nodded even if Kanda couldn't see him. "Because I love you too," His hands came up and took hold of his lover's face, gently as a second hand joined the first on his flesh. "I didn't think it would happen this fast, but now that it—" Kanda kissed him fearlessly, his lips pressed hotly against Allen's. At that moment, he gave up on self-control. As Allen arranged himself so that he straddled the older Exorcist, his right hand holding Kanda's face, his left losing itself in his silky hair, Kanda pulled him still closer, his mouth finding the hollow of Allen's neck when their lips parted.

A knock came at the door.

Allen moaned.

The door burst open.

In the moment it took for the two half naked men on the bed to turn questioningly, there was a small gasp.

"Ah! My eye!" A suitcase bashed into the smooth oak floor as the black clad haired man who had intruded on them clutched at his face in feigned despair. "It's burning! Ah! My last eye!" His red hair flailed about as he stepped back in mock fright, running himself into the door frame and tripping himself on his fallen luggage. When his bottom came into contact with the floor, he gave up on faking blindness and his hands fell from the eye that was not already covered with an eye patch.

Slowly, Allen looked at Kanda. Kanda blinked blankly at Lavi.

"Er…a…" Lavi attempted to chime as he came to his feet. "I…ugh…I'll room with Sable-chan!" He managed to smile despite his ridiculous blush that shone in the hallway light. He reached in to take hold of the door knob.

"Lavi," Allen blinked at him, not moving from Kanda's hips. "We're not – it's not – we haven't –"

"Che," Kanda interrupted him. "Did we _tell_ you to open the door, _Baka Usagi_."

Lavi nodded without actually looking at either one of them. "I… heard a groan and… I was worried about Yuu… so I…"

"Wait, your boat was only supposed to arrive today, how come you're… here?" Allen still had not moved from his place, but he managed to make the question sound polite regardless.

Lavi grinned as if had forgotten the awkwardness of the situation. "Ah, we had favorable winds and Lloyd – who I heard that you met – got us tickets on an express train. We weren't supposed to get here until—"

"Che, we know when you were _supposed_ to get here, baka. Now do us all a favor and show up _then_."

"Yuu-chan, where am I supposed to sleep?" Lavi whined.

"Call me by my given name again and I'll kill you. Now _leave._" Kanda seethed. Allen looked from one to the other; amazed that they could argue so naturally when he was sitting up on Kanda's hips, just moments from coaxing himself into a good time.

"But Yuu-chan! I can't seriously room with—"

"Lavi," Allen's voice was low and serious, though his tone was as polite as it ever had been. "Will you please just give us a moment alone together?"

Lavi swallowed hard. Sable's plan had worked like a dream. And now that the initial shock was over and he could see that Yuu was still Yuu and Allen was still Allen, he wanted nothing more than to just find a place to sleep where it was warm and he would not hear anything. Nothing. Sure, he had helped this to happen, but if he heard someone moaning like that again, he was going to kill himself. Sure, he was a Bookman. He was supposed to be cold and indifferent and whatnot, but he still had feelings and urges like any other guy his age – like the urge to be loved –, and listening to his best friend and his most innocent companion doing each other wasn't exactly going to do much for his deprived state.

"Alright, alright," He sighed, picked up his luggage. "I'll see if there's an extra room and you two can explain…this in the morning." The way Allen smiled at him – like this was normal and he had not been about to molest Kanda – made him want to vomit. It was too much. That kid could hide his innermost thoughts better than was natural; sometimes to the point where it seemed liked he wasn't hiding anything at all. When the door closed behind him, he sighed to himself. "Aw well, she'll find out in the morning."

"Are we going to keep going, Moyashi?" Kanda whispered when Lavi was gone.

Allen titled his head and looked down at the Japanese man, grinning. "No."

"Che! But you've got me all—"

"Do you remember the train?"

Kanda frowned at him, wondering what on Earth he meant. "Yes…"

"Consider this payback." He plopped himself down on the mattress and snuggled close to Kanda, his Kanda, but that was all he was going to do. Lavi had ruined the moment.

"That's hardly fair."

"Life's not fair, now shut up. I'm tired."

Kanda sighed but didn't argue. He could be happy with cuddling. For now.

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Sable and Allen stuffed their faces at breakfast, their companions watching as plate after plate after plate of food vanished into their mouths. Unlike _The Sow Side Log_ the inn was rather ritzy, and it offered an extensive menu that – to Kanda's secret delight – included soba.

Lavi watched Kanda and Allen carefully, attempting to see what exactly had changed between them. Kanda still called Allen _moyashi_, Allen still tried to make Kanda take it easy so soon after breaking so many bones, Kanda still called him an idiot, Allen still frowned at that. But one thing was obviously different, and that was Kanda's smile. Instead of glowering at every turn and glaring death at every occasion, he would allow himself to grin at things – a beautiful grin that transcended almost all other grins before it. If Lavi hadn't known better, he would have labeled Kanda as a strike.

And then, when the plates were cleared, there came the acting.

Lavi wanted answers. Kanda knew that he had to give them. He hoped that Allen didn't care that Sable was also about to know everything.

"So…" The red head tapped the table with his fingers, trying to be subtle. "Does Yuu-chan want to explain what I walked in on last night?"

Kanda looked at him with an emotionless expression, his dark eyes seeming to suck the light out of the room. His explanation was not going to be pretty. "Che, do you want to explain, _Moyashi-kun_?"

"Hm?" Allen just turned to look at him, but the eyebrow Kanda raised told him what he needed to know. He had called him that on purpose. "Oh, right," He smiled sweetly, then leaned in to kiss him ever so lightly on the lips – but that wasn't enough for Kanda. He deepened it until there was no lying about their intentions toward each other.

Lavi blinked. Sable scratched at the headband that ran across her forehead.

"Any questions?" Kanda asked, twining is hand in Allen's. Allen's heart was beating fast, but that was all he could feel. This made him happy, this proclamation of what had happened between them, and he leaned his head on Kanda's shoulder just to show that it did.

"Yeah," Lavi stuttered. "When? Why? How?" _I'm a wonderful actor if I do say so myself._

Allen laughed. "That thing that he doesn't talk about after he accidentally hit me with his sword. Because we care, and we have no idea how, really." He shrugged from his perch. "You're not… disgusted or anything are you?"

Lavi's eye grew round at that. So it was the curse? That made sense. But how could he ever be disgusted by either of them? "It might sound odd, but I think you're cute – don't kill me Yuu-chan! Allen makes it cute!" He cowered in fear, knowing that Mugen would be coming his way at any moment. Instead, Kanda brandished a fork at him – being Allen was holding the arm he used to draw his sword.

"I have a question." Sable spoke up for the first time, still looking somewhat indifferent about the whole business. Allen could have sworn that she had some latent psychic ability that kept her from experiencing surprise or something. "Who's the _seme_?"

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**And another chapter is completed! Woo! If you can't tell, **_**The Fine Line**_** is slowly coming to a close, but it has a bit more life in it left. I plan on writing a semi-smutty sequel, so you don't have to worry too much. :D**

**Thoughts? Requests? Ideas to keep it going before it absolutely has to be rated-M? Tengo nada en mi mente, lo siento. And if you missed it the first 27 times, I LOVE reviews! You people make me want to write all day long **


	15. Prank

**Yo! Niamh again (who else would it be?) dropping an A/N. Just a friendly reminder… Ilovereveiwssoooomuchtyvmforgivingthemtome! And, being you may have forgotten, the last line in the previous chapter was 'Who's the seme?'**

**Disclaimer of Deterrence: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I wouldn't need a disclaimer.**

**WARNING: EVEN MORE MAN-ON-MAN ACTION! And the word 'rape'.**

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Prank

"The what?"

"Ah…er… we haven't talked about it."

"The _what_?"

"We might have, if not for Lavi…"

"I—I'm sorry!"

"_The what_?"

"Oh, that's too bad. Be sure to tell me when you figure it out. I have money on it."

"What?! With who?!"

"Who," Kanda's voice refused to be ignored further. "Is_ the what_?"

Allen looked up at his lover with an expression half composed of embarrassment and half formed of amusement. He had never thought of Kanda as a sweet, innocent young man, but really that's what he was. He had no clue what he had almost experienced the night before. He thought about it for a moment, mulling over how to explain such a thing without dying of giggles on the spot.

He leaned up and spoke directly in his ear. "She wants to know who…who…"

"Yes, Moyashi, I got the _who_ part."

_He's either going to rape me when I say this or kill Sable._ "Does what." He could feel the blush growing on his face and spreading to his neck. _Why_ it was so impossible to explain it he could not say – he would have had no problem at all showing him the night before. "As in…who…leads…"

Kanda seemed to understand what that meant, because he smiled a little and whispered delicately in Allen's ear, "Then wouldn't you say that as of now, that's you?"

Allen almost fainted. It was true though. He generally stopped things before they went too far, generally started things to make them go too far, knew more about not hurting Kanda than Kanda would know about not hurting him. It made him giggle fiercely just to think about wearing the pants in their relationship, but it seemed that fate would have it that way until his lover was better educated – or educated at all.

Sable raised an eyebrow at the two, curious as to why they would be talking in such hushed voices. Poor Kanda. The farthest thing from his mind was the thing Allen was thinking about most – and just gleaning that information made her want to stand up and just _tell_ him flat out. _Oh well,_ she sighed, scratching at her headband once more, _I guess Lenalee owes me some money when I get back to the Order, even if these two don't realize why._

Lavi waited until the two of them were done blushing cutely at each other before he struck up the conversation again, this time seriously. "Did you two get a hold of the Innocence while you were traversing Sweden? Which was against orders, I might add."

"Che, I was told to stay with Allen until he recovered. After that, we went ahead with the mission, baka. None of that is against orders." Kanda was glaring at him, just like normal, his deep sapphire eyes narrowed to slits. He really was the old Yuu.

Lavi shrugged. "Fine, you found a loophole. But still, did you get it?"

Kanda grew very quiet suddenly while Allen's flicked back and forth from empty plate to empty plate, seeming to not want to say something. Sable had the sudden feeling that maybe; just maybe it had been…

"Kanda was attacked by a Noah. I told Lenalee about it when I called the Order. I had never seen this one before; I don't even understand what he did exactly." Unconsciously Allen's hand tightened around Kanda's, Kanda's fingers responded in kind. "But he knew my name even without seeing my face."

Sable visibly tensed beside Lavi. Gently, fearfully, she touched the cloth that covered her forehead, her wide eyes unblinking. She knew. There was only one man who could steal another's name without someone telling him. "What did he do?" She asked, to be certain. If it was Uri she would never forgive him. Her hands shook at the idea of him trying to harm her friends.

Kanda gradually made himself answer, his expression hard. It was obvious that he did not enjoy retelling the tale. "He broke both of my legs and my right arm with nothing but his hands. He could tell what I was thinking just by touching my forehead."

Sable thought that she was going to vomit. Her eyes fell on Lavi, her mouth opened and her complexion grew pallid. "It's him. It's Uri. He didn't think I'd know. He didn't know." There were tears in her emerald eyes that made them sparkle like gems. "That fool. Now I have to kill him. I have to. There is no redemption. That fool." She laid her hand across her face as the tears began to fall down her cheeks. "I'm so stupid."

Allen blinked questioningly at her for a moment as Lavi placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Kanda stoically averted his gaze.

"The Noah you described," Lavi tried not to look worried or freighted by the words, "Is Sable's brother."

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Once everyone was filled in on exactly how and why Sable's sibling was on the other side of the war, they turned their attention to the task at hand: finding the Innocence regardless of who stood in their way.

Lavi found it nice that Kanda and Allen were not constantly connected at the lips while strategizing. They could function without touching each other if need be, though they seemed to like it more if they were in contact. There was something odd about it that made him smile. He was glad that they held hands, exchanged suggestive glances, but did not go so far as to publicly display their flamboyancy with anything more than small kisses and smaller hugs. If they had, he might have been jealous beyond reason.

The four at long last came to the conclusion that splitting up was not something that should be done – separately they would have no chance against a Noah – but it seemed exceedingly inefficient to move as one large group. So Sable and Lavi headed off together while Kanda and Allen set out, walking in the same direction on opposite sides of the street. It was then that Sable and an idea she knew would make her partner laugh, because his slow descent into depression was almost palpable.

"Oi, Lavi," She said quietly.

"Hm?" He didn't look at her. He was just watching his feet as the sloshed across the snowy street. He felt happy for them, but he didn't feel like being happy for them. _What is this?_ He thought darkly, _How come I feel like groaning?_

"Wanna play a prank on the lover boys?" Sable's tone was far too enthusiastic. He looked at her from the corner of his eye and caught her grinning one of those evil looks that made him wonder if she really wasn't evil. Her teeth might have been fanged ever so slightly when she made that face.

"What kind of prank?" He almost looked frightened to her, but she knew that it was going to be hilarious even if it scared him out of his wits. If fact, it would be even more fun if it did.

Kanda watched out of the corner of his eye as Sable took hold of Lavi's hand and leaned into him, her great green eyes shining up as he blushed at her. He frowned at them, unsure exactly what to think about how they were acting, even more unsure about how Lavi was slowly looking more and more amused by his arm accessory. As far as Kanda knew the only person Lavi had ever been attracted to – for their personality and no their hot older body – was Lenalee, and he had always been more than against admitting his feelings to her, ever. Yet his elegant expression was not one he wore for any purpose besides seduction.

"Oi, Moyashi," Kanda turned to the boy who was walking beside him.

"Yes, Love?" Allen chimed grinningly. Kanda had never heard him call him that before, and the named coupled with the British accent almost killed him. The blood went to his face in a rush, lingered there for a moment before traveling elsewhere. "Heehee! Kanda, I made you blush!" Allen smiled from ear to ear, almost as if this were his greatest feat since becoming and Exorcist.

"Shut up. Have you noticed Sable and Lavi?" His question prompted the younger Exorcist to glance at the two of them.

"They seem…"

"Too happy?"

"To be normal, yes." He blinked at the pair for a few minutes, wondering what could be going on. While he watched Kanda turned away, and Lavi winked at him. _Oh…this could be fun._ "Kanda," He looked down at his feet as they plodded through the snow – failing at looking innocent. "Do me a favor and kiss me really fast."

"What?"

"It's just an experiment."

Kanda was seriously frowning at him, but he did as instructed anyways, just hardly brushed his lips against Allen's as they walked. Allen glanced over to see Lavi graze Sable's just a little harder. _Oh, this _will_ be fun._

Sable giggled as Lavi blushed like a tomato. "Stop any time you think your purity isn't worth the joke," She said softly.

"Are you kidding?" He cocked an eyebrow at her, "I'll think of it as practice." She laughed.

Allen tightened his grip on Kanda's hand and smiled. This was a competition. They would hold hands if Allen and Kanda touched each other, they would kiss just an instant longer if Allen and Kanda kissed – so he was going to beat them with the royal straight flush of moves.

With strength a stranger might not have thought he possessed he turned Kanda with his weight and slammed him against the nearest (thankfully brick) wall. The Japanese man's protests were drowned when the smaller boy pressed their lips together, not bothering with the formality of flicking his tongue to ask for entrance and instead plunging ahead without regard. Kanda's questioning hands made to push him back a little but Allen would have none of it. With a forcefulness Kanda had never had directed against him, Allen took hold of his jacket and pulled him closer, only press him back into the wall again with more frantic kissing. Kanda gave up fighting then. If Allen really wanted to kiss him randomly on a street corner, he wasn't going to stop him.

When fingers graced the fabric of his pants, toying with the waistband, he had to call a stop to it. "Allen." He attempted to say, but then his collarbone was under fire and he was wondering when his coat had come open that much. _If there were people on this street, I'd kill him._

"Not now," He said back, finding Kanda's mouth again.

_Self-control!_ Kanda's mind screamed.

_I don't need it!_ It screamed back.

"St-stop." He took the flushed boy by the shoulders and held him at arms length, breathing hard. If it had gone on for a moment longer it would have gone on for an hour. "What are you trying to do? Drive me insane? You do that again, I swear…"

Allen just grinned at him idiotically. His hands came up to his mouth as if to hide his snicker. "Sorry, I… just wanted to win."

"Win! What the hell are you talking about, baka! You would have _raped_ me if I hadn't stopped you!"

"You can't rape the willing, Love."

"Che! Don't give me that crap!" Kanda was blushing furiously, his voice breaking in the cold. "If you weren't so damn cute I'd…grrr…." But he couldn't really be angry. It _had_ been fun. And Allen just looked so…nice when he was being timid and only half-sorry. "What did you mean by winning anyway?"

"Look," He motioned with his head across the street.

"Fake it, Lavi! Fake it!" Sable chanted, pushing him toward the nearest wall.

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Sable-chan."

"Come on, it's not like you've never really been kissed before right?"

"Haha, yeah, I've been kissed – in my _dreams!_"

"Aw, Lavi, it'll be my greatest honor to—"

"No, no, no, let me think about this!"

"We're going to lose because you're afraid of girl-spit."

"I am _not_ afraid of girl-spit! I'm – I'm saving myself!"

Sable had Lavi held by the collar with something of hungry look on her face, he was pulling at her arm like an animal caught in the jaws of a predator. When he saw that Kanda and Allen were looking at them he grabbed the girl's face and turned it as well.

"You win Moyashi-chan!" He smiled. "It's not worth my purity!"

Sable dropped him into the snow and started walking. It had worked out more or less how she wanted – Lavi definitely wasn't moping anymore (indeed he was stuck between feeling violated and laughing at Kanda), and yet she smiled sadly to herself. _I guess that I am good,_ Lavi called for her to wait and she paused, looking up at the clouds high above them, threatening snow. _I just have an evil way of doing things._ And the thought made her smile.

Together and separately the four made their way out of town, calling dirty insults between them.

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**XD**

**Yay! Another chapter finished! I hope you liked it – though I must apologize for not going further with that little scene up there… I was so tempted… but they were in a street and they had an audience XP**

**Thank you so much for continuing to read and review! I shall do what I can to update tomorrow, but no promises – I have very busy Tuesdays.**


	16. Innocence

**This is long so I will keep the note short: sorry I'm late, sorry this is a crappy chappy, and sorry if I typoed. Essays and finals and whatnot eat my life.**

**Disclaimer of Detraction: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the action scenes would be hella lame.**

**WARNING: Violence and mild mild mild man-lovin'.**

Allen was more or less in full business mode after Lavi and Sable went on their way. He crouches low in the snow, once again getting his borrowed jack wet, as he examined the newly repaired railway. He could see the imprint of a human hand in the iron, as if the person who had lifted it had first pinched it to get a better hold. The fact that the Noah who had done such a thing had just walked away from him and Kanda worried him more than anything else. What could a Noah with that much power gain from walking away? Nothing.

The sun was not high enough for it to be noon but he knew the hour was fast approaching. That would give them perhaps eight hours of light, and then it would be too dark and too cold to search further. There were places he would rather have been than wandering about in the night searching for Innocence.

"Che, Moyashi," Kanda said in a voice reminiscent of the one he used to use. He sounded as if he too were thinking of nothing but what had to be done. "Look up there." He tilted his chin to indicate a slow moving train in the distance, clouds of hot steam roiling from its top. As he watched the train eased on its breaks, slowing only slightly. It seemed as though nothing odd was going to happen at all.

"What?" Allen could not see whatever it was that he was looking for. Just a train.

"Wait for it." Kanda was more patient, even if his tone was the same.

The train slowed yet again but this time something went horribly wrong. The iron beneath it seemed to ripple suddenly as the earth around it wavered momentarily, almost as if it did not completely exist. After a moment a great, green-brown reptilian head lifted itself from that non-existent dirt and lunged at the approaching engine, teeth as big as Allen shredding the metal with ease. The creature's eyes opened in the light, and they burned a deep purple that belonged to no Innocence that Allen had ever seen. That shining glaze turned slowly away from its latest metallic victim and caught the two Exorcists' in its sights.

"Is that Innocence?" Allen asked, unwilling to move with those reptilian eyes on him. It was perhaps two miles away, but that would be nothing for something so large. The wedge shaped head turned downward so that its giant mouth gently touched the top of the snow.

Kanda shook his head. "Che, I have no idea."

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"Um… a really embarrassed Yuu-chan?" Lavi asked as they walked. He had his arms folded up behind his head like normal, and his demeanor had improved a thousand times since the morning. All it had taken was little prank and some encouragement and he was back to being enthusiastic about life again.

"It's _I Spy_, Lavi. I can't _see_ Kanda, so obviously it's not him." Sable sighed. He really did suck at her game. Just like the last game. The poor guy had no sense of logic when it came to such things.

"Oh… so it wouldn't be blood either…"

Sable was frowning at him, almost glaring. "It's your freakin' hair, idiot. There's nothing else that's red around here."

Lavi smiled at her with all of his teeth. "I know, but it's more fun if I actually _guess_." _And it's great to make people think I'm dense!_

She kicked a rather large pile of loose snow and watched as the dislodged flakes scattered on the gray pavement. She was happy, which was odd. Normally she wasn't happy unless she was looking into someone's mind, trying to figure them out, but it was different today. Feeling happy almost made her feel sad. _Perhaps Uri is having a bad day,_ She thought, thumbing the end of her cold, cold nose. It seemed somewhat ironic to her that she would spend time to cheer up Lavi but he would not seem to notice her disheartened sate. She was like the dirty snow in the street; no one ever noticed it was gray unless they fell on it.

"Oi, aren't you going to guess?" Lavi prodded with a narrowed gaze.

Sable shrugged – she hadn't actually heard the clue he'd given. "Innocence, which you can't see, by the way."

"You read my mind didn't you?"

She smiled at him so that her face wrinkled up like a child's. "No, I just have talent. Come on, this looks like as good a place as any." She pointed at a nearby shop; the elderly keeper could be seen sweeping the snow from the inside, his old eyes focused. Someone like him would take note of local happenings, so his whatever information he could share seemed worth having.

_Talent_, Lavi shook his head. _If she calls that talent, the rest of us are ham-fisted children._

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"Ideas?" Allen glanced to Kanda when he saw that the thing wasn't looking away and wasn't disappearing. As he spoke the creature's talon like claws ripped out of the earth, shredding snow and dirt and metal like paper. Great gouts of dirt were flung high in the air as the thing wriggled its shoulders past the hole it had made; pulled its leathery wings into the frigid light.

"Che, kill it?"

"That does not sound like a good idea considering it's not –" Kanda blazed past him at a run, his hand on his sword, his black hair waving behind him like a cape. Allen sprang into step behind him, his feet working faster than his mouth. "Kanda! It's not a demon! Stop! We can't kill it!" But the Japanese man didn't seem to hear him. "Kanda!"

_I guess he does have a point,_ He thought as he ran, but his pace did not slow. "The Innocence is most likely _inside_ of it, baka. There's nothing else we _can_ do." _But even if he does, his point is moot._

It made Allen sad to think that Kanda was right about this. It made him even more sad when he saw that the creature – dragon, thing – followed them with it's eyes as if it knew what they were, as if it could _think_. Sentient things that contained Innocence were just depressing to destroy, even if they were soulless.

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"Uri, this may be the moment of your redemption."

"Or my damnation."

The man beside him laughed lightly. "Ah, such is the way someone like you would think."

"Someone like me isn't _supposed_ to think."

The smile in the other man's voice was not something he liked to hear. It made his skin crawl. "No, you are not but you still do. You feel too much for a Noah."

"I'm no _all_ Noah."

"Pity us all for that."

He grunted in annoyance. "If I _were_ all Noah that thing wouldn't be about kill those two. Besides, I thought your philosophy was pity no one."

The hand on his shoulder did not reassure Uri in the slightest. "There are some things that all humans feel," The hand squeezed slightly, just enough to be uncomfortable. "It is learning to rise above such feelings that make us superior."

_Then maybe… I don't want to be superior._

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Even before Allen could speak to it, the dragon attacked them. On closer inspection he realized that the green-brown scales were metallic, the fangs nothing but sharpened steel. It was a machine. A machine that could not think beyond killing.

Kanda's blade flashed in the sunlight, clanging noisily against the claws that the creature swung at him. A crowd had started to gather in order to see what had happened to the train, and their calls soon had the entire city filing out of their houses to see the mystical thing that had crawled out from the belly of the earth. Allen took up residence on an over turned crate, attempted to yell out of the gathered people that things were not safe, that they should turn back – but Kanda knew it was useless. People would not listen until someone or something died. It was how people were. Secretly they all wished for danger, all wanted to see something horrid.

They soon got their wish.

The street suddenly turned into a wash of black and twisted souls, screams of horror echoed from the tall buildings as any number of akuma filled the sky like clouds. There were too many. Allen would have no chance of slaying them all. For every one his eye located and his arm shot, two more would appear, killing the people in the street. Not one came at him.

"Kanda!" He called over his shoulder, blasting a rather ugly pair away from a younger girl and her mother.

"A little busy, dear." Kanda managed. The monstrosity was moving with a speed that seemed impossible for something so large, its deep purple eyes followed his every movement, and its hand-like forward appendages blocked every attack he posed. There was no winning with just his sword this time. He would have to do something more drastic.

"There are akuma everywhere, I can't kill them all!"

"Che, be there in a moment…" He leaped away from his prey to run his fingers over the edge of his blade, the words that evoke its power dancing on his lips.

A sudden pressure on his back stopped him mid phrase. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Kanda-san," The voice was eerily familiar; the hand on his back placed just so that he turned there would be no escaping whatever it intended. "That's no demon you're fighting."

"Get away from me or I'm going to kill you."

There was no mirth in the man's response, no sarcasm. "Please do, you'd save me the effort. Oh, drat, he's seen me. Do me a favor and survive this. So I can _help_ you."

"Help me? Che, then die where you stand Noah."

"Mmm, not really an option."

And then Kanda was flying.

Allen watched in horror as Kanda went hurtling across the snow, toward the akuma that wasn't an akuma. It looked like one, but lacked a soul in his eye. There was nothing he could do but watch as it lifted a talon at the man coming toward it, ebon nails aimed to kill or brutally maim. He felt himself moving slowly in the direction of it, his feet shifting as if to stop the inevitable once again, but this time he was too far – there was no way to stop Kanda from striking.

He struggled to get his legs out in front of him with his sword, but he managed. It was only on impact that he realized how much of a bad idea that had been. His still weakened bones crumbled under the pressure, his sword went through the creature's appendage but the creature's appendage also went through him. He saw rather than felt the claw that went into his right shoulder and came out his back, cutting bone and sinew, threatening the few fully functioning parts of him that he had left. The fingers of his right hand unwound themselves from Mugen's hilt as he hung there in the hand of his enemy, broken and useless.

"Kanda!" His name was echoed from two mouths at once as he was slammed to the ground, and pinned. _Well,_ he thought distantly, _I guess I should have listened to that 'taking it easy' thing Allen suggested. Che, hindsight _is_ always perfect._

"Yuu-chan!" Lavi screamed, slamming his hammer into the creature. Bookman's cold heart, logic, reason, fear, and pessimism be damned – he wasn't going to stand by while something killed his friend.

"Get him and go!" Sable called from the place he had left her on the street corner. "We'll come as soon as there is a 'we'!"

The old shop owner had been very liberal with his information – indeed the Finder that had come before them had been very unlucky not to hear his tale. Whenever a train came, a creature like none they had seen would come up from inside the Earth and destroy it, but it would always vanish directly after. Three times it had happened before the people started to disappear when they went looking for it. Those words had sent Sable and Lavi back to the others faster than the sound of gunfire ever could.

Sable closed her eyes and thought for a moment, calming herself long enough to imagine what she wanted to fight with. The Innocence in her forehead flashed beneath its cover as it absorbed the word she empowered it with. "Pyre," She said gently. A primal word for fire.

A stream of heat erupted passed Allen's face and the demon directly to his right vanished in a chaotic swirl of smoke and ash. He turned to see Sable with her hands out to either side, flames dancing from her fingertips as she felled her enemies with her words. He had never seen her fight before, though he had heard the rumors. Where his Innocence told his nerves what was needed to fight, hers informed her brain and then her brain told it what to do; in essence her thoughts became her weapon.

"C'mon!" She called when she saw him looking. "There are too many! We have to get out of here!"

"But the people—"

"Aren't going to live much longer if we keep knocking demons into their houses, let's _go!_" She took hold of his right jacket sleeve and tugged hair, leading him in no direction.

"Go where?!" He demanded, searching the increasingly muddled street for Kanda and Lavi, or maybe even just Kanda. _I couldn't have lost him again, could I?_

"There!" She pointed, but Allen did not have the chance to see. A falling slab of roof caught the back of his head before she could pull him to safety.

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Kanda felt like he had been run through with a pole. And then he remembered. He more or less had been.

"Yuu-chan's coming around!"

_Goddamn stupid rabbit! Has to talk so loud when my head feels like shit._

_Hmm… I'm in a mood._

"Che," He blinked opened his eyes to see a grinning face framed with wild red hair, a single green eye smiling at him like something out of a cheesy kids movie. "Where's the Moyashi?"

"Oh, yes Yuu-chan, I'm fine. No, it will heal with time, thanks for being concerned. And no, I don't think you're going to die, even if a _normal_ person would kick the bucket from all your wounds." Lavi smiled and nodded at him, pointing out the sling that held his left arm to his chest.

"Baka, how's Allen?" Kanda demanded again. _Obviously_ Lavi was fine; otherwise he wouldn't have been there to greet him on waking.

A slight rustling sound later and he had his answer. Allen's face came into view from the left, scrapped and battered but still better off than he'd expected. He looked tired, very tired, but otherwise healthy. His round silver eyes shown with a happiness that warmed Kanda's heart like nothing before, and made him want to reach up to touch that beautiful face and cradle it in his hands so he could never forget how happy it was. His left hand came up shakily; Allen caught it and pulled it to his face wordlessly.

"Ah, good." He grinned.

Allen snickered lightly at him as his hand came forward to stroke the hair away from Kanda's face, his palm was bandaged but his fingertips still connected with the other man's skin.

"Did you miss me, Love?"

"Ewww," Lavi feigned.

"Che, shut up, baka." Kanda glared without moving his head. "I was worried."

Allen made a face that was more or less disbelieving. "Yes, you were worried. You were unconscious for two days and _you_ were worried." His hand kept touching his forehead, even though there was no more hair to move.

"Che, that must be why you're tired."

"No, I'm tired because Lavi refuses to wake up to take his shift of watching over you."

That made him laugh at little, which hurt. "Che," He cocked an eyebrow and glanced at Lavi, aware that what he was about to do might make his red haired friend die of laughter or embarrassment. "There's room in this bed for two, if you want to share."

The light from Allen's shining smile drowned out whatever Lavi did. "Gladly."

"Gah, you two are like newlyweds," Lavi sighed, moving to the window as Allen clamored into bed with Kanda. He was okay with it now. Sure, he would always want something like that, would always feel the tiniest twinge of regret that he was not yet that happy with someone, but he would be able to smile and be happy for them regardless.

Allen quietly laid his head on the part of Kanda's chest that wasn't covered in bandages and wrapped his left arm around his waist. He had wanted to sleep like this both of the previous nights, but had had to restrain himself for fear of harming the samurai in his sleep. Those worries were more or less gone when Kanda's arm wrapped around his back and pulled him into a sideways, one-armed embrace.

"Che, if we were newlyweds we'd be blushing."

"You are blushing, Love."

"Shush." Kanda kissed his forehead lightly. It seemed strange to him, but he felt happy. And relieved. He wasn't the slightest bit worried about what had come of the thing that had attacked them, he wasn't even worried about what had happened to the Innocence they were supposed to have gotten; he was perfectly content to just lie there in his lover's arms, taking in his scent.

"Kanda?" Allen asked quietly, his voice too low for Lavi to hear.

"Hm?"

"I'll tell you what happened exactly later, 'kay?"

"Mmhmm."

"And I love you."

Kanda smiled broadly down at him, knowing that Allen's mind was once again focused not on the fact that he was alive, but on the fact that he had almost _died._

"I love you too, Moyashi-kun. Now get off my arm before it falls off." His voice was so playful, that Lavi had to look, even if it meant seeing them lock lips. _Aw well,_ He thought with a heavy sigh, _They really are cute when they aren't killing each other._

"Oi, Yuu-chan! Get that bean out of your bed before it breaks you!"

"Che, shut up damn rabbit."

"But if Moyashi-chan kicks you—"

"I'll pin him."

Lavi's shoulders slumped. "What? And break your bones further? Moyashi-chan! Get up. Have some reason!"

But the white haired boy did not respond. He was already drifting away on a Kanda scented dream.

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**I know, I know, they get hurts lots – but if they didn't, I wouldn't have a reason for the next chapter. There will be revelations! Repercussions! And explanations! And soonish, depending :(**

**Love and hugs to all of you amazing reviewers! I just wish I could have given you a better chapter…**


	17. Five Days with a Ribbon

**Niamh strikes again! Mwahahahaha! Sorry this is late… I've had school and whatnot, and I was distracted by Fruits Basket last night, so I got hardly anything done. But it's just **_**too good!**_** I couldn't stop reading the cuteness!!**

**Ehem, and now on to a less-than-splendid chapter.**

**Disclaimer of Dubiousness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the anime fight with Lenalee and the level three wouldn't have involved Lenalee-po-go-sticking.**

**WARNING: Man-on-man, older themes, bad jokes, and a little plot movement. **

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Five Days with a Ribbon

"A week, I tell you!"

"Che, you'll have to tie me to this bed to make that happen."

"I kind of like that idea…"

"This is _no time_ for games! You are to stay in bed for a _week_."

"I don't _need_ a week!"

"Allen," Sable glared at the smaller boy with eyes like death, glazed by the gleaming lamplight.

"Yes, Ma'am?" _Scary, scary…she has that look like Cross gets when he's angry…_

"He is not to leave that bed but to do things that are absolutely necessary to his survival. If he does, you will have to buy all of our meals for a week – and I don't intend to have you use the Order's money."

Allen looked at her with an expression of muted shock in his eyes, his angelic features betrayed by obvious fear and silent yearning. "You mean… I'd have to…"

"_Play cards_." Sable grinned evilly, rubbing her pale hands together mischievously. "And you'll have no one to blame for it but _Kanda-san_."

Kanda cursed under his breath. He wanted Mugen so he could impale that Sable before she came up with anymore twisted ideas. She was a girl, she was generally nice, but there were moments when he did not care – he wanted her dead more than he had _ever_ wanted the same for Allen. It was a horrible thing for her to do, punishing Allen because Kanda wasn't good at resting. Yet he understood her reasons.

Lavi, who had remained silent for most of the debate over Kanda's healthcare, pushed himself from his chair at the window. They had rented the room from a local inn – one bigger than the previous – along with two others. Lavi found the room they were currently using (Allen and Kanda's) to be the best of the three, though it had two beds, too low a roof for his liking, and the colorful wall hangings gave him the distinct feeling that the maids were hiding something behind them. The beds were just a hair to close together, the lamp shade refused to sit straight, and the chairs were too far from the beds to use them as proper bedside furniture. But he never mentioned any of his complaints.

"I guess," He crossed the floor to one of the empty chairs at the foot of Kanda's bed. Under other circumstances he would have avoided being so close to him so soon after being given order he didn't like, but he felt safe so long as Kanda's I-will-kill-you-momentarily-glare wasn't directed at him. "That we should explain what happened after Yuu-chan was nearly crushed by that akuma-not-akuma thing."

"Akuma-not-akuma?" Kanda furrowed his brow at him.

Allen, who had claimed the left side of Kanda's bed as his property, spoke up. "The dragon-thing. It was like an akuma, but it didn't have a soul." The way he said it made him sound worried, but his expression was placid. "I had never seen anything like it before."

"Had?" Kanda prodded.

Allen nodded slowly, but it was Lavi who explained. "I managed to knock the thing's head off with my hammer, but that wasn't the strange thing," He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a black handkerchief. With slow movements he laid the fabric out on the edge of the bed, but even with his feather-light touch the cloth crumbled under his fingertips, flaking apart like a rice pastry. "This was what made it strange."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, resting on what little remained of the black fabric, was a shard of Innocence like none before it. The shape was the same, the gentle curve, the loop that resembled a gear or an atom, but the color was wrong. A deep red brown like dried blood, shot through with lines of impossible crimson, and in the center a point that was so black it made Kanda's eyes hurt just to look into it. There was something basically wrong with it. Something that had nothing to do with its corrupted coloration.

"What's wrong with it?" Kanda questioned with a frown that made his graceful mouth turn down only slightly. "Why is it that color?"

Lavi shrugged, so Sable offered her opinion from where should stood. "I think that…this is what happened when my brother found the Innocence. I think that –"

Kanda didn't hear her anymore. He was thinking, remembering, feeling that hand that touched his back for a moment without harming him.

"_Get away from me or I'm going to kill you."_

"_Please do, you'd save me the effort. Oh, drat, he's seen me. Do me a favor and survive this. So I can help you."_

It had been Uri. But why would he approach Kanda? Why not his sister? Why not Allen? Why not someone who _wanted_ to save those that wanted to be saved, even if it meant prolonging the war? It made no sense. _Did he come to me… because he wanted me to kill him?_

"Kanda-san, you've gone pale, is everything alright?" Sable broke off from whatever she had been saying to blink at him questioningly. It took him a short moment to find the words in his mind – because as cold as he was, he did not want it to sound too horrible.

"Uri-san, he spoke to me before I was hurt. He seemed to want nothing to do with the Noah anymore." He was amazed how nice he sounded, almost like he cared. "He was willing to die if that was all he could do to help us."

_So I can help you._

Kanda watched Sable's face slowly brighten into a lopsided smile. "He really is a fool."

Kanda couldn't argue. What did he mean by what he had said? _So he can help me or so he can help all of us?_ But he knew such thoughts were useless to think on too long. The point was not what had been said or how it had been said, it was simply that something had been said, and no one had died because of it. Yet.

"I don't understand, _why_ though." Sable frowned thoughtfully, her finger played with the edge of her braid as he eyes grew distant. "I wasn't under the impression that he wanted to come be a good boy any time soon. Yet, he's never really wanted to be a Noah either. I just… I don't understand."

"It's alright, Sable-chan," Lavi tried to smile at her. "I'm sure that he doesn't either. It's the only way he would do whatever he did to this Innocence and then offer to help Yuu-chan. But whatever the case is, don't give up on him."

"I don't plan on it."

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Two of the gathered Exorcists left the largest of their rented rooms after a while. Both were thoughtful, but none as thoughtful as the Japanese man who had been ordered to bed rest. Sable snickered quietly to herself about that – Komui _had _said that he was to stay in bed and rest, but the punishment for not following that order was entirely her idea, and she was just sadistic enough to want nothing more than to see him try and escape.

Kanda lay back in his pillows, sighing. He never thought this much about a situation, it wasn't his personality. And yet he found his mind lingering on the Noah who had tortured him with his own thoughts, threatened his life, his _Allen_, and then offered to assist in the fight against his own kind. What would make a man change sides? What would make him risk everything? Did Uri really care that much for his sister?

"Love?" Allen's voice pulled open his eyes even though he had not known he had closed them. He looked up without responding verbally. Allen sat on the bed across from him, flipping through the notes he had compiled for his report. "We have some things to take about for a moment, if you don't mind." He flipped the papers to the front page and looked at him with piercing eyes. "First, you need to stop getting hurt. I'm never going to be able to touch you if doing so will break you into pieces."

Kanda smiled lopsidedly at him. "I'm…sorry." He paused dramatically. Even if it was easy to think the words it was still hard to say them. "I'll try to…be more careful."

The British boy smiled has his fingers came up and took hold of the red ribbon at his neck, almost absentmindedly toying with it. "Secondly, you need to get better. If we're going to share a cabin on the way back to England I don't want to be the only one with a warm place to sleep." He was so serious, so very, very concerned that the older Exorcist had to fight off a harsh laugh. The younger man seemed to be growing more and more worried about him everyday, and less worried about himself.

"Listen Moyashi, I'm not going to die from something like this yet. So you don't have to worry so much."

Allen frowned at him sadly, his silver eyes framed by lashes that seemed to want to hold his eyes closed. "Yet? Well, what happens when it's too much for your curse to handle? You'll just keel over and leave me?"

"Che, no." Kanda didn't quite understand his fear. "I can't make any promises about dying but I can say this: so long as I have life in me, I won't leave you."

Allen blinked at him in disbelief. Surely Kanda didn't realize what that meant? He couldn't. Love was one thing, but a life long pledge of togetherness was another. Yet Kanda's face was so sure, so straight, Allen just couldn't bring himself to _not _believe him. His dark sapphire eyes seemed to slowly comprehend what he had said, but he did not try to refute it; his face slowly changed from one of complete seriousness to a look of mild amusement, his eyebrows lifted delicately over his shining eyes.

"You look horrified."

"I just…didn't expect you to say that."

"Che, learn to expect it."

Allen stood and came to sit on the edge of Kanda's bed. "It's hard, you know, to get used to it. Being loved, I mean." He took hold of Kanda's left hand – the one he favored due to his still sore shoulder – and turned it palm up between his hands. "But I think I can. I mean… if we're…together."

Kanda found his hand squeezing Allen's back, even though he wasn't trying. There were no words for him. No way for him to say what he meant. In his heart he knew that his sudden pledge was nothing less than the truth, yet Allen's reaction to it was more than he had expected. Much more. It made him nearly as happy as that first time Allen had said that he loved him. Perhaps a different kind of happy, though, from what he had felt before. So instead of speaking he shook off Allen's fingers so he could take hold of the ribbon at his neck, and pull him into a kiss.

Allen let Kanda slip his tongue across his, enjoying the feel of the man's lips on him, his hands on Kanda's free one. He knew what the older man meant by the action. So long as Allen wanted him Kanda would be there, always willing to save him and love him, but those words were still too finite to explain it all. Allen wanted to touch him more, be closer to him, never leave him. Their passion rose as their kiss deepened, his heart took to pounding in his chest. His right hand left Kanda's so he could touch the skin of his neck, run his fingertips through Kanda's ponytail. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. He wanted more, and he could feel it in places other than his heart.

"Kanda we shouldn—" He whispered, pulled away from the man he was starting to desire more than anything else. The hand at his neck pulled him forward again and he gave himself up to the kiss.

_I shouldn't do this,_ Kanda thought as he pulled Allen down onto his wounded chest. _This makes Allen into a serious health concern for me…_

_He's starting it._ Allen thought with a shiver. _I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to hurt him. I _know_ I'll end up hurting him if we do this. He's too wounded, too broken, it's not good._

_But it _is_ good._

He brought his hands up and took hold of Kanda's shoulders and pushed him away, gently, until he was half-reclining on his chest, no longer kissing. "If… you keep doing that…" Why was he out of breath? Why did he hate himself for not letting Kanda continue? "You might… get seriously hurt."

Kanda looked at him with half-hooded eyes and gave a crooked smile. "You want to stop then?"

Allen shook his head. "I don't _want_ to stop, but I don't want to hurt you either."

The Japanese man gave a shuttering sigh. "Che, an entire _week_," He frowned, but there was a sparkle in his eyes. "You don't think I'm supposed to spend a whole week in this bed alone, do you?"

"Heehee," Allen took hold of the hand at his collar and pulled it down, the red ribbon going with it. "No, but five days might be good."

Kanda reached for him again but he was too late, that damn Moyashi was out of reach and he was left with nothing but a ribbon in his hand. "As much as I love you, Moyashi, sometimes I still manage to hate what you do."

Allen just laughed from the foot of the bed. "I'll be back in a few, I have something to do."

"Che, what?"

Allen's face slowly took on a strangled shade of scarlet. "Myself."

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Lavi was nearly plowed over by Allen in the hallway – the silver haired boy hardly even managed a muffled apology before he disappeared into Lavi's room. The red head blinked questioningly at his door for a moment before he decided that he'd rather not ask. Whatever Allen was in such a hurry to find, he would not find it there – the apprentice Bookman's room was always too messy to navigate, even the rented ones.

"I don't care what you do in there, just don't make it messier!" Lavi yelled as footsteps approached from the direction of Kanda and Allen's room. It was Sable. She looked at him hesitantly, her golden eyebrows pushed together in thought.

"Is Allen in there?" She pointed at his door, eyebrows still furrowed.

"Yeah, why?"

She scratched her head pensively for a moment before shrugging. "I don't know what it was that made him run, but Kanda sure seemed to think it was funny."

Lavi blinked at her. "Did Yuu-chan… laugh?"

Sable nodded. "Really hard."

"Is he still going?"

"Yes."

"I have to see this so I can put it in the records!"

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"No, I wasn't."

"Sable-chan said you were."

"Che, she's wrong. I don't laugh like that. Now get out before I kill you."

Lavi frowned at the Japanese man on the bed. "Yuu-chan is mean to me…"

"Che, say that when Mugen is sticking out of your head. Now _go_."

"I'm going, I'm going… so cold…"

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**The end of yet another horrid chapter! Yay!! It's kind of sad that I say things like that, isn't it? I mean, I should have pride in my work, right? I don't really though… I feel like this could have ended 50 times better. //sigh\\**

**Aw well. More updates to come soon! Weekends are good writing times for me, being I don't have classes Friday to Sunday :D**

**Reviews are love, but you already know that...**


	18. Midnight and the End of Day Five

**Ah!!! I'm sorry I keep posting late. I was too tired to function last night when I finished, so I elected to wait until I could type without too many typos before I posted. Why? Because I have some important things to say in the A/N this time:**

**Thank you, Sailorlight22 (or just sailor) for letting me allude to you. She wrote **_**Invention is the Mother of Necessity**_** and found my 'face' comment to be hilarious. Without her thoughts, I never would have been willing to let Sable think it.**

**Disclaimer of Defilation: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Komui would look more like Watari from YnM :D**

**WARNING: Man-lovin'! Man-lovin'! Man-lovin'! Oh, and then there's MAN-LOVIN'!**

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Midnight and the End of Day Five

For four days and something like twenty two hours, Kanda was a good boy. A frustrated, irritated, bitchy, unsatisfied good boy, but still a good boy. He did not leave his bed to attack Lavi when he came in, he did not shred his bandages when he knew that there was no more use wearing them, he did not even leap out of bed when Allen had come in from the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist. He had seriously considered the last one, but had decided that it just wasn't worth it if Allen had to make all of that money playing poker.

But he had had enough. At midnight on the fifth day he was going to pull Allen out his bed and do whatever he wished with him. Because there was just no way he could stand it any longer. He had even gone so far as to take up Allen's offer of a late night poker game to stay awake.

He remembered that some scientist had calculated that men thought about intercourse approximately once every six and a half seconds (or something like that), but it felt to him like it was much more often. In the mornings, watching Allen do his exercises, at breakfast, eating more Swedish food with Allen, playing cards, betting kisses with Allen, at lunch, eating yet more Swedish food with everyone (including Allen), just before his nap, which he generally passed staring at Allen, at dinner, which was the worst when it was just him and Allen, and before he fell asleep, which was because it was impossible _not_ to with Allen lying in his arms. The worst part though was that he wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to be imagining – being Lavi never stayed in his room long enough for him to ask. He had decided that he no longer cared. Whatever it was that they were going to do, so long as it brought Allen pleasure he was more or less fine with it.

Though he would hope to defeat his frustration as well.

_11:15 PM._

"You're spacing, Love." Allen's voice brought him back to the moment at hand and the five cards he held between his fingers. He was doing well this game, with three deuces and two knaves. He was willing to bet Allen had _another_ royal flush though.

"Che, like it matters. I'll lose anyway." His glare just made Allen beam at him innocently, silver eyes gleaming purity and light.

"I'm sorry Kanda; you were the one who wanted to have stakes."

"Hn," He groaned. "I call."

A few moments later Kanda was cursing himself for ever agreeing to play cards. He was right. Even with a full house he couldn't beat Allen – because the boy cheated at ever opportunity. Which was cheap. Kanda was sure that he owed Allen more sexual favors than he thought he could pay in all his life.

Allen saw Kanda's face fall when he lost, again. He had thought about not cheating, but it was just too hard. He would decide that he wasn't going to use the cards up his sleeve and then find himself sliding them out without even thinking about it. Old habits die hard, as they say.

_11:28 PM._

"Che, I'm done."

"Aw, I've only won thirty-two times against you."

"You seriously keep track?"

"Uh-huh. I like to know my statistics."

"Hm, I guess that means I owe you thirty-two kisses then."

Allen picked up the cards and shuffled them out of habit as they talked, the black and white backs flashed gray because he did it so fast. He was smiling sweetly but there was evil in it all the same time. "You don't have to pay me back all at once, you know?"

Kanda narrowed his eyes at the boy. Sure, he didn't _have _to, but he wanted to. He didn't just want to pay him back in kisses though. He wanted other things. Lots of other things.

Allen watched the older Exorcist as his mind wandered away from the topic at hand and off to something darker. He liked watching Kanda think; it was like observing a new creature that no one had ever discovered before. Every moment was new and bright as his facial features changed with his mind, and the whole ensemble managed to look beautiful no matter what was on his mind. Even now, when Allen would no doubt blush at what Kanda was thinking, his smooth face still managed to look glorious. And the red ribbon that held his hair back loosely from his face just made it that much better.

"Kanda," Allen broke the man's concentration and his face melted back into his usual half-scowl. "You're pretty."

_11:37 PM_

Half of Kanda wanted to rip him apart for saying that, but the other half wanted to smile and giggle. Since they had known each other it had always been 'pretty' this, 'feminine' that, and 'womanly' everything, yet this wasn't an insult. The boy honestly meant that he was nice to look at. Attractive. It made Kanda a little annoyed that the word _pretty_ was the one his lover had chosen to apply to him, but it still meant the same thing in the end. And he liked that end.

"Che, couldn't have picked a better word, could you Moyashi?" He kicked a little under the covers, causing Allen to bounce at the foot of the bed. He knew the move was in jest.

"Well… I don't think _handsome_ is the word and I'm not going to call you_beautiful_. I value my life too highly."

Kanda gave a sideways smirk. "So I get _pretty_?"

Allen shrugged. "Unless you can find a word that means _gentle_ and_ superior,_ or_ distant_ and_ leisurely_, or _beautiful in a masculine and yet still tender way_, I'm out of suggestions."

Kanda chuckled for a moment before he settled into a glare.

"What?" Allen asked, stopping with the cards. There was something far to amusing about Kanda's expression; there was something bright behind that glare.

"Nothing."

"Right, nothing. Just like last time it was nothing."

"Che."

"Tell me, or I'll go get Lavi."

"Yuu."

"Me, what?"

"No, my name. If you write it one way it means gentle and superior. If you write it differently it means distant and leisurely. It's written in katakana though, so it technically means neither."

Allen raised an eyebrow at him, that little bit about kata-whata going over his head a little. But he did understand one thing – most of what he was looking for in a word had been right there all along, being said by Lavi almost every day. _I could never call him Yuu though… the pun would get me. And if it didn't, it just seems…wrong. He's Lavi's Yuu-chan, not mine._

"I couldn't call you Yuu though."

"Why not?"

"It's awkward?"

Kanda could kind of understand that, a little. If it had not of been for Lavi, Allen would never even have known Kanda _had_ a given name, that was how little he used it. It would be like Kanda suddenly calling him Allen-kun, which sounded wrong for reasons unnumbered.

"Che, fine. Kanda, Love, Asagi – just not pretty."

_11:50 PM_

"Ok. You're not pretty, my beautiful, elegant, feminine, gorgeous, sparkling, bubbly, superior, withdrawn, wonderful, semi-enraged, ohmygoodnessyouaregoingtokillme! Love!" Allen squeaked the last word as the Japanese man leaned forward and took hold of his belt loops. It was obvious from the motion that his shoulder wasn't bothering him anymore, and the speed with which he yanked the smaller boy into his lap signified that his back was feeling fine as well. Allen fought half-heartedly to free himself from the madman's embrace (mad with love, mind you,) but stopped when the Japanese man's hands jerked his hips sideways to place his back flush with Kanda's chest, the legs beneath the covers hooked themselves around his before diving off of the edges of the bed.

He found his wrists clenched tightly. So long as Kanda didn't move, neither would Allen. He was stuck leaning on him like some kind of reclining chair.

"What are you doing?" He asked, feeling hot breath on the back of his neck. He had never felt so small and pathetic in all his life.

"Paying you what I owe," Kanda whispered huskily. The British boy squirmed in his grasp desperately as he gently kissed his neck, blew lightly in his ear. When Allen turned his head to the left to say something, Kanda moved his assault to the right, gently nipping at the sensitive flesh of the boy's shoulder. His captive protested quietly, pulled vigorously at his hands and kicked wildly against him, but there was no real fight in his actions. Kanda's mouth on him was almost too much. They had known each other's feelings for each other for far too long a time for him to be happy without touching. Hot electricity seemed to erupt out of whatever place Kanda grazed his lips across, the contrast of his teeth made him tense.

And then Kanda found a nerve. Allen could not stifle the horrible giggle that erupted from his mouth when he touched it, nor could he stop his back from arching backward into the other man's chest. It was the most horrible and yet enjoyable thing he had ever experienced in his life. Kanda liked that response though, and ran his teeth over that place again, smiled when the boy in his arms laughed historically, attempting to wriggle free while simultaneously running out of rain.

"Ka… hee…nda…" Allen whispered as he convulsed as his neck was tickled again. "St-st-st-st-aaah!" He pitched sideways suddenly, lifting his lover's leg just enough to slip out of his grasp. He twisted his arm also, but Kanda turned with him. In a matter of moments the older Exorcist hand him pressed against the mattress, hands on either side of his head, the blankets twisted up between them. There was no where for him to go, no place or him to turn. But he liked it.

"Che, you realize what today is?" Kanda asked, leaning very, very close to the boy beneath him. Allen looked at him with round, lust-glazed eyes and shook his head. Kanda's eyes moved to the clock on the wall.

_11:59 PM_.

"It's the end of the fifth day, Moyashi-kun. You know what that means?" Kanda let go of his left wrist so he could run his finger across Allen's lips, up his cheek, feeling the smooth skin beneath his fingers. Allen was pretty too, when he thought about it.

Allen gave a sly half-smile and took hold of Kanda's loose shirt collar; ground his hips into Kanda's. Just doing that was delicious. "Mmhmm. It means I can rape you now."

Kanda smiled at him angelically, warmth radiating from his eyes. "No, Allen. You can't rape the willing, remember?"

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The knock on Sable's door pulled her away from a _very_ entertaining scene in the book she was reading. She didn't even hear it for a good two minutes she was so engrossed. Because sometimes, two men in the same bathtub was just more important than whatever was actually going on in her room.

An extremely disgruntled Sable answered her door, _Invention is the Mother of Necessity_ dangling in her right hand, her golden hair hanging unbrushed around her shoulders. Her eyes were awake though, a thin layer of perspiration glittered on her brow.

"What?" She snapped. Lavi was standing before her with a surprised expression on his face, green flannel pajamas hanging loosely on his thin frame, the small brown teddy bear under his arm nearly crushed to the point of having its head popped off. His great green eye looked at her almost fearfully and he scuffed his bunny shaped slippers against the floor.

"Erm… Yuu-chan and Moyashi-chan are being noisy and I was trying to sleep… so…"

"Ugh, can you sleep with the light on?"

"Yes..."

"Fine, I'll not be in the bed, so you can have it." Sable sighed, turning around and throwing her book into her open suitcase on the floor. All of her things were lined up neatly, every book she had brought with her stacked on the dresser, a few of them looking worse for wear.

"No, if it's too much trouble, you don't have to let me in. I mean, I don't want to impose—"

A great moaning sound could be heard down the hallway, two low voices mingling with each other in harmony.

"I lied. I want to impose." He shut the door as he followed her into the room, completely drowning out the sounds when he did. "But I'm not taking your bed, that's too much."

Sable shrugged and took up a chair by the lamp, pulled up her feet. She was wearing what seemed to be a long blue nightgown underneath of a black wooly bathroom. He stood there for a moment, just watching her brush her hair and braid it for the evening, wondering why she was up so late at night.

"You can have it; I most likely won't sleep tonight." She sighed, attempting to look very amused by her braiding.

"How come?" He asked, taking up the chair beside her. Unlike the two other rooms this one was done with better taste. Dark wood furnishings, dark upholstered chairs, two matching paintings, a bed cover that matched the chairs, and there were none of those horrid wall hangings either.

Sable looped her tie around the end of her braid and tried to smile at him. "Uri isn't sleeping, so I can't." The look of concern he gave her made her fake smile easier, because Lavi looked too serious for his own good like that. "It's always been like this. If he can't sleep, I can't sleep. If I can't read, he can't write. I figured it was writer's block, so I was reading."

Lavi glanced once again at the collection of books on the dresser, the others in her bag. She might have brought fifty of them with her, if not more. They seemed to span any number of topics as well. Love, hate, science, math, fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, a few biographies – it was the kind of collection a Bookman might carry for both work and pleasure.

"I'm guessing you read a lot, huh?" _Oh, that's one Panda told me to pick up…_ He thought, still scanning.

_Heh, he's completely forgotten that he came in here to sleep._ "You could say that. Uri hasn't been sleeping much, so I'm reading more than normal." She reached out and took the book she had been reading out of her bag, sighing yet another time. "I just hope it is writer's block and not something else that's keeping him from sleeping."

"How long has it been?"

"Four days."

Lavi's mouth fell open. "And you're still functioning? Do you have a distant relative named Miranda?"

Sable laughed lightly and pulled her book up so she was looking over the pages at him. "I'm used to it, that's how I function. Uri and I have always been twins so we've always shared sleep patterns. As for Miranda… I've met her twice and I don't really like her. I don't think."

"Why not?"

Sable rolled her eyes and opened her book, but her eyes didn't look at it. "She thinks I read sex books." She was glaring at the page in front of her like it had just said something very rude. "The woman has never read a love story in all her life, if you ask me. And her face makes me tired."

Lavi almost laughed at her downcast expression. She seemed very defensive of her _love stories _as she called them, and he wasn't about to ask why exactly that was. In fact, he'd rather he never find out why. It was just creepy. And the Miranda comment wasn't something he was about to argue. That woman would make _anyone_ tired if they watched her cry and cry and smile and shriek and cry everyday in the Order. But she was slowly learning to control her failure-complex.

The room filled with a less-than-awkward silence for a few moments, and he suddenly became aware of just how tired he really was.

"I suggest you go to bed now, Lavi-chan." Sable said with a sigh.

"How come?"

"Because they're going to be loud enough to keep you awake in here in a few minutes."

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**El fin! I know what you're thinking, I think. Something like "NIAMH! You mean, mean woman! How **_**dare**_** you get Allen and Kanda that far and then switch to Lavi and a freakin' OC!" -- or at least that's what I hope you're thinking. :D**

**The answer is this: I'm stuck. Should I make a sequel and rate it M or should I just raise the rating on this and continue? It's up to you guys. Once the votes are in, I'll post more.**

**Also! Thank you reviewers! I love you lots!! And even if you just read and don't review, it's still great to have you :D //hearts\\**


	19. Sleeplessness and Bliss

**The votes are in, the rating is changed, and the crap smex is here! I've never written man-lovin' like this before, so please don't kill me if you don't like it. I AM A NOOBLET! I AM SORRY!! AND THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO SENT ME YOUR OPINION! I love you all!!!!  
**

**Disclaimer of Diligence: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…it would have more of a lemony zing.**

**WARNING: MAN LOVING MAN. Insulted? Don't read anymore.**

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Sleeplessness and Bliss

Uri hung slack in his bonds, no longer caring much for the man before him. His wrists were held by manacles of reinforced steel, chains so strong that not even his superhuman strength could break them. Tyki had heard his declaration six days before when he had offered to help the man named Kanda Yuu, and none of the Noah had trusted him since.

"Answer the question, traitor." The last word was punctuated by a powerful blow to his temple that sent his mind spinning in slow, lazy circles. He was tired, so tired. He would have given his right arm just to have a bed and a meal and a phone call. But the more he thought about it, the less _just_ seemed to fit in that sentence.

"I don't think he heard you, Uncle Tyki." A smaller, childish voice said into the hollow sounding room.

"He did, he is just not answering." Something took hold of Uri's shirt collar and pulled it up gruffly; Uri could not see the face of the man he knew was there, the blindfold over his eyes was too tight to even see light by his nose. It kind of made it easier to handle – Tyki's face scared him when he made sadistic expressions. "Now tell us, Uri-nii-chan, why you would say something like that to an Exorcist if not to betray us?"

Uri grinned even though it hurt his face. "Why don't you ask Judas?"

The hand on his collar resituated itself around his windpipe and clenched down painfully. "He _was_ a traitor, Uri-chan. Shall I take that as a confession of your obvious crime?" His fingers parted ever so slightly, enough to allow the passage of air, but not much else. He tilted Uri's head upward slightly, ran a finger down the front of his chest gently, lightly enough to only be a breath of wind against his skin. "If that is what you meant to convey, we can end it now. The punishment for a traitor has always been the same."

"Oh yes, it's been the same since before there were traitors." Uri slurred.

"You are in no position to be saying smart remarks."

"You're very right. It would be much more fun to say them while reclining on a bed of rose petals, a glass of wine at one hand, a beautiful woman at the other. And you at my feet, bowing lowly."

"Do you realize that you are only making things worse for yourself by not answering?"

"Wait. Am I supposed to answer that question or the one you posed before it?"

"Don't play word games with me, Adair." _Aw,_ Uri thought sarcastically, _but they're so much fun!_

"Don't call me Adair; my father's name was Dorian, I think. Or maybe it was George. I forget, but his name wasn't Edgar."

"_Why_ did you offer to help the Exorcists?"

"You see, Adair is a surname that means _son of Edgar_. Kind of funny, now that I—"

He was hit again, this time harder. It wasn't really anything new though. After two days of being beaten and four without sleep, he wasn't going to talk just because someone backhanded him a couple times and kicked him in the stomach. He was tougher than that.

"_How_ were you going to help them?"

That made Uri laugh a little. _How_ would he help? That was simple, and Tyki didn't even realize that the answer was right before his eyes. Yes, Uri was a traitor, no, this had not been his plan from the beginning, but things would still work out. Because if Tyki killed him, if the Earl hurt him past healing, if Rhode slowly drove him insane with her powers, he wouldn't be anymore. There would be one less Noah. One less evil. And the world would be better for it.

"You're a fool, Tyki Mikk." He said laughingly, wishing he could see the eyes of the man who was questioning him. "A truly blind fool."

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Kanda pressed his lips against Allen's gently though his desire had grown to the point that the action seemed trivial. He didn't want to lose himself. If he became too caught up in his wants he would forget what Allen wanted, as well as ignore what Allen was teaching him. So he did not try to take control, nor did he try to do want he thought he wanted. He let Allen's tongue into his mouth, let his hands be guided to the boy's shirt buttons, and allowed Allen's fingers to pull the ribbon from his hair, which sent cascades of ebony silk down over his shoulders to spill onto his lover's face. There was something that made him want to follow Allen's lead, something that made him want to give up all control, but another part of him hated it. When Allen pushed him up so he could lie him back down on his back Kanda had the sinking feeling that maybe he didn't want to give up entirely.

Allen had never been so sure and happy in his life. He placed his knee between Kanda's legs and propped himself up on one arm, smiling as Kanda worked quickly to get him out of his shirt. Every silent request he made Kanda followed. When he wanted him to tilt his head up he did. When he traced the line of the other man's jaw with his finger his lips parted slightly so he could kiss him. He almost verbally asked him to push the blankets away that remained between them, but the Japanese man did it on his own, kicking them away fiercely. There was nothing that crossed Allen's mind that Kanda did not seem to somehow already know.

The fabric of Allen's shirt made a soft sound when it fell away to the floor.

Kanda started on his own clothes but Allen stopped him, taking his hands away from them and placing them softly on his own skin.

"Touch me, Love," He said before pressing his lips at the hollow of Kanda's neck. "Only me." Kanda might have grunted his acknowledgement, but the sound was lost in a low moan that escaped his throat. Kanda could feel Allen's heart beating against his palm, could count his ribs beneath the layer of tense muscle that wrapped them. The contact was electric. He found himself wishing that he were touching yet more of that skin with yet more of his own. Clothes suddenly seemed like nothing but a hindrance. Nothing but a force to separate them.

The good thing was that Allen's mind was traveling a similar road. Kanda was just as beautiful like this as he had imagined.

Kanda's hands floated across his chest, caressing lightly. Allen skillfully undid Kanda's shirt and slipped the garment over his shoulders, realized that he had more work ahead. Though their movements had nearly destroyed the bandage on his shoulder, there was still the rather large one across his chest to be dealt with.

The smaller boy wrapped his fingers in the linen and pulled with nearly all his might, shredding the material into small, useless stands with his action. The man beneath him did not even flinch. His deep sapphire eyes followed the lines his hands were tracing, first down Allen's chest to his hips, then up to his shoulders, to the bend of his neck, and back again. He was like a blind man reading the message written on Allen's flesh. With every sweep and motion the heat between them grew in intensity.

"Allen," Kanda said softly, but the utterance carried far more with it than just a name. He could feel his arousal keenly, and he could plainly see the heat in Allen's cheeks, the fire in his eyes. He reached up and took the boy by the hips and pressed them together until he could feel the smaller boy's erection against him.

Allen made a small gasping sound that might have been a question. "You're too slow without me," Kanda breathed. He kissed Allen roughly; the other boy's arms stopped trying to hold his weight up so much as his palm slid across the exposed flesh of Kanda's chest, his fingers traveled along the top of his pants.

Kanda leaned into the pressure his palm caused when his hand traveled yet lower. Allen smiled at the feel of his lover's hard phallus against him. With expert movements he made quick work of Kanda's belt and pants, aware that a rosy red blush was spreading across his face; he had never imagined that he, Allen Walker, would one day be sitting on a bed with a very naked, very aroused, very sexy Kanda Yuu.

The Japanese man, on the other hand, did not seem the least bit frightened by his nudity. Instead he started with Allen's belt, kissing and caressing as if it were he who knew where things were headed. It was only when the white haired boy's clothes were discarded that he remembered just how little he knew about the next few moments.

Allen pressed Kanda back into the mattress, slowing his attack. He kissed his mouth, his jaw line, his neck, his chest. With slow, agonizing tenderness he kissed as much of Kanda as he could, dragging his tongue along the more sensitive skin until he came to what he was looking for. The hands in his hair and the soft moaning in his ears encouraged him. His bravery was well rewarded when he closed his lips on Kanda, eliciting a sound like none he had made before.

He liked that sound. He flicked his tongue across the same delicate place again and felt his own need grow when Kanda rolled his hips toward the feeling.

"What do you think, Love?" Allen asked quickly, before taking all of Kanda's length into his mouth. The Japanese man's head tilted back into the pillows, his eyes closed, his hands lost in Allen's hair.

Kanda shook his head and a strangled sound of pleasure escaped him. Words failed to express his enjoyment.

_He's ready,_ He thought, sucking lightly as he pulled away. A pair of sad, deprived eyes that caught his when he pushed himself up only made him smile. Kanda really did want him. Kanda really did need him. Kanda really wasn't as cold and inhuman as he tried to be. The shaking hands that clutched at Allen's shoulders told him as much.

The older Exorcist almost called out when the smaller boy leaned off of the bed to pull open the drawer of the nightstand. Within was a bottle of what looked like massage oil, elegant flowers swirling on the label to the point that his lust filled mind couldn't actually read it. He could smell it though, when Allen pulled the cork from the bottle and dumped a generous amount into his hand. Kanda watched apprehensively as the smaller boy smeared it over his hands and onto himself before he leaned forward to take Kanda's mouth with his again, passion driving his moist hands to touch his firm manhood.

Kanda seemed to know what was next. His legs gently parted as one of Allen's hands touched the inside of his thigh; the other smeared flower scented oil on his chest.

"Love," Allen's voice was hoarse, "We don't have to do this part if you do not want to."

"Che, idiot Moyashi," Kanda sat up slightly to kiss him tenderly, touching his face with a gentle hand. "I want you. Every part of you. I trust you."

_I trust you. I want to spend time with you. I want you near me._

Allen nodded and lowered the hand on Kanda's leg to his opening. He touched imperceptibly at first, remembering the things that he would over hear in the brothels and bars he was taken to as a small child. Easy circles and light kisses gradually encouraged his lover to relax, to grow used to the sensation. When the older boy seemed comfortable enough with just that, Allen slid one finger slowly inside, stopped when Kanda's breath caught in his throat sharply.

"Stop me if I hurt you."

"I trust you."

It took a few moments for Kanda to will himself to relax. Allen made it easier by sucking at his navel, stroking his erection with his free hand. When he became used to the feeling another oiled finger slid in next to the first. He could not say that it was _painful_ as much as uncomfortable at first. It was not long, however, until he grew used to the pressure, used to the feeling of something inside of him. It was then that they moved deeper, causing him a small moment of panic before something more satisfying momentarily engulfed his senses.

Allen smiled at the look of pleasant surprise on Kanda's face when he found what he was looking for. He removed his fingers and heard his lover whimper quietly, no longer capable of expressing his need in words. He reached for the bottle of oil again, silently thanking God that he had thought buy it the evening before while Kanda napped. After recoating himself generously he took hold of his hips, and positioned himself for what was to come.

He had never done this. He had hardly ever imagined this. Well, he had hardly ever imagined this until recently. But he wanted it more than anything he had ever wanted in his life.

Kanda's hands came down on his and his intense eyes caught Allen's. There was no doubt. Allen slowly entered, fighting the urge to ram himself as deep as he could into that tight, hot space. He leaned forward slightly, enough to catch Kanda's collar bone with a light, nipping kiss. It took all his effort to hold himself back and go about things slowly. The man beneath him took hold of his shoulders, his fingernails biting painfully into Allen's flesh. Slowly, he pressed inward.

Allen waited a short moment for Kanda's eyes to open again. He pulled back only to press again unhurriedly, attempting to keep from losing his mind in the pleasure that filled him.

His lover gradually began to take up his rhythm, growing more confident with his actions as he began to take pleasure in the motion. After what felt like a short eternity Kanda slammed into him, increasing their tempo until they matched at a faster pace, his voice growing louder with every thrust. Before Allen knew what was going on he found himself calling out as well, the passion and pressure too much for him to handle otherwise. He wound his fingers around Kanda and began stroking to the rhythm they had established. The man beneath him shuddered with pleasure, his head thrown back, his ebony hair fanned out on the pillow, his expression one of complete rapture. He really was beautiful like that, completely lost in the moment.

Together they pounded toward release; no words of warning came from either of them. Kanda's back arched away from the bed and toward Allen as he reached his climax; Allen followed him into oblivion shortly after, his breath going out of him a moment later. He collapsed half on the mattress half on his lover, a shiver running up his spine in the suddenly cold room. The sapphire eyes that looked at him, lying on his stomach breathing hard, were perhaps the most wonderful thing he had ever seen, aware like no eyes he had ever seen before. He smiled at them, a small giggle bubbling out of his mouth.

"What's with the look, Love?" Allen mumbled, reaching up to push the hair off of Kanda's forehead.

Kanda wet his lips and gathered the smaller boy in his arms, pulling him into an embrace that almost hurt his arms it was so tight. "I love you, Allen Walker." The boy in his arms chuckled into his chest, vibrating his bones with the sound. "Che, I really do."

"Kanda Yuu," Allen muttered into the black silky hair that Kanda was holding him so close too.

"Yes, Allen?"

"I love you too." He sighed, tilted his head up so he could gaze at Kanda's flushed, satisfied face. "Now let me sleep on you."

Kanda smiled broadly and kissed his forehead, reached down to pull the abandoned blankets back up on the bed. "It would be my pleasure."

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Lavi's hands were still pressed over his ears, his eye waiting for Sable to give him some sort of sign that the couple had grown quiet enough not to scar him for life. He hadn't the slightest clue why she seemed immune to the sound, why she could just read her book as if on autopilot with all of that going on in the background. It kind of made him wonder if maybe Miranda was right about her choice of reading material.

She turned to him and mouthed something, then turned back to her book, seeming indifferent. Slowly he pulled his palms away from his ears, glancing back and forth apprehensively when no sound came to them. The night was still.

"I said you can go to sleep now, they'll be too tired to do anything else until morning. Or noon." Sable said without looking at him. She flipped a page, frowning.

Lavi sighed and picked up his teddy bear, glad that it hadn't fallen out of the chair beside him while he held his ears. He really was tired, but he still did not want to take the most comfortable piece of furniture as his own. He was about to suggest that Sable _try_ to sleep in the bed while he curled up on a chair, when she closed her book and looked at him fiercely, glaring daggers.

"Go to bed, Lavi."

He blinked for a moment. "But I don't want to take your bed."

Her face fell and she shook her head at him. _I wonder if he knows that he's lonely or if it's his subconscious. If Allen and Kanda aren't going to make anymore noise tonight, he has no reason to be here. He can just go back to his room and sleep in his own bed. And yet he doesn't. It's not that he doesn't know that he can just go back; it's that he doesn't acknowledge it. Poor guy._ "Fine." She said it like a curse as she stood up to rip the top blanket off of the bed. "But if you snore at all I'm kicking you out."

"No! I don't snore! I'm as quiet as a mouse!"

"Have you ever stepped on a mouse?"

"No…"

"Noisier than lions." She threw the blanket at him and then crawled onto the bed, turned over so that her face was to the ceiling. "I'm going to try sleeping, so you can stop subconsciously thinking about asking me to."

Lavi caught the blanket and turned sideways in his plushie chair, more than thankful that she had decided to rest but slightly scared of her reading his mind. It was less creepy though, than if she had done it and not said anything about it like she had with Allen and Kanda.

It was not until he had the blanket tucked firmly around him; his bear snuggled beneath his chin, and his eyes half shut that he realized the light was still on. "Oh," He ventured, seeing that Sable still had her eyes open, staring at nothing. "Did you want me to get the light?"

She turned her head and looked at the lamp with something of a sad expression before extending her left hand toward it. "_Denki_," She whispered – a word for illumination. The lamp flickered momentarily before extinguishing. The darkness that filled the room was as thick a molasses, blocking out the stars behind the curtains.

"Night, Sable-chan."

"Night, Lavi."

"And Sable-chan."

"Yes, Lavi?"

"You're creepy."

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**What did you think? I feel like it was… meh… hmm…**

**--scrolls through her chapter and frowns--**

**Gah…**


	20. Poetic Talent

**Here it is the next, semi-meh chapter of The Fine Line! BTW, I'm sorry that I didn't respond to everyone's voted posts on whether to continue this fic or start a new one, there were just so many I couldn't answer them and update in a single sitting and I **_**really**_** wanted to update. Ehem. Without further ado, on to the lack of plot!**

**Disclaimer of Distress: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Chibi Kanda wouldn't look quite so fat.**

**WARNING!: Man-love, some crazy humor, and a complete disregard for cleanliness.**

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Poetic Talent

_Sticky – warm – happy – sore – tired._

Allen's mind was not yet fully functioning when the sunlight in the open window woke him. He vaguely remembered having a splendid time the night before, and something about a poker game. And now that he thought of it, he was naked.

_Oh yeah,_ He thought without opening his eyes. _Kanda and I…made love last night. I guess that's why I feel sore. And sticky. And why the chest I'm leaning on is bare._

_Mmm, naked. Kanda: Breakfast of Champions._

He slowly opened his eyes to find the room filled with midmorning light, the drawn curtains blocking none of its golden brightness from the room. The sun had not been out in so long it pained his eyes to see it. It made him happy though, and the warmth slowly stimulated his mind into working.

Gently he turned his face toward Kanda's. The Japanese Exorcist looked completely neutral with the soft yellow light on his face, his smooth skin glowing in the bright. His long dark hair was knotted slightly in the back but otherwise he was a work of art, perfect in every aspect of Allen's mind, his gentle expression broken only by a sleeping half-smile. Watching him sleep took Allen's mind back to the night Kanda had insisted on sharing his bed and the morning he had spent studying those stoic features. Unlike then, he felt no guilt at staring.

_Maybe I'll go down and get us both breakfast,_ He thought as he followed the curve of Kanda's eyebrows with his eyes. _I think he'll like that._ Slowly as to not disturb his sleeping partner he scooted and sidled his way on to the floor which – without Kanda and without blankets – was very, very, cold. He made for the nearest garment that wasn't soiled with oil or soaked with sweet, an Exorcist's jacket on the back of one of the chairs.

Silently he pulled it on only to find that there was a gaping hole in the front and back. Kanda's jacket. His arms weren't even long enough to get his fingers out of the ends of the sleeves. He sighed quietly. It wasn't the best thing to wear, but it would keep him warm until he had found something to put on while he got food. His bare feet made quiet sounds as he moved to the bed that was supposed to have been his, under which he kept his things.

He found his suitcase and opened it, watched Kanda from the corner of his eye to be sure that the sound didn't disturb him. If he did things right and got food, came back, ate very little, and then suggested a shared bath, things could be interesting. But that would never happen if Kanda woke up and bathed without him. Or maybe he wouldn't want to bath with Kanda, he did feel like his limbs were about to fall off they were so sore. He silently searched past his old ruined jacket and leaned down to look more closely at a white button up shirt that looked more or less clean.

Something fell from the ripped chest pocket of Kanda's greatcoat. It landed on the floor softly, making a light crumbling sound.

Allen frowned at the neatly folded piece of paper, the outside had been splattered with blood, and the edges were bent as if Kanda had kept it for a long while. He didn't want to be snoopy. He didn't want to betray his lover's trust. He didn't want to do something like Cross would. But the delicate white paper called to him, nagged at his curiosity. He wanted to know what it said on the inside. What could be so important to be carried around carefully by Kanda Yuu?

With agonizing slowness he picked up the paper and unfolded it, convinced that he would only read the very first part to see what it was, but his eyes had other ideas.

Slowly his lips formed the first word on the page, his features falling into a confused frown. "Mo…ya…shi?"

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Lavi yawned enormously, cracking his neck when he found it turned at a horrible angle against his chair's arm. He remembered instantaneously that Sable had let him borrow her room for the evening, because Kanda and Allen… oh yes, he didn't want to think about that. The mental images of his best friend and poor, sweet, brotherly, innocent Allen were just too much to think about directly after waking up. Besides, if he thought about it long enough, he might have started wanting something similar.

The light sound of breathing drew his attention away from trying not to think and back to the previous topic. He vaguely wondered if maybe she had slept, or was sleeping. She sounded kind of like it.

"No, I'm not. I did though, so you can stop starting to worry and just go straight to pretending to be fine."

"Good morning to you too, Sable-chan." Lavi tried to sound enthusiastic. It seemed to him that every day Sable got little or no sleep she became more and more irritable. And her habit of picking up other's thoughts became more apparent. He wondered if maybe there was a relationship between the two, or if many she just wasn't hiding what she knew anymore.

"Sorry," She sighed, sitting up in her bed, the blankets draped across her knees, her braided hair hanging down fuzzily over one shoulder. He had never seen a girl so indifferent to morning hair or morning face or morning breath before. She was a lot like Yuu in that respect. Yuu would get up shirtless without caring that he hadn't washed his face or showered and still acted like he was the ruling king of all the lands around them. Sure, Sable didn't really have a queen-complex, but she had the same indifference. The same glaring sureness. "I'm still tired, that's all." But she still smiled sometimes, which wasn't a Yuu trait.

Lavi shrugged, dislodging his bear from under his shoulder and sending it to the floor. "I'll go down and get breakfast, if you want. That way you can try and sleep a little more if you like."

"Eh," Sable waved a hand at him, dismissing the idea. "You can't carry enough food for me. Be—_oh dear_." Suddenly her eyes were wide, her hands at her mouth in horror. She looked at the door unwaveringly for a long moment; fear the only emotion that was clear on her face. She also had serious mood swings, which was only vaguely Yuuy.

"Bee what?"

"We're dead. Kind of hard to explain now but we have to _move_."

"Wha? Why?!"

"Because the farthest thing from Allen's mind is you dying slowly of blood loss, and the farthest thing from Kanda's is hugging you and saying thanks."

"I don't—why would—you mean…"

"They found us out! The poem! Kanda knows that Allen didn't write it! But they think it's only you. Quick! Quick!" She jumped out of bed and hurried to the door, locking it swiftly. "Hide! You have to hide!"

Things were happening so fast. He was a dead man. If they were unhappy without the things he had written, it wasn't his fault! Sable had given him material, so why did they only want to kill him? He looked from the door to the closet to the bed and back again, wondering which was the better option. "Yuu-chan will find me! He _always_ used to find me at Hide and Seek!"

"I don't care. Unless you want to die painfully in about six minutes, you _will_ find someplace to disguise yourself." Her eyes were so intense he thought _she_ was going to kill him if Kanda didn't. A long line of curses rambled through his mind as he at last dashed under the bed, glad that he had slept with his slippers on as to not leave behind any proof that he was there. Just as his feet were completely under the bed skirt a short knock came at the door.

Sable threw her braid over her shoulder and took the time to spread the blanket he had used back over the bed. From his place he could see her feet as they went back to the door.

His heart almost stopped when he say the two pairs of booted feet, the smaller pair just in front of the bigger. An aura of blood thirst radiated from them like perfume, flower scented perfume, and their stances were as forward and sure as those of men going off to battle. Sable, the brave soul, just leaned on her door, more weight on one foot than the other, signifying annoyance.

"G'morning, boys," She said thickly. She sounded more tired her than she had just a moment ago. "Did you need something?"

"Where is Lavi." It was not a question from Kanda's lips.

"Erm… you can't find him?" She sounded surprised, almost surprised enough for it to be truth.

"No, we just searched his room." Allen responded. He sounded less murderous than Kanda did, that was for sure. Indeed, he sounded somewhat worried. "As far as we could tell all of his things are in there. Just not him."

Sable's weight shifted to the other foot. "That's odd…but you know what's odder?"

Silence.

"Kanda-san's out of bed."

The murderous air wavered for a moment in the face of this realization. Surely Sable wouldn't make Allen play poker if she knew the cause of Kanda's walking about? Surely she was nicer than that? More logical? Less strict? And it wasn't as though walking around while attempting to find and kill Lavi was any more work than what he had done in bed the night before.

"Che, it is necessary."

"How come?"

"I can't kill Lavi if I'm in bed, now can I?"

"Kill Lavi!" She sounded stricken. "Why would you do something like that?"

There was a moment of awkward silence that no doubt included miming, blushing, and lots of wondering how to say things right. Lavi kind of wished he could see them all the way. The bed skirt only let him see so much, and then the spring box itself blocked yet more of the view. The floor was hard against his face as well.

Allen chuckled softly, trying to sound less violently inclined. "We're not going to _kill_ him," There was a distinctive _yet_ left off of that sentence. "Just thank him for his poetic talents and insight."

"Poetic talents and insight?"

"He'll know what we mean."

"Ok then!" Sable sounded rather happy with that statement, a smile was in her voice, but her tone was somewhat confused. "I guess I can pass on that message for you."

"What?"

"Well, I'll tell him that you liked whatever poem he wrote when he's clothed."

Allen and Kanda shifted momentarily, the angle of their feet suggesting that they had exchanged glances. _Sable…what on earth are you saying?_ Lavi thought bitterly. She couldn't have meant to suggest…

Lavi felt his blood run cold. That was so like her.

"I'm sorry?" Allen chimed. "I thought you didn't know where he was."

Sable laughed airily, rocking back and forth slightly with the motion. "No, I never said that. I know exactly where he is, sort of. Most likely crawling around looking for his pants or something. He doesn't really pay much attention when he takes them off, you know?"

Silence.

"You mean he… slept…"

"Yeah, he slept here."

Cold. Dead. Awkward silence.

Somewhere in the inn a cricket chirped.

There were sounds like someone trying to speak, but no words were actually formed. A pale, shaking hand came into view, pointing at the floor. Lavi followed it with his gaze to see his teddy bear, face down; lying on what must have been one of Sable's forgotten shirts. It was incriminating evidence that what Sable was saying was true.

_Sable-chan, you are the best liar I have ever known in all my life._ He thought thankfully. _Though saying _that_ wasn't the most innocent way to go about saving my life…_

Kanda growled lowly in his throat, but he didn't argue. "Che, if you can hear me baka, I'm angry with you. Even if everything you wrote is true now, at the time you had no right to say that Allen felt those things."

"I doubt he can hear us, Love. There's no point thanking him."

"Che, as if I'd thank him."

"You know you mean to."

"After I kill him I will thank his corpse."

Lavi swallowed hard, knowing that what he was about to do might just end his life.

Sable, who was winging every bit of her story, just smiled at the couple standing outside her door. They believed her. They actually believed that Lavi would have some reason to be in her room, naked, looking for his clothes. _I guess stranger things have happened. Look at them, they're pretty strange._ And the thought made her giggle on the inside. Lavi would kick her when he got out of from under the bed, she knew. Or maybe he'd thank her.

"Oh look! I found my pants!" Lavi's voice rang out like thunder from under her bed. He crawled out boldly, shirtless; one bunny slipper in his hand, his hair far more rumpled than it had been before he had gone under. His three friends stared at him in muted horror, stuck between embarrassment, amazement, and down right giggles. His headband was pulled down over his eye patch, his pants far lower on his hips than normal. "I haven't the slightest idea how they got under there…"

His eye passed from Sable to Kanda to Allen. She seemed the least surprised, though her eyes were still round. Kanda was the color a paper, his mouth open and his eyes glaring evilly. Allen just blinked at him shyly, a deep blush on his cheeks. Lavi would have given anything in that moment to have a camera. It was priceless. He mentally snapped a picture of them and grinned.

Sable recovered first. "Heh, heh. Well, how about we go down and talk about this over breakfast!"

Kanda's eyes went from Lavi to Sable, his jaw still slack. On some level he had suspected the girl of defending the apprentice Bookman, but now he knew otherwise. It was perhaps the most horrifying thing he had ever thought of, imagining the two of them like that. Lavi only made it worse when he threw his arms around Sable's shoulders and pulled her back into him, smiling with glee. Lavi was like his brother and knowing that he…that they…that _anyone_ would find enjoyment in him…

"Che, I'm not hungry." Kanda said quietly.

Allen took hold of his hand and gave Lavi a shaking smile. "We-we'll be going now." He took a step backward, his face unreadable. His downcast eyes did nothing to hide his blushing complexion. "And th-thanks." With that simple acknowledgement he turned away from them, dragging Kanda back toward their room. Lavi wasn't sure if Allen was scared to disgusted or laughing at Kanda's reaction or what. Either way though, Lavi was still breathing and he still had all of his body parts, which made him very happy and even more thankful.

Lavi sighed deeply.

"Get off me. Now."

"Oh, right."

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It took all of his will not to giggle ridiculously. Kanda's face had been so priceless, and Lavi had worn that expression that spoke of impending doom from more than one direction. It was like Lavi had expected Mugen to slice through his head while someone else roasted him over an open fire. And Sable had just smiled like she was completely content with it all.

He was so busy trying to gain back control of himself that he forgot where he was going and Kanda began to drag him along toward their room. It was not until Kanda kissed him that he realized they were actually in their room, standing in front of the door to the bathroom.

"Che, you haven't been listening to me at all, have you?" The Japanese man asked with a playful half-frown. Allen gave him a very small smile and kissed him back.

"No… why, what are we doing? What about breakfast?"

Kanda grinned at him and pulled him toward the bathroom. "We can eat after I get these images out of my head. And _then_ I'll kill Lavi."

"Images?" Allen's booted feet made hollow sounds on the tile floor when the came into the bathroom. "You mean Sable and Lavi? How are you going…to…" But Kanda was looking at him, his eyes hungry for more than just food.

Kanda took hold of his collar and pulled him close, his left hand falling to the small of Allen's back. The shorter boy's face tilted upward when his lover pulled on his caller. "We can make our own images."

"Kanda, I'm sore…" But he was being kissed and he wasn't able to argue with that. His hands floated up to Kanda's face of their own volition, touching it gently as the force on his back pulled them together. When the kiss broke he looked at Kanda's pleading eyes and smiled. "Really sore…"

His lover's hand reached over and dropped the plug into the bath's drain, turned on the water. The vapors of steam that rose from the tub made his muscles ache with yearning, promised soothing in the places he needed it. "Che, alright then," He ran his fingertips up the boy's spine and grinned when Allen leaned into him despite his reluctance. "Just let me wash you. I'll be nice about it, I swear. Make all your aches and pains go away…"

"Aw," Allen blushed up at him, "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were being romantic."

Kanda snorted his obvious disapproval of such an assumption. "Che, if wanting to make you feel better is romantic, yes."

Allen sighed, feeling the gentleness of Kanda's hand on his back as it started rubbing in slow, lazy circles. "Thank you, Love." He fell into Kanda's shirt covered chest. "For everything."

"Che, everything?"

Allen nodded into his shoulder. "I told you that I didn't write that… horrible poem and you just took it in stride. I tell you that I don't want to have sex and you offer to rub my pains away. You're like… Lenalee and Mana and every nice person I've ever known wrapped up in a big, protective samurai." His arms traveled to Kanda's chest where they wrapped around his ribcage and pulled tightly, pressing until he could feel the other man's heartbeat steadily against his face. "But at the same time you're like none of them. Because they don't love me like you do, or accept me regardless of my faults. I mean, Lenalee might, but she'd die if she knew what I did to you last night."

His monologue when Kanda laughed lowly at him, an odd expression on his face. _Die, eh? Right, die of a nosebleed. _"Take off your clothes, Moyashi. And stop hugging me before I do something stupid."

"And you say _I_ don't listen…"

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**Duuun-dun-dun! The end of yet another chapter. I know, I know, very little plot movement, but you **_**did**_** get to see what Allen and Kanda did about the poem thing! But the question remains… what will happen when the letter is discovered? cheesy fanfare**

**Reviews are always loved, even when they tell me how 'aye kint spel.' :)**


	21. Chapter 21

**Oh no!! Niamh posts again!**

**I must apologize for leaving this chappy rather unpolished. I **_**wanted**_** to keep going, but I figured I could get away with increasing the suspense a little here and there… besides, two smutty chapters in a row might be annoying. :)**

**I LOVE YOU REVIEWERS AND READERS! – Hearts and Cookies for you ALL!!**

**Disclaimer of Deliriousness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… My mental Allen wouldn't be yelling at me that I don't own him.**

**WARNING: MORE MAN-ON-MAN. Mild angst. YOU have been WARNED.**

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Title-less (**Suggestions?**)

Uri's tongue flicked across his lips in an attempt to wet them, but the effort was useless. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth; the source of the flavor most likely the dried gore that covered his face. Rhode and Tyki had taken turns questioning him, hurting him in an attempt to get him to say something useful, but he had not said a word. They had stopped asking why or how he betrayed them. The questions revolved more around the Exorcist's themselves, what he had learned from touching the one's mind.

_I can't tell them,_ He thought in-between moments of torture. _His fears, his hopes, his dreams, his desires,_ He felt a sob shake him but felt no tears come with it. _I have to keep them. I have to hoard them like treasures in my heart, defend them with my life._ Something sharp struck him in the shoulder and sent him wobbling back and forth in his chains. He didn't even cry out anymore when that happened. _If I don't, they'll take him. They'll make him suffer like I am suffering. I must endure so he can live._

"Uri-chan, your scars are gone," The little girl's voice scratched in his ears painfully. "Why is that, Uri-chan? Do you not have the strength left to sustain them?"

He swallowed in a dry throat and attempted to bark an insult at her, but his voice refused to function. He would have laughed at the irony of being question to the point of being unable to respond, but that seemed impossible as well. The more he thought about it, the less seemed possible in his cold, dark world.

"What's wrong, Uri-chan? Have I broken you?"

_I'm sorry, Sable._ He thought, letting out a shaking breath. _I never got to tell you that you were right._

"Uri-chan?"

_Find me, Sable. Kill me. Don't let them know. Don't let them find out. Don't save me._

"Uncle Tyki! I think I broke Uri-chan."

_I deserve the death they have wrought._

Tyki looked up from his book and sighed at the girl before him. She didn't look too concerned, but she never did get concerned unless she was bored. She looked at him with her big amethyst eyes and rubbed her elflike shoes on the cement floor, the picture of innocence if not for the twisted grin that marred her face. Rhode was a sweet kid to her uncle. An angel of the Noah family.

"What did he say?" Tyki asked, closing his book gently in his hand.

"Nothing. He won't even moan anymore. It's boring."

Tyki's expression fell somewhat as he pushed himself up from his chair. Uri had been threatening to collapse after the past few days, but he didn't think death was that close in the man's future. He was a Noah, and Noahs did not just keel over after a week of punishment. Tyki seriously doubted that anyone would be able to hold there tongue so long as to die while being questioned, especially someone as hard to kill as that.

He sidled past the girl and into the room that had been designated as Uri's, not that _room_ was the label that fit it. The floor was polished concrete, the walls coarse stone, and a single small window lit it from near the ceiling. Tyki had no enjoy for this part of the basement, but for perhaps how he could take pleasure in someone else not liking it. His eyes did not like finding Uri's head lying against his chest, his legs no longer attempting to hold him up, his hands no longer held in tight fists. Blood covered much of Uri's face and chest, small cuts adorned his limbs like lines of sliver-thin rubies, and his breathing was slow and labored.

In his right shoulder was one of Rhode's pointed candles, the kind she used when physically hurting people outside of her own dimension. Tyki took hold of it none-too gently and pulled, but did not smile at Uri's lack of reaction. Some small part of him cared for Uri more than he liked to admit, and seeing him so compromised hurt his heart perhaps a hair too much. Much like Tyki, Uri led a double life of sorts. He blamed his worry on that similarity. There was no way Tyki would really care for a human just because they were human or a Noah just because they were a Noah.

"Have you lost the ability to speak, Uri-chan?" Tyki's voice echoed off of the stone walls.

_Well, my vocal chords aren't working, if that's what you mean._

A heavy sigh shook Tyki's frame as he thought about what came next. He only had a few options, and he didn't particularly like any of them. Kill Uri? But he was wearing his favorite gloves. Have Rhode kill Uri? But she liked lively prey. Leave him to die at his own pace? But valuable information would be lost. So he made up a fourth option, one that made him smile outwardly at his own corrupted sense of humor.

With sure fingers he unchained his captive, careful to take him under the shoulder as to not let him fall onto the hard ground. His pulse was erratic at best, and another head wound would most likely end it all.

Uri didn't understand. Why would Tyki take him down? Why would he be placed against the wall with care, as if he were not a traitor who deserved to die? He wanted to die. If that happened, no one would know the things he had learned. Had Tyki figured him out?

"Well, my dear Uri-chan," He felt a hand travel around the back of his neck to take hold of the knot there, a moment later the fabric fell away from his eyes, yet he had not the strength to open them. He knew despite his sightlessness that Tyki was smiling at him, his dark eyes twinkling, his top hat slightly less than straight atop its bed of shiny brow curls. His voice was laced with maliciousness when he spoke. "I think it is about time we met up with your other half. Don't you?"

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Kanda grinned at the blushing boy in the bathtub, fully aware that grinning would only make the blushing worse. Even after what Allen had done the night before he was still shy, afraid to sit before his lover without clothes, even if he was covered in a rather thick layer of foamy soap. Kanda wanted to take off his pants and hop in the water and have him, but such an act would undoubtedly end with a very messy bathroom and neither of them cleaner than when they had started, which would lead to even more bathing and more messes and eventually a very angry innkeeper. It just would not be a smart move.

_Funny how I'm more worried about making a mess than I am about hurting him…_

"Kanda, stop grinning at me like that."

"Che, why would I do that, Moyashi?"

"You make me think you're going to eat me."

"And you would object?"

Allen sank lower in the tub, his neck and shoulders disappearing bellow the line of bubbles until he was just a pink face hovering in the water. "I don't go well with soba." Kanda shook his head and started at his shirt buttons, Allen's eyes grew wide as he pulled the garment off of his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. "What are you doing?" Allen blinked at him when the boots came off next, followed by the hair ribbon.

Kanda cocked an eyebrow at him as he undid the top button of his pants. "Che, you don't expect me to massage you from _outside_ of the tub do you? Baka, there's _water_ in there that will end up out here."

"But if _you_ get in here, water will end up out there."

"Che, I have self-control."

Allen smirked at him, trying not to watch as Kanda's hands kept unfastening buttons. Watching reminded him of how amazing the night before had been, and how he would like to do it again, regardless of his aching back, throbbing arms, and thighs that wanted to attack him just for thinking about doing something so strenuous. It didn't make sense to him _why_ he was so sore though, being he did workout nearly every morning, and none of that hurt. _Just one of those mysteries…_

A pale foot plunked into the water a moment later and Allen scooted away to allow Kanda entrance. Naturally he turned around and leaned into the older Exorcist, his wet back coming into contact with Kanda's cold, dry skin. The touch relaxed him immensely, even though he had not realized he was tense beforehand. His lover, who was somewhat surprised by their closeness, wrapped his arms around the smaller boy and leaned his face into his neck, sighing at the warm water. It did feel wonderful. The light scent of foreign flowers filled his nostrils and made him tired.

"Kanda."

"Hm?"

"Will we get cleaner if we just soak for long enough?"

"Che," He grunted, moving one hand to Allen's shoulder, which he proceeded to rub. "How about we find out?"

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Lavi placed yet another glass delicately on his plate, amazed that the glassware could be balanced so easily. He and Sable had been sitting at the breakfast table for perhaps ten minutes without seeing Allen or Kanda, and he was beginning to think that the two had gone elsewhere for their food. Or maybe they were occupied with something else entirely.

"I'm hungry." He sighed at his glass tower.

"If I can control the ravenous crystal in my forehead, you can control your gut." Sable chimed, shifting in her seat. _I'm kind of tired of Swedish food…_ She thought at the menu. _I'd kill for a cheeseburger._

"I may not be eating for two but I still feel the same you, know? Might just take more to make the feeling go away for you."

Sable laughed a little as she turned the page, glancing over the glossy paper and over the mountain of dishes to the bored boy on the other side of the table. He was running a finger over the rim of his cup of water, which was thankfully not part of his teetering clear creation. "I'm not eating for two, thank you very much. And I'm pretty much hungry all the time, so I doubt it's exactly the same. It's like having a bottomless void in the bottom of your stomach, sucking the life out of you." She smiled at the horrified look she received.

"Even when you talk like a normal person, you're still creepy." Lavi shuttered.

"Fine. Don't talk to me."

"That's not what I meant!"

"No, no. I'm creepy. No one talks to creepy people unless they have to."

"I'm talking to you now, aren't I?"

"No. You're arguing with me."

"Because you aren't _that_ creepy! You just have an odd way of saying things, really. Reminds me vaguely of Panda sometimes." He picked up his water glass and sipped it, the ice tinkled against the glass. "When he gets to talking it's like the room gets dim, the light fades away until it's just his face, telling you something that makes you shiver even if it's happy. He might be talking about the sunrise on the morning of an epic victory but it still has the aura of grimness and ill that makes your bones feel like crawling out from under your skin."

Sable snorted at him, a small smile crossing her lips that he could not see. "Lavi-chan?"

"Hm?"

"You're creepy like Bookman, too."

He smiled at that, taking it as something of a compliment. After a moment he sighed at her again, this time leaning over and clutching his stomach as if pained by it. "I'm ordering without them!"

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"What if Sable and Lavi are waiting for us?" Allen asked as he attempted to rinse the soap from Kanda's hair. The samurai's face was more or less covered with the ebony tresses, strands clinging to his neck and shoulders. His was rather un-amused in appearance, dripping wet, frowning, suds on his chest and arms. Allen might have laughed at him if he weren't sharing the tub.

"Che," Kanda shook his head to get his hair out of his eyes. "We're practically done anyways, so they don't have much longer to wait."

"But my fingers are pruney."

"And?"

"And that means we've been in here for a while." Allen looked at him from behind his bedraggled white bangs and he cupped his hands around yet more water, which he splashed at his lover. "So even if they don't have that long to wait, they've already been waiting all this time."

Kanda harrumphed and pulled the plug out of the drain. "You're just hungry, aren't you?"

Allen waved his hands in front of his face defensively as the other man stood up to leave the tub. "N-n-no! I am, but that's not why we should hurry."

"Mmhmm." Kanda intoned, disbelieving. Allen watched him wrap a towel around his hips and search for a comb, a thoughtful look on his face. "Are you going to sit there all day?"

"Oh, could you hand me a towel?" Allen smiled up at him from the now nearly empty bath, his hands wrapped around his shoulders from the cold. Kanda vaguely wondered if he were sitting there, naked on purpose, trying to tempt him into doing something to make them both dirty again. _I seriously need to stop thinking such things, _He mused to himself as he threw a towel at Allen. _I'll become a health hazard for him and his soreness if I don't watch out._

Allen found himself thinking blatant thoughts as he watched Kanda locate clean clothes. He had yet to leave the bathroom himself, but he could watch Kanda's reflection in the bathroom mirror if he tried. The curve of his hips, the angle of his jaw, little things that Allen had never thought to appreciate caught his eye. But appreciating them led his mind in directions that made him blush quietly to his reflection, solemnly wishing he knew a less messy way to have some Kanda before he went down to breakfast.

"Oi, Moyashi," Kanda called from the room. Allen leaned around the bathroom door's frame to see what he wanted.

"Yes, Love?"

"Are these mine, or yours?" Allen almost laughed to see the no-longer-quite-naked man buttoning a pair of pants that had to be four sizes too small. They were too low on his hips, too tight in the legs, and about a foot too short at the ankle. The fact that he even had to ask who's there were made it all that funnier in Allen's mind.

"Hey! Get out of my pants!"

Kanda looked up with the younger Exorcist, an evil expression on his face. "You liked being in mine, Moyashi-kun. Why don't I get to try out yours?"

_Ah, the eyes. He's giving me the eyes… must – resist – the eyes!_ Allen's feet carried him floatingly across the room to stand next to Kanda, regardless of his resistance. He had said the name also, which always deserved at least a kiss, if not a small hicky, but Kanda was giving him that expression that meant even the most innocent of touches could lead to a long session of anatomical exploration.

Allen's lips just hardly brushed his, just enough to let him know that they were there. It was perhaps the worst thing he could have done for Kanda's self-control. He took the smaller boy by the shoulders and pulled him flush against him, pressing their mouths together thirstily, on hand moving to touch his trembling neck, the other falling to unwrap the towel at Allen's waist. No matter how Kanda's mind demanded that they had just gotten over doing this and there was no reason for them to do it again so soon and Allen was still sore from there previous adventures, his body would not listen.

It was not until Allen felt Kanda step toward him that he realized he was not going to put up much of a fight. He was sore, he was tired, he was hungry, but that didn't really matter that much anymore. He wanted Kanda.

"Love…" He gasped when the older Exorcist backed him into the bed, catching his knees on it. Kanda ran his fingers over Allen's hip, received a small intake of breath in response. "We just – got clean. And Lavi – and Sable –" But he knew arguing was pointless. Kanda was a determined fellow, and he pushed Allen back onto the bed with little effort. That was Allen's last attempt at resistance. With a small smile and a shaking exhalation he gave himself up to Kanda's touch.

_Sometimes,_ Allen thought distantly_. The two of us together like this is more important than whatever is going on outside. _He hissed at his lover's teeth on his neck, his fingers curled in Kanda's hair, _I wonder if this is what I've always waited for._

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**Owari! Try not to over analyze that last sentence there… though if you do I'll be analyzing with you. I am a bad authoress… sometimes the characters choose to say things and I don't understand them.**

**My posts will be a tiny bit slower now, because I'm busy, though they will still be coming rather regularly. Forgive me and my slowness!**


	22. Of Pants and War

**So I was thinking about coming up with a way to introduce an author's note that doesn't require the words 'woot!' 'hey!' 'yo!' 'ah!' or 'look!'.**

**Thus far, I have found nothing but 'so.'**

**Now, on with the story! And the disclaimer! And the warning!**

**Disclaimer of Darkness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…Fou would have real shorts, not that funky-ass butt-plate.**

**WARNING: LOTS OF MAN-LOVIN'. (Though you should know this by now…)**

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Of Pants and War

The woman who took their order had to go back and get a pad of paper halfway through Sable's request. She then promptly ran off to tell the cook what he had to make, forgetting to take Lavi's order in the process. The red head sank low in his chair, resting his head against the table and sighing deeply. Was it too much to ask to have someone notice _him_ for once?

Sable tapped at the table with her fork, an odd feeling coming over hear. Just seconds ago she had felt that it was just another day like any other day, things were going to be normal and happy, and they were going to get on a train to go back to the Order. But now she thought otherwise. Her stomach clenched every so often and her forehead ached vaguely, like Uri was failing at using his powers or something.

_I wonder if I should look for him_, She thought, seeing her face reflected on the surface of her water. _What's the worst I could find?_

"Why do you look like your going to faint?" Lavi frowned at his table partner.

She put her cup down and sighed, the fight went out of her with the air. "I don't know, but I kinda feel like I'm going to." She blinked a few times as she looked for sparkles against her eyelids, touched her forehead to see if it felt warm. _Yeah, like anyone can tell when they have a fever_.

"Maybe you should lie down?"

She shook her head and wet her lips with a dry tongue. "No, I'll be fine. I just kind of feel…"

"What?"

_Kind of like I'm dying, _She thought immediately. _And I'm sorry for not saying something. And I have to die._ "Like there's something wrong with half of me." As the words left her mouth they seemed to gather meaning. "Part of me is…breaking."

Lavi studied Sable's face as she spoke, the lines of which took on a new depth. He had never seen her falter before and the sight was slightly more frightening than he thought it would be; she always seemed so indifferent that fear was like a vale across her countenance, blocking out her normal cynicism like a cloud in front of a rather meek sun.

"Is there…anything that I can do?" His voice pulled her eyes up but did not redirect her thoughts. Even though she knew that physically nothing was wrong with her she could still vaguely taste blood in her mouth, feel something hard against her back. Lavi would not be able to change that. He would not be able to break the bound that made her experience such things. He would not understand regardless of how much he knew.

"Yes," She did all she could to smile at him, but it was still a sorry attempt. "Stop staring at me and order something."

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Kanda felt Allen surrender to him almost as soon as it happened, though it took him an instant to comprehend it. The boy beneath him suddenly became responsive to every touch, understanding of every glance and sigh, almost as if he understood that Kanda wasn't going to sit back this time. He found himself leaning very low, taking Allen's hand in his, capturing his mouth and refusing to let go even when his lungs were burning.

He liked having control.

Allen sucked in air when their lips parted, amazement and fear mingling with his excitement. His heart pounded like a hammer against his ribs, his lips itched to be kissed again, and his mind reeled at the feeling of Kanda pressing on him, holding him down. It was completely different than before. Completely new. He felt like his body had become an extension of Kanda's, that he did his lover's bidding regardless of what he wanted; his hips rose to meet Kanda's as he tried to will them to stillness, his throat gave a broken moan even as he willed himself not to speak. His actions were not his own. Every moment that passed he grew more frantic from his confinement.

But he liked being confined. As much as he was afraid of it, he enjoyed it.

The older Exorcist traced the line of the younger's jaw with his fingertips, smiled when he leaned into the touch, biting his lip. There was something in Allen's eyes that told him this was alright, that he was allowed to do as he pleased for now, that the reluctance in Allen's face was nothing but the fear of the moment, not fear of the man. But he was still worried. Even if it was physically alright with Allen he wanted to be sure it was mentally and emotionally fine with him, because even the slightest bit of fear could blossom into something terrible.

He bent yet closer, kissing Allen's neck lightly to the side until he came to his ear. "If I scare you, please stop me."

The hand in his clenched tightly and the one pressed against his bare chest ran upward across his skin until it came to his cheek. "I like this, Love. I want this." And as if to encourage him he pulled Kanda onto him, bearing all of his weight on his naked form, "Even if we get gross again," He laughed.

Kanda pushed himself up slowly until he was looking down at Allen's silver eyes, his wet hair falling on the pillow next to his face. "You seriously mean that."

Allen nodded.

"You seriously love me."

He nodded again, still smiling.

_How could I have ever missed it?_

"But right now Love I'm about ready to start humping my own pants. Please take them off." Allen's tone was not to be argued with (though Kanda thought that he might have laughed a little if not for the urgency), so he started slinking out of them as quickly as he could. The back and forth motion he chose to move the too-tight fabric did not lower the heat between them, indeed it nearly drove Allen mad with yearning. Small whimpers escaped his lips as Kanda accidentally rubbed his growing hardness, sending waves of pleasure shuttering throughout his tiny frame, his hands twining themselves in the sheets. It was bitter sweet agony not to be touched and yet to be touched like that, every passing second he felt that Kanda's presence alone would drive him over the edge, yet he was not forced so far.

Kanda grinned from ear to ear when he saw that simply brushing his lover would make him gasp excitedly, and his head would lean back into the pillows. When at last the offending garment was out of the way his mouth took to Allen's collar bone again, his right hand falling to gently caress the places that he had been touched the night before. He wanted to be sure he was ready; to be sure that Allen got as many moments of pleasure as he could before he did anything that might hurt him.

His teasing made Allen seize his shoulders, digging his fingernails into his lover's flesh. Kanda did not specifically care for that, but he wasn't about to complain about it. Allen seemed to be enjoying having himself held down, seemed to like it when he bit lightly at his tender flesh, so Kanda wasn't going to knock a little pain the first time he had tried it.

The fingers fell from him almost instinctively, tracing lines down his chest until they came to his hips and took hold only to let go again, they followed the line of his body until they stopped at his innermost thighs, just inches from the pinnacle of his desire. Allen was too close for him to do what he wanted.

"_Anatano te_."

"English, Love."

"Your hands." He repeated. "Move them."

"But I want to touch you, Kanda, please. Let me feel you." Allen's eyes were beseeching but Kanda didn't want that. _It has to last longer than that,_ He thought, sitting up on Allen's hips and taking hold of his wrists.

"Not yet."

"Oh, please, please," Allen pleaded softly as his arms where pushed up over his head and held there in one of Kanda's. He couldn't touch his lover with his hands like that. He couldn't touch himself either. He moaned when Kanda kissed him, his teeth catching the edge of his bottom lip just enough to make him feel it. Allen didn't know what to do. If he had had a choice he would have placed his hands one on Kanda's shoulder and the other wound up in his hair, but that wasn't at option. The silken tresses fell softly across them both, unhindered by his hands. "Please, Love, please." His voice was ragged as he bucked into the hand that cupped him.

His lover could not tell if he was begging for him to go on or begging him to stop, but in either case he still had words. Kanda did not want words. He redoubled his efforts, dragging his tongue in the most erotic of places as his hand gently took hold of Allen's erection and he began to stroke it ever so softly.

He could have killed him while he kissed him for being so gentle. Instead he growled deep in his throat, pushing at the hand in his wrists as he lifted himself into the next brush of contact, the growl turning to a moan instantaneously. Every muscle in his body tensed for that moment until he fell away, which caused him to lift himself again. When he did that, Kanda seemed to get the message at last.

Seeing Allen so aroused made self-control nothing but a vague memory for Kanda. He wanted Allen. He wanted Allen to feel as wonderful as he had before. His mind could do nothing to stop his body from taking and giving what he wanted.

The British boy shivered when his arms were at last released and the scent of lilac and rose alerted him to the opening of a rather familiar bottle of oil. A flurry of fear ran through him when he felt Kanda lightly rub his entrance with a fingertip, as gentle as a breath of wind. He had never imagined himself being taken by Kanda, never envisioned being the more submissive of them, but here he was, his hands lost in Kanda's hair, his mouth open as Kanda traced warm kisses down his neck and chest, his mind amazed at how his body ignored his thoughts. And it felt right. Every part of him screamed that there was nothing wrong with giving in.

His lover pressed his finger in slowly, careful to be as gentle as Allen had been before, if not more so. The pressure of something inside of him was shocking at first; he had to fight the urge to reject Kanda. Kanda returned his attention to Allen's lips, kissing him aggressively, willing him to forget the intrusion that made him tense. Over a few moments the younger boy melted in his arms, comfort winning out over unfamiliarity. The second finger earned Kanda a slight moan that prompt him to nibble lightly on Allen's lip, drag his palm across his phallus teasingly.

At last Allen was relaxed enough he grabbed Kanda's neck and pull it toward him, but his attempt at a kiss was ruined when his lover's fingers found the sensitive place within him, his head fell back as an exclamation of pleasure escaped him.

That was enough for Kanda. It was time to get down to business.

Liberally he applied oil to himself, suddenly aware of just how much he wanted to feel Allen's warmth, touch his fair skin. With exceeding care he pressed himself into his smaller lover and leaned over him, his lips came down softly on Allen's forehead, but that was not what Allen wanted; his fingers clasped his lover's face as he kissed him deeply and slid his hips lower on the mattress. The sliding brought him down on Kanda like a sheath, enclosing him in pressure and heat that made him cry out; Allen made a small sound of displeasure at the sudden intrusion, but he did not push away or back down. Instead he did it again – cueing the other man to take up his slow rhythm with none-too gently thrusts of his hips.

It did not take long for the two of them to find release, this time simultaneously. Kanda's sapphire eyes took in the image of Allen in that moment, embedded the picture in his mind for all time. Seeing the satisfaction on his soft features made Kanda feel oddly accomplished; _he_ had made Allen make that expression, _he_ had made him call out his name, when he slumped down on the sheets next to his lover it was _his_ presence that made Allen smile crookedly from across their shared pillow.

_How come that makes me happy?_

Allen chuckled lightly to himself at the expression on Kanda's face when they were lying next to each other, limbs intertwined. Somehow, despite the circumstances, Kanda still managed to look like he had some horribly deep thought in the back of his mind, turning behind the sleepiness and happiness in his eyes.

Kanda cocked an eyebrow at him, his thoughts returning to the moment at hand. "How was that, Moyashi?"

Allen frowned deeply at him. "You need practice."

The glare he received sent him bubbling away with giggles. "I'm joking! I'm joking! You were wonderful." He ran his hand over Kanda's forehead, brushing the wet hair over his shoulder as his glare did not fade. "Seriously Love; I don't think I've had anyone as good as you."

"Che, just the thing I want to hear from a _virgin_."

"Am not!"

"Heh, not anymore."

Allen narrowed one eye at the older man and decided that now was the best time to do the unthinkable. With a mischievous wink he attack him, aiming his small fingers at ribs and stomach, violently chasing Kanda from the middle of the bed to the side, tickling as if his life depended on it. He was perhaps a tad over enthusiastic though, as Kanda rolled off of the bed and onto the floor.

"Ah! Kanda!" He exclaimed, as the normally agile man threw himself to the ground, first catching his head on the side of the nightstand. Allen scrambled to the edge of the mattress to see what had become of his lover. A hand reached up over the side and grabbed his wrist, yanked him down onto the carpet. "Eep!"

"Che, do you know what you've started, Moyashi?" Kanda asked, pulling him closer.

"N-no…"

"War."

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"Did you hear something?" Lavi looked up from his plate and cringed.

Sable stopped sucking in her food for a moment to blink at him in confusion. "Did you say something?"

Lavi plopped his fork down and glanced at the stairway that led to the rooms. "Yeah, I thought I heard something go _bang_."

"Hm," She went back to shoveling, "Mushta bin da fimb."

_She's so ladylike._

"The what?"

Sable's shoulders slumped as she waved her hands momentarily as she chewed. "Wimv! Zoof!"

"Ooh. Wind. Right."

"Mmhmm."

She didn't look up from her food again until most of it was gone; Lavi kept watching the stairs, waiting for something to come down them and attack them. A number of minutes passed while he watched. But no akuma came, no enemy appeared, and no frightened victim came running. Instead, after a few minutes of silence, he saw something slightly more amusing.

Allen came panting done the stairs in pants that were far too large, the jacket he had borrowed from Kanda hanging open off his shoulders, no shirt beneath it. But the worst thing was the maniacal grin on his face, and his slight lip.

"Mo…yashi-chan?" Lavi asked quietly. The boy spotted them even across the dining area and started for them, ignoring the odd looks he got for wheezing in, half-dressed. He plopped him self down in the chair to Lavi's right and Sable's left, holding his chest as he heaved. "What happened? You look beat."

The white haired boy coughed twice before he had enough strength to speak. "I tickled…Kanda…"

"What?!?!"

"And…now…we're at war…"

"What?"

"Be… my ally?"

"Huh? Moyashi-chan, is something wrong with Yuu-chan?"

"No… and… he's…wearing…my pan—" Allen stopped. Lavi followed his eyes to the stairs as Allen's face turned absolutely pink, his mouth closed. He swallowed hard before he spoke again. "I'm dead."

And there, standing at the entranceway, was Kanda. Lavi was too distracted to notice the playful glint in his eyes, too amazed to comprehend entirely what he was seeing.

"Moyashi-chan," He turned slowly to look at Allen, scratching his head in thought. "Are those yours or Yuu's?"

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**DUN-DUN-DUN. Another chapter finished! Ah…this next part is going to be great fun to write, I can't wait… I have so much fun with this fic! It makes me happy!**

**And thank you, my dear readers and reviewers! You make me happy too! Without reviews I'd most likely feel very much inadequate. Just the thought makes me teary…**

**Anyhoo! Enough emo-Nia! See ya'll next chappy!**


	23. Yullen and Lable

**Mmm… Niamh is sick today, blech.**

**But! That means I can update! And start the next chapter! And have eventual plot movement! YAY!! sniff**

**Disclaimer of Disability: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lavi would hug Yuu-chan just to see what would happen. Like really hug.**

**WARNING: Hmm… not a lot of warning this chapter. Implied man lovin' man. One crazy awkward OC XD**

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Yullen and Lable

Kanda solemnly wished that his greatcoat was clean and not holey, but wishing did not make it so. If he had had his coat no one would have seen his pants beneath them – he could be pants-less most of the time without anyone knowing – and it would not have mattered that his rather irksome lover had darned the wrong pair in the mist of a tickle-battle. His ribs still hurt from losing.

Losing. Kanda Yuu had been defeated.

And by Allen Walker no less.

He seethed.

_I need practice, he says! And then he tickles me! Tickles _me_! He didn't even stop when I threatened him. And then he has the courage to steal my pants. _My_ pants. Why not just pick up his own pants? They were closer._

_But noooo, Allen Baka-Moyashi Walker grabbed mine instead, and now Lavi is looking at me like that time I took him to that hot spring. I am not meat!_

Kanda sighed and narrowed his gaze at the white haired boy across the room from him. Part of him wanted to strangle the younger Exorcist but most of him was just poking fun. He _was not_ masochistic enough to say that he liked any of this – he definitely did not like walking around in Allen's pants and having people stare at him like that – but he admitted to himself that he liked how Allen ran teasingly away. It made him smile a little, to know that his mild brand of sadism had yet to frighten his lover.

But no one would have seen that tiny smile, no matter how closely they looked.

_That feather idea I had back on the boat wasn't half-bad._ He thought, stepping down the stairs slowly. _I'll just have to catch him, drag him back up there with me, and find a feather. After that, it's a matter of finding something to hold him down._

He started for the table, cracking his fingers as we walked. _I'm going to tickle him until he stops breathing. People watching be damned._

"I'm dead… I'm dead…" Allen chanted, sinking low in his chair. "He's going to torture me until I can't breathe anymore. And then some."

Lavi gave him a small wink and smiled, "Not if I can help it! Yuu-chan!" Lavi called with a wave. "You think the two of you can call a temporary truce for breakfast?" The red head cocked his head to the side, grinning at him. "And please come sit down, you're giving everyone a rather _lengthy_ show."

If Allen had been drinking in the moment, the liquid would have been snorted out his nose.

Lavi's evaluation was accurate to say the least and his loud suggestion that the Japanese man find a seat only brought more attention to it. Perhaps the second strangest thing happened then; Kanda pulled his shirt closed and took to buttoning it, a light blush on his cheeks, determination in his eyes. He wasn't very easy to fluster, but when someone managed it he looked absolutely hilarious.

"Che." He groaned as he came closer. But he nodded, aware that trying to eat and tickle and get back to England all at the same time would make for a horrendous day.

Sable, who had been searching the table for forgotten food, glanced from Allen to Lavi and back again, blinking a little. She had missed most of the prior exchange she had been so engrossed. "Oi, Allen-chan, aren't those pants a little big for you?"

Allen smiled at her and picked up a dish of fruit she had missed. "Mmhmm. You see, Kanda had just er…we'd…anyways, I picked up his pants on accident but I didn't have time to change out of them, so I kept them on. His other pants are all bloodstained and dirty still, so…"

"So he's wearing yours and you're wearing his?" Sable raised an eyebrow at him and stole a grape out of the fruit dish. The grin he gave her made her sigh. "The two of you are going to have a wonderful time rooming together, huh?"

"What?" Kanda was at the table at last. He pulled out the chair that was across from Allen and plopped himself down with an air of annoyance. Lavi was amazed by it. Kanda could have a _tickle_ war, wear pants that made him look like a male stripper, have long flowing girl hair and _still_ manage to have the same aura of loathing, death, and overall impossible masculinity. The juxtaposition was almost too much for him.

Sable stretched and yawned loudly before she turned to the Japanese man. "Just talking about how if the two of you are swapping clothes now, you're going to be in all sorts of trouble when you're living together."

"Huh?" It was Lavi this time.

"You heard them last night," She explained, waving a hand at each of the lovers. "The one screams like a girl and the other moans like a zombie. With sounds like that, they have to live together."

"There was a reason I was coving my ears Sable-chan…"

"I'm not reenacting, you homophobe."

"I'm not a homophobe; I'm a Yullen-o-phobe."

"_A what_?" Allen and Kanda asked at once. They had been listening silently to the exchange, attempting to read the menu.

Lavi smiled at them each in turn, waving his hands defensively. "Doesn't it sound cute? It was something Lenalee did when we were younger. Whenever someone was with someone else you splinch there names together, like Yullen, or… Kanker or…. Waluu. Basically Yullen is just the best one."

"What about Savi?"

Lavi looked at Allen in wonder. What the hell was he talking about? 'Savvy' (as he had heard it) had nothing to do with either of their names.

"You know, for you two. Sable and Lavi makes Savi."

"And Lavi and Sable makes Lable." Kanda informed them all. The two fakers looked across the table at each other with wide eyes, fear in the one pair, and mischief in the other. _Why did it have to be words?_ Lavi thought in despair. And what the hell was he going to do when they got back to the Order? Word that he and Sable were _Lable_ would spread like wildfire, and then someone would here it… and that someone would tell someone else… and Lavi would end up confined to the library for the rest of his natural life.

Sable spoke before he could open his mouth and ruin their lies. "Actually, if you guys don't mind, could you keep _us_ a secret? We're not sure what Panda would do if he found out."

It took only a moment for Allen to nod solemnly. It was then that the waitress came back again, remarking that the number of table occupants had multiplied. She had a not pad with her this time.

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"Nii-san," Lenalee opened the door to her brother's office to find him frowning at papers – managing to work for once in his life. He glanced up at her and grinned, happy to see a coffee tray in her hands. "I wanted to ask how long it was going to be before the others came back." She asked, coming forward so he could take his favorite mug from the tray.

Komui put the papers into the pile he had designated as 'Read and to be Filed', sighing. "Assuming they catch both trains and the boat on time and they have fine weather, perhaps twelve days, why?"

"Good." Lenalee smiled at him. "They'll get back on Christmas then."

Her brother's eyebrows went together slowly as he realized that she was right. Christmas. He'd have to get everyone presents – and two for Allen, being it was his birthday as well.

"Was there anything else you needed?" He asked when she stopped on the way out, leaning on his doorway.

"Have you seen my camera?"

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"Yullen! Hurry up!"

"You know they're both going to kill you if you keep that up."

"But it's _so_ worth it."

"Willing to die but not willing to lose your purity? Are you sure you're a man?"

Sable sighed at the boy next to her, looking at him from under the brim of her hat. The hat wasn't new, just something she had forgotten about in the very, very bottom of her suitcase, next to the autobiographies and science books. It had started snowing again, though only lightly, and the two of them had packed much faster than their warring companions. Kanda and Allen had both eaten without as much as a rib poke, but the truce seemed to have ending with the meal. Sable and Lavi stood outside of the inn, looking up at the open window that belonged to the two other boys, calling out to it. Sable doubted that it would make them pack faster, but it was a fun way to pass the time anyways.

"Yull-en!" Lavi said in a sing-song voice. "We're a-gonna leave ya here in Sweeeeden! Here in Sweeeden! Where the air is soo co-co-co-cooooold."

"For the love of God, Lavi."

"Hm?"

"Do _not_ sing."

"Why not?"

"Because when you sing like your talking you sound like a pre-pubescent boy."

"Maybe I'm a tenor."

"No, no. This isn't boy-soprano, this is 'Oh God, make it stop, my ears are bleeding.'"

"Sable-chan you're so mean to me… I swear that you and Yuu-chan are long lost relatives."

"We're not; you just make us both feel like we need to cut our wrists."

"Sable-chan, you make me sad inside…"

Just as he finished a rather large, rather dirty snowball smashed into the side of his face, the force knocked him square on his behind in the snow. With a loud curse he scrapped the cold mush from his eye and looked up to see Kanda standing in the door way, a suitcase in one hand, a snowball in the other. Behind him, holding his shirt sleeve was a cowering Allen, his eyes looking guilty.

"Moyashi-ch—" Kanda's projectile cut him off abruptly, pushing him back to the ground again. He gagged a few times as he fingers dove between his teeth to pull the snow out of his mouth, his one green eye tearing in disgust. He glared at the Japanese man, expecting to see him smirk at him or just roll his eyes indifferently.

He froze when Kanda managed to laugh at him.

_He's Yuu-chan._ Lavi thought as he spit one more time before pushing himself to his hands and knees in an attempt to get up. _Yuu-chan has laughed maybe four times since I've met him – and that's not counting what Sable claims she heard. He doesn't like to laugh in front of people. He doesn't like to get close to people, and laughing makes people closer. He said once, 'Laughter makes love, baka. No one should love me.' And he never would explain it. So what did Allen do? Why is he laughing like that?_

"Oi, Lavi-chan, you could have thrown seven snowballs in the time it's taken you to recover from that hit." Sable chimed, taking his collar roughly in her hand and yanking him to his feet. "But it's too late now; you don't get a chance for revenge."

"Wha-why not?" He asked, shaking off his previous thoughts in favor of something brighter. So what if Kanda was in love with Allen? So what if he had finally let down that wall around his heart? Lavi wasn't the jealous type. He had always hoped that one day Yuu would see the folly of his ways and start to really care about someone and let them care back – and that that someone would be his best friend – but he wasn't about to get butt hurt about it. Besides, he hadn't been in love with the samurai, and even if he had been it wasn't in his character to let it bring him down. He would sigh and move on like he always did, with is left hand on his mallet and his right holding the hole his heart had become.

Besides, there was a certain other member of the Order he had had his eye on for a long time. A perhaps-some-day loving eye. Not that that would _ever_ happen in _one hundred billion zillion _years.

"Because we'll miss the train and then we'll miss our other train and then we'll miss the boat." Sable hissed at him, tugging on his jacket. "Now stop thinking. Let's go."

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"Yullen-chan!"

"You say that one more time I'll cut you into so many pieces, the Order will have to identify you with dental records."

"Is it so hard to say _All-en_ and _Kan-da_?"

Allen sat next to Kanda with his left hand in his lover's right, looking out the train window with something of a sad expression on his face. He hoped to be alone with Kanda, to be able to talk about things that they had yet to talk about, but that was not what had happened. The week they had spent eating in the inn had diminished their funding more than planned, so the four had elected to have one compartment on the train instead of one cabin on the boat – because there would be murder or suicide after long periods of confinement at sea.

"Neither of you lift a finger," Sable smiled at them. "I'll make him stop."

Kanda lifted an eyebrow at the young woman sitting across from him. Her face was hard, arms folded across her chest, her right leg crossed over her left. When he looked at her sometimes he wondered if she really was a woman, she held herself like she was the epitome of masculinity half the time and acted the cynical bastard the rest. It was odd, seeing as she was so close to the ever colorful, ever flamboyant Lavi.

"Che, if you figure out a way to get him to shut up, please tell me."

Sable smiled crookedly at him. "It's not that difficult. I'm sure Allen's done it to you before."

"Done what?"

Lavi blinked at both of them, feeling abandoned. "Why are you talking about me like I'm not here?"

Sable dropped her hands from her arms and straightened in her seat, leaning forward as if she were instructing the older Exorcist in something amazingly important. "You know, done something… shall we say blatant? Yes, I think that's a good euphemism."

Kanda's face went from curious to near concerned in a moments notice. "Like what?"

"Oh, when you're saying something and he doesn't want to hear it, so he just covers your lips."

"Hm," Kanda frowned deeply. "No, I can't really think of anything like that…"

"Moyashi-chan, why are they acting like I can't hear them?" Lavi asked quietly. His great green eye looked as if it would start welling with tears at any moment.

Allen looked at the red head and the other two with a puzzled expression – he hadn't been paying attention at all. "I'm sorry, what we were talking about? I was just watching the snow and wondering if it was actually safe to ride a train in it. Not that you really needed to know that."

"Oh, it's safe," Sable flipped her braid over her shoulder and waved him off. "Every time I lived in Sweden it snowed on the rails at least a little. No one died."

"But what exactly do you mean, _blatant_?" Kanda broke in. "Could you give me an example."

"Oh no!" Lavi exclaimed with a complete lack of pessimism. "I've been completely ignored! It's not Yullen any more! It's… it's Sayullen!"

"Like this!" Sable pounced. Without regard for purity or patience or the red head's wishes she took him by the shoulders and kissed him. Inwardly she giggled at his dead mouth, the hands that went out to the sides and stayed there, incapable of pushing her away or pulling her close because of surprise. Lavi, _the Lavi_, the prankster and joker of all the Order, had never expected to have someone _do _that him in half a billion zillion yearsThe two Exorcists on the opposing seat blinked at Sable in dumbfounded awe, able to see that while Sable had closed her eyes to the kiss Lavi still looked at her with something like terror on his pale face.

When she stopped, Lavi was twelve shades too red, but she looked unflustered. "And there you have it, Kanda-chan," She clapped a hand on Lavi's back and leaned on him – he did not seem to feel either action. His eye was void of light. "All you have to do is kiss him."

Allen stifled a giggle. Kanda grinned, the expression just as bright as it had been when he had smiled at Allen the first time in _The Sow Side Log_.

"I think I'll pass on that," He inclined his head so that it rested gently on his lover's, "I never did like the taste of rabbit."

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**That's it. More updates to come soon, depending upon how healthy I am the rest of today and tomorrow. I always spend more time with my comp when I'm not feeling well. I wonder why that is.**

**Also, the name thing is totally something my friends and I do. We came up with such names as Brylene, Megach, Zacan, Annathew, Matisa, and Pagan.**

**Reviews. Are. Love.**

**Thanks for reading! Sorry if you were expecting more plot and less fluff… I couldn't resist the pull of the happiness! More actual adventure and character growth is to come!**


	24. Presents

**Doo-doo-doo! Chapter 24 is here at last! Yay!!**

**Ehem. Niamh's house is slowly blowing away in a horrible storm. This is odd, being she lives in California.**

**I'm really sorry to those of you who reviewed the last chapter and didn't get a reply or got like 92 million of them. My computer threw something of a fit and decided that internet access was good for reading email and writing responses but not actually sending anything. I could get IMs, read fics, and all sorts of stuff – but I don't think it sent most of my responses. I am dreadfully sorry!**

**Now, I've been told by about 5 people that Sable and Lavi should get together. I don't know if that's a good idea or not, but feel free to tell me your opinion. Personally I'm a little against OCxMC stuff, and I think Sable might have a small cow if I try to make it happen XD**

**Disclaimer of D-superlongness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… episodes would come out hecka faster.**

**WARNING: YAOI! Shounen-ai! Man on Man. Gayness. Homosexual behavior.**

**Now on to the fic! (Sorry that I'm long winded.)**

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Presents

Lavi was quiet for much of the way to Varberg, just mulling things over in his mind, chewing on what Sable had done. He didn't understand her at all. She was like a big ball of hilarity, wrapped in weapons, dipped in void, and covered with nice sprinkle of bravery. And her complete disregard for his desires and others feelings made her even more of an enigma. She seemed to care about Allen and Kanda being happy, about keeping him from being murdered, but she didn't mind stepping on anyone's ego or making them feel awkward. Every expression she made seemed either horribly faked or completely honest. It was like she never lied with her features and always spoke her mind – even when she wasn't being honest.

He sighed to himself and leaned his head on the cold glass of the window. They would stay in the old _Sow Side Log_ for one night and catch their ship the next morning. And then it was goodbye Sweden. Until then though, he had a nice cool window to press his forehead against so he could think.

_But _why_ am I thinking?_

"They're cute, aren't they?" The girl he had been trying to understand for a good twenty minutes said from where she sat on the bed, not looking up from her book.

"Hm?"

"Kanda and Allen." She sighed and closed her book. "They're all cute and happy and adorable and…gah."

"Gah?"

Lavi frowned at her as she threw herself back on the bed, dropping her reading material on her face. He didn't say anything though. She needed to speak her mind, which was obvious.

"I mean, I know that I help put them together and everything. And I know that they really do love each other. And I understand that I should be happy for them. But part of me just wants to kick them, you know? Kind of… 'Take your happiness and shove it,' not that that would really work… they'd _enjoy_ shoving it." She said all of this to the book on her face, completely ignoring how awkward it was to have Lavi's own recent thoughts thrown in his face. "That doesn't make me a horrible person does it?"

Lavi chuckled lightly and the sound made her slide the book off her face enough to look at him past its cover, her left eye was the only visible part of her face. "No, it doesn't, Sable-chan. It makes you human."

She just smiled and went back to her book.

"By the way," Lavi said turned so that his back was to the window, she look at him with just the one eye again and did not up down her book. "I wanted to ask you… why you kissed me."

Sable folded the page in her book and closed it ever so gently. She tilted her head at him and gave a small smile, the kind that was not faked even though it was not happy. "Why not?"

"C'mon, I mean really." Lavi's shoulders slumped slightly, his orange scarf covered his mouth as he hunched. "You read people's minds all the time, but I can't read yours, you know? I don't know what you mean when you just do things like that, or when you say things like Yuu-chan. I just… can't figure you out."

She folded her hands in her lap as her eyes fell to the floor. How could she explain something she didn't entirely understand herself? "I kissed you because you wouldn't be quiet. I talk like Kanda because I think the same things as Kanda. I don't mean to be like I am, it just kind of happens." She furrowed her brow at him. "Am I making any sense at all?"

He nodded slowly. "I think so."

_Is she… sorry for being who she is?_

"Good. The truth is that… when I kissed you, I guess I wanted to kiss you. But it's not like I really like you." She shrugged that off, her face brightening somewhat as she did. "And you don't have to worry about that guy, he's mildly attracted to you too, even if neither of you know it."

Lavi blanched. "What?" _What-who-why-where-how…_

Sable giggled. "It's cute. I'm sure that you'll really get to see each other soon, too."

"Sable-chan," He closed his eyes and let his head fall into his hands. "You just said that you don't like me, you wanted to kiss me, and that I like a man all in one short span of time."

"And?"

"I don't understand!"

"Sorry, Lavi." She was really smiling now, her previous melancholy forgotten. "I don't either."

He glared at her, seriously glared. He knew that, given time, he wouldn't like someone else, he would like _her_ – but she seemed incapable of reading that part of his mind. Was it because he knew? Or was it because she didn't want to know? He couldn't say. He could say, however, that she had admitted to not liking him. That hurt, a little.

"It's alright," He said more to himself than anyone else, looking away. _Because I'm a Bookman._

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Kanda sneezed quietly into his suitcase, showering his once cleanish clothes with a microscopic layer of saliva and snot. Inwardly he curse; outwardly he groaned. By the time he got back to the Order he was going to smell like a very bloody, very sweaty bottle of flowery Swedish massage oil, and the only person he had to blame for it was himself.

And Allen.

The Moyashi had gone off down stairs to talk to Lloyd about all that had happened and how he wasn't exactly sure if it was going Allen Walker and Kanda Yuu or Allen Walker and Walker Yuu or Allen Kanda and Kanda Yuu – but Kanda only knew that because he had eavesdropped a little. The topic made him smile silently as he pulled a fresh shirt from his things and turned toward the bathroom. The fact that Allen was playing with their names like a girl experimenting with her married signature made it pretty clear who would take whose name whenever they decided to start calling each other _hubby_.

Just as Kanda disappeared like a ghost into the bathroom, Allen came in, a smile on his face and a free pastry in his hand. Lloyd had been the nicest person about everything – he had congratulated him and even given him a little snack as a memento. He was so happy, he could just _sing_.

_Well, Kanda's not here…_ He thought and he what remained his treat. _So I guess I can indulge little while I unpack._

Allen liked singing, though he didn't think he was any good at it. Cross would yell at him when he so much as hummed as a child – unless he was standing on a street corner gathering coins, then Cross was all for it. Ever since then he had made a serious habit of singing only alone, where no one would over hear. As far as he knew, he hadn't sung at all since he'd arrived at the Order. Because he feared that when someone heard him they would either yell at him or tell him to go get a top hat.

He started softly, just humming like a little breath of wind. He didn't remember hearing the song anywhere before, it was just something that he knew like he knew the piano – something from within his soul. The words played along in his head as he hummed, his mouth yet unwilling to say anything out loud.

"_Black, black, black is the color of my true love's hair…"_

No words. Just melody.

Kanda, who had yet to find a light in the bathroom, stopped searching for a moment when a quiet voice sneaked in from the main room. He knew that voice, even if he had never heard it hum before. Somehow he had never imagined Allen humming, but then again he had never imagined a number of things that had happened recently. He grew very still, standing next to the open door to listen to the oddly morbid tune the British boy followed as he rummaged through his things.

"_His lips are something rosy fair. The purest face and the strongest hands, I love the grass whereon he stands."_

He knew the song. Where had he heard it though? Kanda couldn't remember. Someplace far, far away or very close, he wasn't sure. But he knew the words in the back of his mind and they made him smile a little. Whether the little Moyashi knew it or not, they fit perfectly.

"_I love my love and this well he knows. I love the ground on whereon he goes. If him no more on Earth shall be, my life will quickly leave me…"_

Allen had at last located what he was looking for in his things. A pair of pants that, though previously worn, would pass as being cleaner than the ones he wore currently. With those in hand and the tune still going strong in his throat he made for the bathroom. When he came into the bathroom a hand caught his shoulder and pulled him close, lips pressed into his so suddenly that he dropped his garments, his eyes wide in the darkness. The callused fingertips that touched his neck were gentle but demanding; he felt his knees suddenly go to putty as an arm circled around his waist.

When the kiss broke he looked up at a very hungry looking Kanda, his face shadowed in the darkness.

"Th-that was unexpected," He panted into the shadows.

"Che," Kanda intoned before rocking into his lover, leaning low to press his lips at the hollow his throat. Allen's head tilted away from the contact as if it burned him, his mind began to grow fuzzy. He had been so happy, so very happy, and now Kanda was here to make him even happier. It might have been the best day of his life.

"I… didn't know you were here." He said, breathlessly. The hand did not move and the arm around his waist did not falter. He felt lust radiating from the samurai in almost a tangible wave and felt his own desires rise to meet it. His hands ran up Kanda's back to trace the length of his spine.

"Am I your true love, Moyashi-kun?" Kanda asked, smiling at the intense blush that covered the younger boy's features. Allen had thought that he was alone, but he had been wrong. Kanda had heard him humming. And now Kanda wanted him. How did that work?

"Mmhmm," He half moaned as Kanda pulled their hips together. "You know that song?"

Kanda nodded, leaned down so that his mouth was just an inch from Allen's, his breath spread warmly across his lover's face, cueing Allen to lean up and kiss him again. It was a short kiss, but the warmth they had caused did not abate. "You aren't sore, are you Moyashi?"

Allen smirked at him, twining his arms up onto the older man's shoulders. "Nope. And if I was… there is a bathtub. And a shower." He traced the fingers of his right hand down Kanda's neck and watched him shiver at the contact. _Damn shirt,_ he thought with a mild frown, _If it weren't for shirts I could touch even more of him_.

"Shall we try them out, Moyashi-kun?" Kanda pulled at the buttons of Allen's jacket – well, his jacket really, but Allen was wearing it. Allen took a step back, yanking his lover with him; Kanda stepped forward so that he moved just slightly too far, pressed his groin against Allen's.

"Yes, please."

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"Oi, Sable-chan."

"Reading."

"Yes, but have you thought about what you're getting everyone for Christmas?"

She didn't even look at him. "Yup. I'm giving everyone my love."

"That's cheap."

"Hardly," She looked up at him with a glimmer in her green eyes. "If I gave you my love in any way, shape, or form that you wanted it, would that be so bad?"

Lavi thought he was going to blush but fought it. "I'm not sure Allen will like this idea…"

She laughed. "Why not? If anyone needs more love it's him."

He glowered at her. "Christmas is his birthday. So if you just give him twice the love you give everyone else, that's pretty lame."

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying (for once) to read his mind. She got nothing. Not a hint of what was behind that eye patch. For all she knew he was nothing but an odd looking rock with brightly colored hair. "What are you saying?"

"It's our last chance to go buy something. So let's go." He said standing. Sable blinked up at him from where she had thrown herself when she had started reading, not moving an inch. Her eyes were rather unbelieving for a long moment as she just stared at the red head, the book draped across her nose and mouth like a half-mask. Her left hand – the one that did not hold the side of her book – stopped twisting the end of her braid for a moment.

"Oh…okay…"

"Why are you looking at me like I have something on my face?" Lavi asked her, picking up Sable's coat from where she had hung it on the side of the chair and throwing it at her. She didn't catch it.

"Because sometimes, I don't get you either."

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"What the Hell does Allen like?" Sable asked as they wandered into yet another store. She felt rather odd about going from street to street in the snow with Lavi, looking at chocolates and glancing at different kinds of clothes. If she could have her way she would have grabbed a book and been done with it, but the apprentice Bookman seemed to think that that was the easy way out and would have none of it.

Lavi tapped his chin as he looked around their current store, coming quickly to the conclusion that they would find _nothing_ here. "Not lacy undergarments, I don't think." He glanced from one row of women's underwear to another, slowly becoming aware that almost every piece in the store was effeminate and scary. "Not lacy _girl_ undergarments, I'm sure."

Sable was wandering away from him though, leaving him in a sea of garters and pin-on animal ears. He went to follow her but an idea struck him, then. A horrible, twisted, semi-sadistic idea, but an idea none the less. He caught Sable by the wrist and pointed at a chest that was brimming with ear-decorated headbands – all kinds of them, from bunnies to kittens to bears to hippos. It was perfect. It was disgusting, but it was perfect.

"Let's get _those_ for Yuu-chan!" He half squealed at the girl as she froze.

"What?"

He cackled for a moment before he spoke. "We give Yuu-chan something for Moyashi-chan to wear! It's brilliant!"

"Lavi… I think you've lost it…"

"I have not! Stop being pessimistic and think about it. You _know_ that Allen would look adorable with animal ears."

She put her hand gently on his and looked at him with a tilted head, her expression incredulous. "This is worse than my idea to get them a shared Kama Sutra."

Lavi sighed, pulling out of her grasp and picking up a pair of black cat ears. "C'mon! Yuu-chan will _die_!"

"And you think this is a good idea?"

"Yes. I think it's a splendid idea."

"I think we'd better check someplace else…"

"But look! A matching tail!"

"Lavi…this is getting ridiculous."

"No it isn't. _Everyone_ knows that pretty much every dominate male wants to see their submissive partner with some kind of animal ear or tail."

"In that case we should get the ears for Kanda and give them to Allen."

"Haha, you're funny Sable. The ears are for Allen to wear."

She wasn't going to argue. "Then what do we get Kanda? Handcuffs?"

"Ew… don't say things like that."

"A whip? Or maybe…" She reached out to pick up something that Lavi never would have thought of, something perhaps more fitting than ears. "This?"

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**For those of you who are wondering the song is **_**Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair**_**, and there are about 92 billion zillion versions of it. I used the words from my old voice book, so they may be a tad different than the accepted one. I forget who actually wrote it, but I can tell you that it wasn't me!**

**Thank you readers and reviewers! I say that every chapter but I feel like I can never say it enough! And I must apologize for the long author's notes…not that apologizing makes them longer… //cries\\**


	25. The Floor

**Niamh saw the sun for the first time today in about four days. She had almost forgotten what it looked like.**

**First! I'm sooooooo sorry this is LATE. I had finals, and my sister is moving (so I helped her pack), and none of what happened is a good excuse//cries\\**

**Second! Thanks for reading! I am sorry that this smut is less wonderful than the last.**

**Third! OMG CHAPTER 25//dies\\**

**Disclaimer of Disclaimingness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…Sable would be canon.**

**WARNING: HOTT SEXY MAN-LOVIN'-MAN. YOU DON'T LIKE IT, GO JOIN THE HET NET.**

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The Floor

By the time Kanda had the first two buttons undone, Allen was pulling his belt out of its loops while simultaneously pulling the ribbon from his hair. No matter how Kanda looked at it, it seemed as though this time he was going to follow the smaller boy's lead – he even found himself stepping in pace when he was pushed back toward the bedroom. He didn't particularly like that idea though, being they had only ever done anything on the bed. Why not somewhere else? Why not the floor? The counter? Why not any number of other places? The bed was soft and warm and good, but it offered little contrast.

Allen stopped kissing when Kanda stopped backing up. He was the leader in this, so why was Kanda acting on his own ideas?

"What?" He asked, dropping the belt to the floor.

"Pick it up," Kanda said huskily.

Allen blinked at him with wide silver eyes, ran a hand through that soft black silk. "Why?" He asked as his palm came to rest on the samurai's chest. The heart beneath his fingers pounded gently, almost calmly, and for some reason that made his own heart flutter in his chest.

Kanda cocked an eyebrow at him and smirked crookedly. Resistance wasn't something he had been expecting but that was fine with him, there was always next time. "Never mind," The arm he had placed ever so delicately around Allen's back slid down a little until his fingers slipped beneath the fabric of Allen's pants. "I just thought we would try something new."

The white haired boy looked up at the pair of dark, lusty sapphire eyes that scanned his face beseechingly. "With a belt?"

A light blush spread across the Japanese man's face, his pale skin reflected almost tan in the sunlight that streamed in the window. It did not feel like early evening to either of them, but the sun served as a reminder. Its rays made Allen wonder what Kanda would look like a warm summer day, his clothes discarded, his stoic complexion engulfed in warmth radiance. He didn't know, but he wanted to.

"Che, you didn't seem to mind so much when…I held you still." His voice was low, the hand that had been picking at the buttons started up again as if to distract him from his words.

Allen leaned into him and grinned. "And that makes you blush?"

Kanda looked down at his lover, studying that innocent face, a sudden wash of shame coming over him. His thoughts had been simple – Allen had liked being held down, so why not do it again? And he'd be able to do more with that pair of hands getting in the way if he just tied them up. But the idea made him blush, somehow. It washed his whole body with heat and bathed his heart in pricks of mild self-loathing. But why? Allen didn't even falter when Kanda told him. _I wonder if…I liked it too much._

"Love," Allen looked away so he could press his face against the other man's shoulder, Kanda's scent was there almost instantaneously, nearly potent enough to make him forget what he was saying. "If you want to, we can do that. If you want to, we can do anything. I don't care." The ribcage he touched shivered slightly, the breath within almost stopped. "As long as you want to and as long as you're still you."

The Japanese man let go of the British boy's back in favor of taking him by the shoulders steadily, pulling him far enough away that he could look down at his calm face. There was love in his expression, unfettered, lust, slightly withheld, worry, fighting for dominance, and trust. Pure, absolutely heart wrenching trust. There were no walls, no boundaries, just all of him, naked but for his clothes.

That perfect face broke in a smile. "K-Kanda – why…"

But the older boy just pulled him closer, kissed him lightly on the forehead. It wasn't the lust that made him do it, or the worry. It was the love and trust, the willingness, and the sudden realization that he never wanted to hear Allen say please like that again. "It's nothing, Moyashi." He sighed into that white hair and rested his head there; ignoring the fact that Allen couldn't follow his thought process or understand his emotions. When Allen looked at him like that fear took hold of him. The fear that one day, through a belt or a sword or merely a spoken word, Allen would stop making that expression. "Just shut up and do me."

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Sable had the sinking feeling that something was wrong, if not with her then with Lavi and if not with him then with Uri. For some reason, ever since that day in the room his mind had been a complete mystery to her, as if he though nothing and everything at the same time. It was creepy.

The apprentice Bookman secretly thanked his lucky stars that he had found a way to avoid her knowing his every thought. It was an old emotion suppressing technique that worked very well when applied to thoughts as well, apparently. He could think about the coldness of the snow through his boots or the enjoyable coloration of her hair in the sunlight – it didn't matter, there was still a wall of brick between his thoughts and the outside world. She would never know. She would never understand. And she could live with her thought woven illusions while he sat back and wondered what to do besides hide.

"You know, Lavi," She said as they came to the front of the inn. "We might as well grab lunch. Those two are broadcasting sexual waves worse than rabbits." She looked at him then from under the brim of her wide black hat and smiled. "No offense."

He sighed and let his arms sag with the weight of their purchases, a disappointed expression on his face. He did not feel disappointed. "Alright, let's go…"

"Your enthusiasm slays me…"

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Allen wasn't sure what had changed in Kanda in that moment but something had. This though, this 'nothing,' was not something he though he should ask about. Unlike the nothing before last, this one wasn't his business – he could tell by the way his lover held him like a precious thing, as if he would break if touched too strongly. When Kanda had instructed him that it was now time to commit sexual acts, he wasn't going to argue, such things would eventually make Kanda comfortable enough to share his most intimate thoughts as well as his most intimate of caresses.

They did not, however, make it to the bed.

When Allen required no more encouragement, Kanda smiled. Somehow, the younger boy knew when he needed to say something and when he just needed to share physical contact. He wasn't sure if he had expected him to prod but it was nice to have him not do it, it was also nice to feel his shirt come out of his pants as he pushed the coat from Allen's shoulders. He was still more naked, but they were getting closer to being even.

"Kanda," Allen whispered, starting on his lover's shirt buttons as his belt fell to the floor with a clatter.

"Hm?" He had been rather focused on kissing Allen's neck at that moment, so words were a little difficult to produce.

He hissed when Kanda's teeth closed softly on his flesh. "Ah…door – needs – locking –" But even as he pointed out this fact he didn't let go of the elbow his left hand had taken a hold of. Fire danced in the line his lover was kissing, shattering his worry and willing him to do nothing but collapse right there on the floor, overtaken by desire that originated half in his heart and half in his loins. He couldn't step back anymore, he couldn't guide them. Instead he pushed Kanda's now unbuttoned shirt all the way open and ran his right hand across the tense muscle within; felt the skin grow hot against his hand.

"Che," Kanda pushed Allen's shirt off. "If Lavi comes in he'll get an eyeful that he deserves."

Allen giggled as he pressed his mouth against Kanda's.

It was not until they were both leaning on each other with nothing but their pants and boots that Kanda realized they were not moving toward the soft comfort of the bed. The irony struck him a little, but then he lost the ability to be struck by irony and simply gave in to the caresses that Allen gave him, need filling him from the bottom of his toes upward, thought vanishing with reason. He found himself falling slowly, following the younger Exorcist whose knees seemed to have given out when their lips parted.

_A wood floor_, Allen thought has his knees hit it, Kanda leaned over him and Allen reclined against it, the hardness biting into his spine momentarily. _This should be different_. Kanda left his neck and mouth for an instant to rip at the laces of Allen's boots; Allen took the time to undo the clasp of Kanda's pants. Miraculously enough the two were disrobed at the same time, Kanda found his hands tracing circles over Allen's hips, the hand that pushed his hair back sent a light shiver running rampant down his back. Even though he was not planning to, he found himself pressing down on his lover, arousal pounding through him like an unhindered river, overrunning its banks and making him do things without knowledge of them. Allen let his left hand slide slowly down Kanda's side until it touched his lover's length; his fingers gently fondled it, causing Kanda to briefly stop his kissing, his hands frozen in their slow circles. The small gasp in his throat made Allen smile. Kanda rolled his hips into his hand, pressed closer; Allen attacked his collar bone back, taking full control. Not he hadn't been leading them before.

His fingers and palm caressed gently, he sucked and nipped with enthusiasm. Slowly his lover stopped trying to please him, his mouth pulled away from Allen's as he moaned with yearning. Ebony hair fell around them both as he brought his erection into contact with his lover's, provoking a soft gasp of pleasure from him. It was easy for Kanda to lose himself like this, to forget that one day he wanted to make Allen feel this way without making him plead, without making him want beyond reason. His throat gave a short spasm when Allen's hand wrapped around his hardness, teasing him.

Kanda almost laughed when Allen scooted away, reached toward the suitcase that rested on the very end of the bed. He knew what he wanted, but watching him try for it was laughable. He only made it worse when he ran his callused fingers down the young boy's thighs, eliciting a whimper and a sigh when Allen's hand found the thing it was searching for. It surprised Kanda when a rush of excitement went through him, a wave of heat that did nothing for his mental state. That innocent bottle of oil made him want Allen even more than before, though he had not known it was possible, and he found himself helping his lover with the cork, which had grown slippery.

"Love," Allen said, leaning his head against the side of the bed. The bottle was in his right hand, Kanda's shoulder in his left, but the Japanese man ignored his imploring tone to lay his lips lightly on his chest, kissing in a soft line that migrated slowly downward in a crisscross pattern, moving until a hand in his hair stopped him. "Love," Allen said again, pulling his chin up to look at him. The British boy's breathing was shallow, hurried, his skin died nearly crimson from yearning. He looked so very angelic like that, his white hair shining in the light, his pale skin flushed, his one hand holding Kanda's arm as if to guide him. "You want to use this on me, don't you?"

The Japanese man nodded slowly.

"Then should I teach you?" He shook the bottle back and forth as if it were some kind of treat.

Kanda smirked at him, titled his head to the side so that his hair fell over his right shoulder. "Moyashi-kun," He leaned forward so that their faces were mere inches from touching, the bottle of oil slowly sank to the floor unthought-of. "You know that I never learn." He kissed Allen gently, but his lips were unresponsive.

"What are you saying?"

Kanda took Allen's hand and pressed it against him. "I'm saying that if it is better for you this way, I will always give up to you."

"What?"

"Because I love you."

Allen smiled at him lopsidedly before sitting up more to kiss him tenderly. "You always pick the worse moments to say these things, Love."

Kanda laughed. "Che. Only you would say that when someone is confessing their willing weakness."

"Only you would confess your weakness while I'm trying to sexually please you. Now stop." The eyebrow he raised was playful and Kanda frowned at it with the same air. "Can I rape you now? Please."

_He said please._

"You don't have to ask."

Allen took that as a yes. Because they were on the floor and as far as he knew no one liked having their skull rubbed on wood he pushed Kanda back a little, sliding around him so that his face was in the crook of his lover's neck, his hips lined up behind Kanda's. This he had heard of once, or maybe he had walked in on it, and if he did it right Kanda would learn something of rhythm. That had been one thing lacking last time. Rhythm.

Kanda wasn't exactly sure about what his lover was doing, but he let him. When he gave something, he gave it all and he never took it back. It was his nature. His weight was placed on either leg, each one bent beneath him, but Allen maneuvered him in such a way that the boy had access to his manhood if he reached for it and his entrance if he so much as leaned forward. If it hadn't of been for the light, sucking kisses on his neck, Kanda might have asked what the purpose of this new position was. And then, as if to answer his question, Allen took a strong hold on him and began to stroke hard, bringing his small hand down with a force that immediately made Kanda push himself toward the sensation.

Allen figured that it was all the same as before, just from a slightly different angle. With that knowledge in hand he did all he could to coax his lover into moaning, into forgetting that he was about to impose on a rather personal space rather quickly. He had been about ready to just jerk himself off and be done with it before Kanda had gone on his long emotional confession of love. Allen knew that he loved him, knew that Kanda loved him back, but he sometimes felt that saying it got in the way of showing it.

He felt his lover tense when he placed a well oiled finger into him but that did not stop him from almost immediately sliding a second in next to it. The slight vocal response he got was more surprise than protest, and he waited a few moments just to be sure that it was alright with his lover. When Kanda took to gently rocking his hips again Allen removed his fingers and coated himself with oil, slipping closer until he held Kanda against him, his chest pressed firmly against his back, his hand still working. With great care he eased himself into Kanda, perfectly unaware that he had to hold his breath and close his eyes to keep from giving in to the urge that filled him.

"Love?" He gasped quietly into Kanda's right ear. The man before him did not verbally respond, only let out a small breath. "Rhythm." He said as best he could. Slowly he pulled back and moved back it, timing the stroke of his hand with each thrust of his hips. It took vast amounts of concentration and almost more willpower than he thought he possessed, but he could do it. He kept the same pace for a long time, until he began to forget about it, and then he increased his speed a little; the man in his arms gave a whimper and a shutter, the muscles against his chest grew tense. He started throwing himself into it.

As much as Kanda bit back the cry that filled his throat, it still sounded. It was a broken sound, but his lover found it beautiful nonetheless. The younger boy followed him over the edge of oblivion, fell sideways unceremoniously thereafter, his balance lost in the moment. He landed mostly on his left arm, partly on his hip, and the Japanese man gave a shaking sigh as he slumped forward into the bed frame.

For a moment the two did not move. A pair of vertical silver eyes studied a pair of sidelong sapphire ones, and the sapphires just stared back questioningly.

"Thoughts?" Allen asked with a small grin, still panting.

Kanda narrowed his eyes at him, his expression dark. "Che, we're never doing that on the floor again."

Allen laughed at him, smashing his eyes up so that his irises seemed to vanish. He made to speak but the Japanese man cut him off.

"And last time was better."

The British boy glowered. "That's not nice…"

"Che, honesty is the best policy."

"This, from the man who thought it was possible for me to rape him."

"Eh. I guess that I cannot argue that one anymore, can I?"

Allen sighed and pushed himself off of the floor, feeling heavy and tired. He found it odd that he would feel tired and sore after something like that but not so after killing fifty akuma. It made no sense to him. But what did make sense all of the time, really? "Was…there something you wanted to talk about?" He asked as he stood up, glancing around in an attempt to remember where he had dropped his bathing supplies.

Kanda used the bed as a means to push himself to standing. His long hair fell down around him, shielding his skin from the sunlight, hiding the soft curve of his hips and the arch of his back. _Mine_, was the one of many things those attributes brought to Allen's mind. "I am not sure that I have words for what I mean to say, but I can try." And somehow, even naked, he still seemed dignified. "If you enjoy…this more, when you're in control, when I follow, when…I don't necessarily get everything I might dream about, it is alright with me if we do it that way. Do you understand?"

Allen stopped looking for his pants and just stared at the older Exorcist. Could he really be that stupid? Could Kanda Yuu really be that dense? "_Baka_," He spat, shaking his head. "I don't want you to just submit to me and I don't want you to just please me. If _you_ want to tie me up with a belt and – I don't know – lick warm honey out of my navel, we can try it. The idea is to find something we _both_ like, something even, not something that makes me feel like an all-controlling god."

For a long moment Kanda's deep eyes just blinked at him, his hair wavered slowly with his breath. "Lick warm honey out of your navel?"

"I know, sounds kind of fun, huh?"

"No, it sounds sticky."

Allen scoffed.

He came forward and took hold of Kanda's hands, pulling him from his reclining position at the bed and leading him toward the bathroom, a small grin on his semi-serious features. "Well, we know that we like being _clean_, Love."

"Ooh… right."

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Sable sighed when her last plate of food was devoured and for the first time looked across to her tablemate. He was twirling what looked to be pasta around the end of his fork, a depressing expression marring his usually bright countenance like a smear of grime. His eyebrows were pushed together thoughtfully, his food untouched.

"Gah, you're angst is making me angsty. Stop it." She growled, narrowing her eyes at him.

He gave a sad smile that did not fit him and put his fork down. "Sorry. I was just thinking."

She raised an eyebrow as if to ask what he was thinking about.

"It's nothing," He lied. "It's not important."

"Liar."

"No, really. I'm just regular ol' Lavi-go-lucky." He flashed a bright smile that still did not reach his eye.

"Right, and I'm the Queen of England. Now stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Hiding your thoughts. Ever since you started doing that you've been like a void of sadness and… I don't know… annoyance." She waved her hands at him looking away as if disgusted. "Dye your hair black and start wearing a cloak if you're going to be all quiet and pensive."

"I'm not being quiet and pensive."

"Right. You're being boisterous on this inside. I can see it. You're as colorful as a newspaper."

"Why are you trying to cheer me up by making me feel bad about myself?"

She shrugged. "If you can't laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?"

Lavi didn't answer. He just played with his noodles, losing himself in his hidden thoughts.

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**AH! Sooooo late! I'm sorry! Lo siento! Sumimasen! TT**

**Ehem. Another chapter has come to a close, and I hope you liked it. Sorry that Kanda is such an emotional guy… he's just so devout in my head, it's hard to believe. Next chapter is //fanfare\\ the boat ride and Christmas! If I can cram that much in one chapter, that is. :D**

**Thank you my wonderful readers and reviewers! Hearts, cookies, love, and bubbles for all!! Oh, and Happy Holidays!**


	26. Him

**Sweet Jesus! Niamh is house-sitting for her sibling and thus has lots of free time to write. This is her lame excuse for updating so quickly.**

**Ehem! Hallo everyone! Nice to see you again, figuratively. This chapter is a little odd, and mostly about Lavi, so sorry Yullen fans, it's time for some plot movement for the poor angsty boy. I had the idea for this a few days ago when Lable came up, so it's not like I'm caving to the pressure or anything, just… upping the drama. You'll see.**

**Disclaimer of Deliciousness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…Lavi would make that **_**omg, what the hell is going on**_** face more often. Just because it's hilarious.**

**WARNING: Implied cute man-lovin' and pretty darn EXPLICIT not cute man-lovin'. Borderline MOLESTATION this time. And vomit.**

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Him

"Did it work?"

"Yes, like a charm. He won't remember what he did or why, and he won't remember her. But it may take him some time to recover a true sense of self."

"I'm amazed, Rhode. I didn't think you had it in you."

She laughed. "It's really not all that hard when you make it a game."

He smiled. "Speaking of games, I may have come up with a fun one for you and me."

"Really? What's it called?"

"Hmm… I guess we can call it… _Stubbornness_."

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"I. Hate. The sea." Sable groaned at the waves, her fingers clenched tightly around the railing, her head hanging over the side of the ship. She retched again, tasted bitter bile in the back of her throat.

Lavi gave her back a little rub in a feeble attempt to calm her. "I'm sorry they didn't have any ginger." His touch made her glare over her shoulder at him; her braid fell down across her neck when she did.

"Just…go back inside. No one likes vomit." She heaved again after that, her eyes watering all the while, and the end of her hair was unlucky enough to be caught in the spew. "Shjit," She cursed, sagging against the side even more. It was more or less hopeless now. After eight days at sea she had managed to throw up on her hair twelve times, all of them because Lavi distracted her from the roiling disaster that was her stomach. She hated it. She hated him. She wanted to be left alone on land so she could curl up in a sad little ball and rub her tummy into being happy with her again, but that seemed unlikely. The Bookman apprentice liked to stick around and be sure she was alright, and they were still a day's sailing to go. And then a day's travel across ground. And then they'd get back to the Order on Christmas – which meant _no one_ was going to be left alone.

Lavi frowned at Sable, feeling sorry for her. It seemed like when she wasn't sleeping she was either eating or throwing up what she had just eaten with no in-between; it was only her will that kept her from just lying in bed all day, tossing her food into a vat or bucket. Instead she spent most of the time outside, emptying her gut in front of all of the passengers.

"Seriously though," She said, scraping puke out of her hair fearlessly. "I'm almost done. Then I can go take a bath, eat something, and start over." She did what she could to smile at him, because as much as she hated having him there, it was still nice. "I'll be fine."

He seemed to think about it for a moment before he sighed and shrugged. "Alright. I'm kind of worn out anyways," He didn't mention that she had been the one to keep him up. "So I'll take a nap." Sable nodded at him before turning back to her mushy business.

The red head sighed to himself as he walked, aware that he was thinking those thoughts again, the ones that he had tried to ignore since Sable had told him to dye his hair. The ones that made him wonder what the hell she had been talking about when she had told him that he liked a man.

_Who?_ He thought as he came into their cabin, scratching at his bandana. _I don't like anyone that I know of…Crowley is a no. Komui is a geezer. Who else is there? Reever… ugh. I… don't like anyone. I mean, I'm attracted to Lenalee – but she's not a him and it's not like that's going to happen in ninety billion zillion years._ He pulled his shirt off and sighed, deciding that it would be fine to nap in his pants – being he wasn't planning on crawling under the covers and if Sable walked in, he wanted to have some form of dignity.

The blanket was cool against his back but not exceedingly so. It was the kind of coolness that could easily lull him into a pleasant daydream, if not sleep, the kind that made him close his eyes to the dimness that filled the windowless room. He liked darkness. In darkness he could let his worry play across his features without anyone seeing. He could give up being bright in favor of being thoughtful.

_Who?_

A sly smile crept across Tyki's face as he watched the Exorcist prepare himself for sleep. The boy had been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't even noticed him in the shadows. And now, as he watched silently, the boy reached up and pulled the colorful green headband from his forehead without opening his eyes so that he could lay it ever so gently on the stand beside him. It was a simple motion, something habitual, and somehow that one wave of his hand made Tyki think that perhaps this angst ridden youth was not used to being so, and that maybe he was just a happy-go-lucky person having a down day.

It was almost too much for him. If he were here to kill the boy he might have laughed, but given he was only here to torment him, it wasn't _that _delicious. It might have been, if he had known Lavi's thoughts.

The rules of the game were simple. Different places. Different people. Different ways of torture. He and Rhode would see whose prey gave in first. Who lost their Innocence willingly to have it stop. Who betrayed the Order for the sake of himself. Tyki was rather proud that he had invented this game, and the almost sleeping redhead gave him some wonderful ideas about what he could do. He could start with that headband. And maybe a length of sailing rope.

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"Kanda," Allen said, looking sideways at the samurai. The two had been lying on lower bunk bed together, the older of the two reading while the younger attempted to understand what his book was about. He made a mental note to ask Lavi what _kendo_ was, because he wasn't going to embarrass himself by asking Kanda.

"Hm?"

"I wasn't done with that page." He reached over to turn the page back, his arm cross upward across his lover's face. Kanda, who saw the opportunity to be too irresistible to ignore, reached up with his teeth and laid them gently on the red flesh of Allen's arm, causing the boy to first squeal and then pull his arm back hurriedly. "What was that for?!" He demanded, glaring only half indignantly at him. Kanda's face cracked in a smile as he took the hand back again and kissed it lightly.

"I'm sorry. Just in one of those moods." He explained, cocking an eyebrow. "Are _you_ in one of those moods?"

Allen laughed at him quietly before throwing his arms around him, knocking the book away onto Kanda's hip. "And if I'm _not_?"

The Japanese man ruffled his hair and pulled him closer. Allen didn't start on his clothes though; they just curled together for a moment, looking at nothing, just enjoying the warmth of each other. All was quiet for a while, the only sound the creaking of the ship in the sea. After a short time Kanda looked to his younger counterpart and smiled; his silver eyes had closed gently, his left hand still remained closed around his lover's, and his breath came in deep sighs. Kanda strongly enjoyed watching Allen sleep just because it was so peaceful. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth.

It was the same as the last time they had crossed the North Sea, only with no hole in the wall. The food was still horrid, Allen was still tired and weak most of the time, and now Sable was throwing up what little food there was to have. It amazed him though, that Allen could grow so very exhausted while Sable remained somewhat less weakened, though she was technically eating less than Allen was, but he shrugged it off as being some slight difference in their Innocence. But that was not the point. The point was that it was because of that not-food that Allen would mean to do something adventurous and just fall asleep mid thought, his questing fingers forgotten, his half-aroused mind lost in darkness. Kanda might have found it all horrendously frustrating but he found it mildly amusing more than anything else.

_Sleep well, Moyashi-kun_, He thought as he turned to place a protective arm around him. _You'll need it for the day after tomorrow_.

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Somewhere very near by someone stepped on a rather squeaky floorboard and it gave a protest that almost made Lavi open an eye to look. But he wasn't paranoid – even if it sound like it was _right_ there he knew it couldn't have been – so he just inhaled and exhaled slowly, ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut.

He should not have ignored it.

A stifled scream attempted to get through his lips when he felt something pressed against them – his right hand reached for his hammer first but found it missing, so he lashed out blindly into the darkness, trying to find whatever thing it was that was trying to gag him with a piece of cloth, trying to sit up, trying to breath properly – but his efforts were wasted. Something wrapped around his throat with a suddenness that made him attempt to scream again, but the cloth pushed in farther, and he felt the distinct bite of rope, cutting into the sides of his neck, choking off his air. He fought like a madman, ripping at the material in his mouth, the rope on his neck, kicking at the invisible, intangible force that held him down.

The Noah waited until the boy was simply unconscious, because the point was _not_ to kill. Instead he pulled the headband from between the boys teeth and smoothed it on his sleeve for a moment, tested the material for strength and malleability. It was long enough, strong enough, and ironic enough, so it would serve. He placed it back in the Exorcist's mouth and stretched it out, around the back of his head, tied it in a secure knot. He then moved on to the rope he had brought with him – stolen right from under the noses of those sailors. It was thin rope, the kind used on the jib sail, but it was by far the easiest to tie and the strongest given its width; it would not give out when he needed it.

He locked the door and lit the lamp on the stand lowly, hoped that it would not wake the young man prematurely. As he took a length of gray rope and tied the Exorcist's wrists, he studied the structure of his face, the lay of his hair. If he had not have known better he might have thought the boy simply sleeping. The red locks were shiny, though not conditioned to the point of femininity; the soft angle of his jaw might have spoken of European ancestry, but it was hard to tell. When he had both ankle's firmly tied to the supports of the bunk bed his victim took to stirring gently, his one green eye slowly coming open as if he did not know where he was. Tyki met his gaze.

"Good afternoon, Lavi-san." He said thickly, drawing up the stool and placing himself upon it. Lavi's eye grew wide with fear at the sight and his limbs took to tugging at his restraints, but it did not take him overlong to realize that such pulling was useless. It seemed to him that every time he thrashed the ropes would tighten, and that wasn't all together a falsehood. "You will find yourself in no position to fight me as you are, and you will find yourself wondering why you are not yet dead." He took hold of the rim of his top hat and pulled it off, twirled it in his large, dark hands as he spoke. "And the answer is simple: I am not here to kill you."

Lavi found himself struggling to understand the words coming from the Noah's mouth. He had met the man before, but never like this. It was hard to keep down the panic in his mind, but he could do it because he knew who this man was, knew his power, knew that he was Tyki Mikk – the Noah of Pleasure, a man who did not say such things and have them not be true.

Tyki smiled when the muscles in the boy's shoulders started to relax. "Ah, that is better. You see, I am short on time, but I will tell you this: you will be seeing a lot more of me. I am after you. I will not kill you and I will not destroy your Innocence unless—" Here his hat stopped twirling and his eyes caught the light of the lamp, almost catlike. "You tell me to. But I will not leave you be. I have many, many plans for you in the time it takes for you to call surrender." He lifted an eyebrow at him; his tongue caressed the side of his mouth slowly as he pushed himself from his seat. His feet made light clomping sounds on the wooden floor as he stepped closer. It took all of Lavi's will not to strain his arms pulling on his ropes. "Shall I show you what I mean, dear Lavi-san?"

_No._ He thought, pressing himself into the bed. _No you shouldn't._

_He might just tickle me. I hope that's what it is. Just tickling. Because I don't want to…I don't want him to…that would be…would be…_

"But you do not shake your head at me, how lovely. This will be great fun for me I hope you know, though you might be a little worse for wear when I am finished." He reached down with a gentle hand and touched the welt he had made on Lavi's throat so that his finger traced lightly over it. His captive trembled as if revolted by the contact. His face split in a cruel smile. "This time there will be no escape, Lavi-san. Next time, I will offer you a way out, but now I will not. Now, you will live through this, and I will not let you escape." His fingers ran in a steady line down his bare chest, pausing at the last junction of his ribs, his navel, and finally the fastener of his pants. He let his fingers play there as he spoke. "Do you understand, Lavi-san?" The sultry quality in his voice was undeniable.

_No_, He thought, turning his head toward the wall. _I don't understand. Why me? What me? This is a war dammit, not a game! What is this? Is this what I think it is? And I don't want this. No. I don't want it at all. Nonononono. Idonotwantthis. Let me go. Letmego. Letmegoletmegoletmego._ His mind went rampant, ignoring any kind of logic he had at one point possessed. It only got worse when a pair of soft lips brushed at his Adam's apple, teasingly licking and caressing his skin. He shivered again, closed his eyes to the sensation. _I do not want him_.

_Him._

_It's cute. I'm sure that you'll really get to see each other soon, too._

_Lenalee isn't a him_.

_I don't want him._

The Noah smiled at the tear that escaped the Exorcist's eye. This was going to be far too easy.

Lavi did not understand. He had always hated Tyki Mikk, always despised the Noah, and yet his body didn't seem to like hating him. The Noah was so gentle, caressing lightly, touching as if doing so too strongly would break Lavi, never letting his teeth graze his skin for more than an instant. No matter how many times he repeated in his mind that he did not want Tyki, did not love him, did not would not should not enjoy this, the growing hardness in his pants denied it all. And the entire time he was crying. Not because it wasn't good – because it was – but because he _didn't want it to be good_.

_Please God,_ He prayed as a hand drifted beneath the fabric of his pants to stroke him. _Make this stop._

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The knock that sounded on their door was not a soft one but there was something distinctly not-loud about it, perhaps the person had pounded with the wrong part of their hand, perhaps they did not want to be intrusive, or maybe they were just weak. Allen didn't know, but the sound still woke him. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he pushed his samurai-blanket (whom had fallen asleep) off of himself to go to the door. With a heavy sigh and a yawn he pushed the simple lock back and opened it.

A very sea worn Sable stood before him, holding her stomach and grimacing, her wet hair hanging behind her in messy tendrils. Her face was unspeakably pale, but the most unnerving thing was her eyes – glowing slightly green, her Innocence doing the same. Her eyebrows were pushed down over those translucent windows as if framing them in a protective roofing of hair.

"Sable-chan?"

"We don't have time," She half barked. "I was in the bathroom and I had the distinct thought that Lavi did _not_ like something happening _right_ now. So… so… I…" Her eyes blinked a few times and lost focus before coming back to Allen's face again. Her expression was grave. "I looked for him in the bathroom mirror –"

"In the bathroom mirror?"

"Yes, shut up, that's not important. It's an Innocence thing. The point is that he's in danger. We have to go save him."

"Che, save him from what?" Kanda had woken during the exchange being Sable wasn't exactly being quiet about any of it. He rolled gracefully out of bed and strode across the space between him and door. He was completely awake the moment he pulled his eyes open.

"It's a Noah."

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"Why are you crying, dear Lavi-san?" The man asked, kissing his closed eye softly. "Have I done anything to give you pain?"

_Not physically,_ Lavi thought, even as he shook his head. The fingers still ran slowly up and down his length, a hand played gently in his hair. _But you're confusing the hell out of me._

"I see that you are not completely against me touching you this way, are you Lavi-san?"

_I don't know. I don't understand. This isn't a game! Just kill me if you want me dead._

"Shall I take you the rest of the way? Or shall I leave you like this, tied to the bed for your friends to find?"

Slowly Lavi looked at him, willing the man to understand that that was _not_ an option.

He laughed, a low, reverberating sound that might have been friendly in other circumstances. When his eyes came back to Lavi's there might have been fondness there, might have been a genuine understanding of Lavi's condition. No one had ever looked at him like that. No one ever understood.

_He _can't_ understand. Can he?_

He made a lame attempt to speak around the cloth in his mouth. Just speak, not scream. He didn't know exactly what he wanted to say, but he knew he could say something, anything really, that would perhaps clear up the tumbling emotions in his head.

"Oh, do you want to talk to me?"

He nodded. Tyki frowned at him.

"And how am I to know that you aren't going to scream?"

Lavi did the best he could to look disbelieving. _Yeah, like I want Allen and Kanda to find me like _this_. I'm _so_ going to scream bloody murder._

"If you cry out, I will kill you, regardless of the game I am playing." Tyki said coldly. When his captive nodded slowly he reached down and slowly untied the knot that held the fabric in place. When it fell away Lavi did not yell, only coughed lightly and attempted to wet his lips with a dry tongue. He never imagined that the Noah would actually let him speak.

"If you leave me like this I'll do everything I can to kill you." Lavi said bitterly, surprising both of them. Tyki gave a half smirk that might have been taken as a tame grin, ran a hand through his already tangled hair.

"As if you would not otherwise?"

Lavi was quiet for a moment, thinking over the implications of what he said next. _I don't…want to kill him?_ "No," He said honestly. "I don't think I would."

The smirk transformed into a too-wide smile, the white teeth that flashed at him did not frighten him as much as they might have in the past. "Well then, Lavi-san," Tyki put one knee on the bed and leaned closer, Lavi's face titled upward to meet his piercing gaze, "Shall I take this to be your declaration of war?" As he spoke his hand undid Lavi's pants buttons, his fingers closed around the desire the apprentice Bookman had tried to deny. Lavi shook violently, his lips parted as if in protest. "Because I see that you are not yet trying to surrender."

The red head leaned slightly forward until his lips touched the Noah's, the ropes at his wrists bit into his flesh as he pulled against them to perform the motion. He did not know what he was doing. He did not know why he did it. But it made sense to him. It was all so wrong, so twisted, and yet it did not seem so in his mind. It was only a brief moment of contact, but it was enough to surprise the man that was trying to torment him. "Yes." He whispered, kissing again. "I will fight you like this."

Tyki smiled as he gently slid his tongue between Lavi lips, kissing deeply, caressing strongly. He had not expected this, but it wasn't something he could not deal with. If anything it made the game more fun. He silently wondered how far he would have to take the boy before he stopped going along with it, if he would get to destroy his innocence and his purity, if he would be get to destroy the kinder of human emotions with his touch, with his meaningless coos of feigned passion and longing. He hoped it would be him that made the apprentice Bookman finally kill his own heart.

_What am I doing?_ Lavi thought distantly. He was fully enjoying himself, feeling the waves of pleasure run through him, ignoring the fact that this was his sworn enemy, that he had not asked for this that he would never, ever, have wanted this in his life. Even as he liked it, he hated himself for liking it. He hated himself for being vulnerable. He hated himself for stretching against his bonds to feel more of that mouth, arching his back to feel more of that hand. He hated it. He hated it all. But he thirsted for it like a desert wandered thirsted for water. Silent tears stained his face as he moaned.

_I don't want him_.  
_I don't want anyone.  
I don't want anything.   
But it is all so good._

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**Ooh! The plot movement! AH! Run in fear of the moving plot! It will crush you otherwise! I feel so bad for Lavi… poor emotionally confused baby-Bookman… QQ**

**Thoughts? I know you Lucky fans are squealing like fangirls and you Label encouragers are wanting to maul me like murderers. Sorry :(**

**You like? You review? Me write more? Need feeeeeeedback. And love to readers and reviewers!**


	27. Thoughts and Feelings

**Niamh has company and is therefore sneaksmutting.**

**Very small note, because of that company of mine. Just a small apology for the craziness of this chapter. And Sable's mind. And Lavi's mentality. And for breaking the smut in the middle and going to other people :D**

**Disclaimer of Dum-dum-dum: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…I think it would FAIL.**

**WARNING: YAOI. Man-on-boy. LEMON. SEX! Emotional upheaval! AND MORE GAYNESS! AND some BDSM... but nothing TOO horrid.  
**

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Thoughts and Feelings

Allen, though he hated to admit it, was perhaps more worried about Sable than he was about Lavi. Because of that he tried to walk at a human pace instead of running head on. He watched her eyes most of the way; the odd glowing green of them did not abate, and he had never seen them like that before.

"Sable-chan," He said when she stopped a few doors from Lavi's. "Is everything alright?"

Sable blinked a few times at the scene that was playing out before her. It was very disconcerting to see both Lavi from the point of the glass on his bedside lamp and the stretch of hallway in front of her. She couldn't really focus on both at once. And the person he was with, whom she had only manage to see fleetingly, had pulled her attention back to the room she was only steps away from.

They were talking. And Lavi did not look concerned.

They kissed.

"Sable-chan."

"Maybe…maybe I was wrong…" Her voice was small, very small, like that of a child. Her eyes stayed unfocused for a long moment as she watched the them. Her right hand clenched tightly, but her feet did not move. "Maybe it isn't a Noah."

Allen frowned at her deeply. If it wasn't a Noah, why did she look so impeccably worried?

"Che, aren't you supposed to be able to see if it is?"

She shook her head. "I don't know his name, so I can't look directly at him unless he looks at the lamp."

"Him?"

"I think so."

Allen crossed his arms, thinking. If they just barged in and it was some other passenger, what would Lavi do? He would know that Sable was spying. That wouldn't be good for the two of them. "Do you… think we should wait?"

Sable swallowed hard, trying to focus on the situation. Her mind did not want to watch, not a bit, because it hurt to, but she knew that she had to. She had to be sure nothing happened. Slowly, she nodded.

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He was completely lost in the moment. His wrists were bleeding and he knew it, but he didn't care, the same that he didn't care that at any moment the man he was kissing might reach into his chest and pull out his heart. It might have been easier if he did, really, because then he wouldn't have to explain the marks when someone saw them.

As if reading his thoughts the older man pressed him farther into the mattress, lowering his head so that he could hiss his throat, gently place his teeth on either side of his larynx. At every opportunity Tyki reminded him that he was only alive because Tyki wanted him to be, though he did it in subtle ways. All he would have to do was close his jaw, crush that fragile bone, drown the young man in his own blood – but Lavi did not need reminding. He already knew. He knew a thousand ways that the Noah could kill him and secretly he wished for them all. But he knew no escape would come.

_You can handle this, Lavi!_ His logic said softly, returning from the dark corner his fear had chased it into. _You're a Bookman apprentice! Stop being soft and fight._

A rather strong caress of his erection forced air to catch in his throat momentarily; he felt Tyki smile into his collar bone. Every time his skin was touched it was like stinging fire against him, burning him up and filling him with needs he only understood in theory. He knew what the physical reactions were to all sorts of touches; all of the ones that could cause intense arousal, wild pleasure, and world shattering pain – those nerves were usually the same on every human, according to his readings. But he had never used any of that knowledge because he had never had a reason, yet he still recognized it when it was used on him.

He bit down a protest when his pants went sliding to his ankles.

_You can handle this!  
No. Nonono. No.  
Breathe, damn it!  
No. Nonono. No._

"You look frightened, Lavi-san." Tyki smiled, moving his hand away from his victim's phallus in favor of taking hold of his shoulders and pressing him back, making his bonds slacken. "Are you worried that I might hurt you?"

_If I say yes, he'll hurt me I think. If I say no…_ "No," He swallowed hard; Tyki was leaning over him, reaching for the ropes that held him. The older man laughed has he tightened the boy's bonds, pulling until he made a small sound of pained protest. He smiled, stood to do the same to his ankles. "But what's the re-tying—ow!" His limbs were almost to the point of being overextended and he honestly did _not_ like it; they bit painfully into his flesh, and being held so exposed made his current state obvious to the man who held him in place, drawing a crimson blush to Lavi's already flushed cheeks.

Tyki lifted an eyebrow at him as he laid his fingers on his abdomen, ran them down until Lavi gave a short intake of breath at the contact. "You should be, Lavi-san," He touched with greater strength, encouraging him, "Because I _can_ hurt you. I can hurt you in more ways than you can imagine." He stroked yet harder, continuing until he saw the boy's eyes start to lose focus. "Shall I show you?"

Lavi was getting closer to the edge of oblivion, regardless of the circumstances. Then the hand was gone. The fingers were gone. The contact was gone. Lavi stared at the older man, unable to speak. He was so sure that he was about to find release and then the thing that coaxed him was gone, just vanished, and he was left pulsing with need, unable to do anything about it. His arms tensed of their own accord, his feet twitched. He felt his hips lift momentarily as a soft whimper escaped his throat.

Tyki chuckled at him, his dark eyes smiling. His eyes could not help but take in the beauty of what he had wrought, the pale flesh, the red hair, the vibrancy of flesh rubbed raw, the fear and disappointment in his toy's eyes. It was all so wonderful in contrast, every part of it perfectly put together, down to the wordless expression of discontent Lavi voiced. "Did you want me to finish?" He asked, lowering his hand back again, but not quite touching. Lavi's hips rolled toward him and he lifted his hand away the same distance that he managed to lift himself. "I won't know until you tell me."

"Yes, yes." Lavi breathed. He had never felt desire as keenly as he did in that moment, as if not giving into it would drive him mad. The ache in his shoulders and the horrible feeling that he might have pulled a muscle in his thigh were nothing compared to the lust that filled his mind. "Let me… make me…"

A finger ran slowly around the tip of his erection, eliciting a quiet moan. "Are you sure that is what you want, Lavi-san?" Tyki's voice was low, husky; his breath was close to Lavi's throat. The apprentice Bookman thought that he might have felt heat radiating from that dark skin. "If it is, I want to hear you beg for it. Beg me to release you. Plead with me."

_No,_ Lavi thought as his body gave an involuntary shudder. _I won't beg. I won't beg. I won't._ The finger against him slid up and down slowly, keeping him hard but bring him no closer to release, a pair of warm lips kissed the side of his mouth like the touch of a feather. _I won't beg._

"Your will amazes me," The one finger became two. His head tilted back into the pillows, his eye squeezed shut, his teeth biting at his lower lip to distract him. "It is useless though. I will outlast you." _Such a delicate mind and yet he is strong despite it,_ Tyki thought as he watched his captives expression change. _But he has a breaking point that I can find._ Even as he thought the words he saw the transformation taking place, the slow shattering of some part of Lavi's mentality that kept him from giving up. It was evident in the eyebrows first, as the two came up and away from each other, his eye opened half way, dazed, and then his teeth let go of his lower lip, gently. There was a pain on his face that did not come from outside.

"Please, Tyki," His breath was short, so he gasped lightly. "I beg you…please..."

"Oh, that's not begging. You're just saying the words." He reached lower, touching from base to tip, swirling and going back again. Lavi thought he might scream in frustration.

"P-please," He gasped when a third finger joined the progression. "Release me…I_…_ I…" He quaked when the hand pulled away again. Tyki shook his head in disappointment. He would fight indeed, and fight well. There was only one more trick he had, and he prayed it would work. Slowly he turned his face away from the boy on the bed, dragged his whole hand down his length and pushed himself up as if to leave. "If you cannot ask properly I will give you nothing. You waste my time."

Lavi lost it. "T-Tyki! Don't go! Please, please don't leave me like this!" His voice was only half-raised, pushed into an octave he never used. "Please! Release me! Let me go. I don't care anymore; just undo my wrists for God's sake." He was lashing at the ropes, ripping his skin against them, the bed rocked a little with his motion. "I beg you, don't!" Unseen by his captive, the Noah smiled. He pivoted around again so that he was facing Lavi; his right eyebrow held up slightly, his perfect face lifted in a smirk. His victim stopped moving the moment he met his gaze.

"As you wish, Lavi-san."

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"Are you _sure_ that you're alright?" Allen asked Sable. Her face had gone from pale to blushing to nothing, her expression cold and completely indifferent. He wished that he knew what she was thinking, wished that he knew what was going on in that room not ten feet away so he could comfort her.

She smiled sadly; her eyes did not change when she did it. "I'm fine, don't worry. But…I don't think we should be here."

Kanda sent her a glaring frown from across the hall that might have been out of annoyance, but his thoughts let her know that it was more out of frustration. Lavi was his best friend and currently his greatest worry – if she changed her mind about the man within the room being a Noah, he would be rather angry. He did not like false alarms. He did not like having to give up snuggling with his lover if it meant Lavi wasn't actually in a life or death situation. "Che, why not?"

"Because, Kanda-chan," She turned her face toward the sound of his voice but did not actually look at him. "What's going on in there is his business and I don't think he'd want you to hear it."

Allen placed a hand on Kanda's when he made to retort, spoke for both of them. "Then, if you think it is best for us to move farther away, will you be able to call us if you discover that it really is a Noah?"

"Yes," She lied.

"We won't go far then," Allen tried to smile his bright, uplifting smile, but the attempt was wasted. "Please call us if anything changes."

She nodded.

When Kanda and Allen were out on the deck, the Japanese Exorcist looked to his lover for an explanation. For a moment the younger boy just stood with the wind in his hair, a thoughtful expression on his face, but a slight nudge made him speak.

"Whatever is going on in there is Lavi's secret," He said finally. "Sable knows because she can see it, but we don't know. We have no right to know unless he tells us." He looked up at Kanda, his silver eyes somewhat lost looking. "Everyone has secrets, right?"

Kanda draped his arm around Allen and pulled him close, sighing. "I hope for his sake that you are right, Moyashi."

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Sable sagged against the hallway wall with her head in her shaking hands, her distant eyes focused on what was happening to her friend. She hadn't thought that she liked him. She had hated him only moments before, but liked his presence at the same time. And now he was there, in that room, with his limbs tied down, his head thrown back, and a _Noah_ caressing the most intimate parts of his body with his lips and tongue. Her heart gave a little spasm in her chest as her hands came up to cover her still-seeing eyes.

"I'm a fool," She said quietly. "A damned fool."

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Tyki gave everything the redhead wanted, and maybe then some. He had taken the boy's length in his mouth, licked and flicked and rubbed, used his hands as an extension of his mouth to give Lavi the best he could manage. When the explosion came he was ready for it and he took it into himself with no second thoughts about it, the warm liquid spilled only slightly and he managed to clean that up as well. When it happened his captive had thrown his head back, his voice giving a long, ragged moan that ended in a shuddering sigh. Tyki surveyed his handiwork afterward, a small smile on his lips.

Lavi panted, winded. His muscles felt like jelly and his mind felt like a void of pleasures and pains, with no set definition between them. He wanted to hate himself for begging and yet thank Tyki for making him do it, but he could find no words for either action. Thus he settled for closing his eyes, no longer fighting the ropes that held him. He did not look at Tyki.

"What's the matter, Lavi-san?" Tyki asked as he began to untie the bonds that held him. "Has all the fight gone out of you?" When the right arm was free he lowered it to the boy's side, did the same with the left. His touch was gentle; his voice soft, his warm hands tenderly pulled Lavi's pants up for him, nothing about his actions seemed forced or harsh. It might have been like the touch of a true lover for all the apprentice Bookman knew. "Will you not even speak to me now?"

Softly Lavi sighed, pulled his wounded left wrist up to his eyes so he could look at it. Tyki watched him study his own skin, watched his piercing emerald eye go from dim to bright again as the gears in his head started to function again. The only light in the room came from the kerosene lamp, and its low orange glow reflected like red gold from his hair, cast his face in shades of bronze and gold. He might have been someone great artist's sculpture in that light.

_I feel… warm…_

"Tyki," Lavi's voice was very soft, almost as if he were worried about being overheard. "I am not going to yell at you. I am not going to threaten you. I am not going to ask you to never do that again. But I have a simple request."

The Noah picked his top hat from where he had left it on the stool, placed it gently on his disheveled hair, trying not to look too interested in what the boy said.

"Next time… if it's not too much to ask, could you… use softer rope?"

There was silence. Tyki looked at the apprentice Bookman questioningly, amazement showing unfettered on his face. Had he not just pinned this kid down and forced him to orgasm against his will? Had he not just made him cry with his touch? Had he not just broken his will by making him beg for release? Had he not watched the hope fade from that bright eye like a slowly extinguishing candle? Had it all been nothing but a dream? A lie? Had he talked himself into believing it had happened?

_See? You can handle it._ Lavi thought with an inward smile. _This is nothing. It's just new. You liked that last part. I mean really, he could do worse things to you, if he knew how. You may not want _him_ but you want _some_, so get what you want. Use _him_. Fight!_

"I mean…I realize you're a sadist and all that, but someone's going to see these burns eventually. I'd rather not explain that to someone like Allen that I've been sexing it up with the enemy."

Tyki had no words.

Lavi turned his face to him, a fiendish grin on his lips. "Don't look so surprised, Ty-chan, you said I had no choice in this so I'm not expecting one. But you never said that I couldn't enjoy myself, ne?"

The Noah wasn't sure if he wanted to kick him or rape him. It was impossible to explain what the boy had done to his mind. He had given in, but he was acting as if he had won, as if he had liked it and that idea was like someone dropping an ice cube down Tyki's mental pants. Shock reverberated through him as he thought about it. _He cried for me. He begged me to release him. But now he looks at me like I am the one being seduced._

Suddenly, his own blood felt like fire within him.

"We'll see if I can, Lavi-san."

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"Whoa…" Sable's hands fell from her eyes to her mouth as her gut gave a rolling protest. At the same moment Lavi's emotions had gone from afraid and frustrated to clever and manipulative, the ship had gone up and down a rather unpleasant swell. She felt his satisfaction, his cunning, and there, in the very, very back of his mind, she found herself. In his mind she was complicated, simple, happy, cynical, odd, but she couldn't see what any of that meant. She just was.

And then there was her nausea.

And then there was Tyki.

_I don't want to know,_ She thought, letting the image of the Noah walking out of the room fade from her eyes and Lavi's thoughts disappear from her mind. _Because I know that love isn't the farthest thing from his mind anymore._

_Why did I have to be what I am? I hate it. I don't want to hate people but I don't want to have feelings for anyone. And I'm so God damn tired of knowing what they think. I just…don't want to know anymore. Does he like me, does he like him, and does he suppress his emotions because he has to or because he wants to. I don't care. I don't want to know. I just want to go on without anyone. Without feeling anything._

Her thoughts were so loud tumbling through her head that she didn't hear the footsteps until they were directly in front of her, and even then it took her a moment to draw the dress shoes into focus. "Hey, Tyki." She said without looking up. She hadn't known until that moment that she had been crying.

"Good Afternoon, Sable-chan." His voice was just as sultry as she remembered it. She couldn't compare his new expression to the one she remembered from her childhood though, because she couldn't draw his face into focus.

_I hate you, rebound._ She thought venomously. She should have known that watching with her Innocence for so long was a bad idea. "Anything specific you needed from me?"

Tyki narrowed his eyes at the girl. He could see Uri in her face, her hair, the way she glared at him, everything. It was creepier than twins; it was like a female reflection. "Not specifically."

"Then leave me the hell alone, thank you very much." She dropped her head again, no longer seeming to care that the Noah was even there. The feet in front of her shifted as the man knelt down and placed a hand on her shoulder, almost managing to comfort her. Almost.

"You saw, didn't you?"

She gently nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't touch me."

"Please, I am sorry. About this, about Uri—"

"You bastard!" She hissed, knocking his hand away. "You're not sorry. You're not my friend. You're my fucking enemy. Now stop trying to make me feel better about what _you_ just did and start acting like you want me dead! You're not Uncle Tyki anymore. You never were. You're just a man who's going to fall from grace because of a boy who doesn't have a heart!" She pushed him away, throwing herself away from the wall as she realized what she was saying. She had found that last fact in the very back of his mind without even looking for it, without trying. It was just in her mind before she could stop herself from stealing it. Blindly she stumbled away until a pair of warm arms caught her and a hard chest came into contact with her shoulder.

She looked up slowly to see Lavi looking down at her. "Sable-chan?"

She felt dizzy. Like she hadn't eaten. The wall sconces flickered when she tried to focus her eyes.

"La-Lavi…" She floundered for a moment, unsure what to say, unsure if he had heard her last words. She didn't have to decide though, because her stomach decided for her. She retched violently, turning her head just so that the spew did not splatter directly in the middle of his black shirt, instead it doused most of his right arm, all of her left, both of their shoes and most of the floor. She groaned and wobbled a little, falling into him after a moment.

"Sa-Sable-chan! Are you alright?" He was holding her up and the hallway was spinning in her eyes, slowly growing dimmer. "Sable-chan!"

_I'm fine,_ She thought, her fingers clenching in the fabric of his shirt. _As long as you are._

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**Owari, ne? I know… kind of an awkward ending there… kind of an awkward place for Sable to be really…**

**Looking back it seems kind of odd that she was totally against liking Lavi. And then she did it on her own. //sigh\\**

**Reviews are all I want for Christmas! And new headphones.  
Love for you readers :D**

**And lastly, I'm sorry for the lack of Yullen! The next chapter SHOULD be Christmas day (for them) so you'll get some… I promise XD**


	28. The First Exchange

**Niamh has discovered that sometimes she can't fit everything she wants to in one chapter. And it sucks.**

**In other words, I was planning on writing EVERY part of Christmas and posting it ALL at once, but then I realized that that's at **_**least**_** 7k words of material, and you guys don't need a random chapter that's **_**that**_** long when you're used to my 2.5k-3.5kers. Heck, this is already pretty darn long without A/Ns.**

**I love you all lots! Happy Holidays! I promise to try and get the rest of Christmas out before Christmas!**

**Disclaimer: I don't know D.Gray-man. If I did… I would be sure to start a discussion board about all of the crazy allusions.**

**WARNING: Hmm… not much. Some cuteness… awkwardness… maybe a **_**tiny**_** bit of ooc… but none of it's that far fetched. Oh, AND PRETTY OBVIOUS BOY'S LOVE.**

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The First Exchange

"Sabe-chan, you can't tell _me_ to not be quiet and pensive and then go do it yourself a few weeks later." Lavi tried to look at the blonde but found it hard with her hanging over his shoulders.

"Since when do you call me Sabe?"

"Since you threw up on me."

"Oh."

Despite having reached land the previous day she was still suffering the side effects of her sea sickness. She claimed to feel better, to see fine, but her walking ability claimed otherwise. So until she had eaten her weight in food she was relegated to Lavi's back – which she only half-minded. It was too easy to hear him thinking when he touched her.

She had pasted out from fatigue after nearly ruining their boots. Lavi never told her what had happened exactly, but she had awoke to find Tyki gone and him napping at her bedside, without his headband, the marks on his wrists and neck plainly seen in his clean white shirt. It had taken all of her will to wake him and tell the others all was well without so much as frowning.

But it was getting easier. The more she watched Kanda and Allen be happy together, the easier it seemed to become.

Allen held Kanda's hand in his, desperate to broach three subjects but not sure which to bring up first. He was _more than excited_ about Kanda's Christmas present – because he had thought about it and Kanda was going to love it – yet he wanted to ask him about living arrangements, and he also wanted to know if they were just going to walk in hand in hand. He kind of liked that idea, but it scared him. After what Lenalee had said about pictures he was kind of worried that coming in touching would lead to loud squealing and giggling and a few male members of the Order demanding that the two keep their PDA to an ultimate minimum. He didn't particularly want to face that on Christmas morning.

"Love…" He said quietly as they came to the canal that would take them inside of the tower. "I've been meaning to ask you if…we're just going to…you know…"

Kanda turned to him, blinking his deep sapphire eyes with that same old glare in them, an eyebrow raised. "Che, spit it out Moyashi."

"Just walk in like this and wait for people start asking why we're touching each other." Allen finished. The Japanese man stopped walking but did not let go of the smaller boy's hand. Instead, he pulled him closer, planting his lips firmly on Allen's without so much as a blink of an eyelid. His lover was surprised at first, but soon he had taken hold of his shirt collar and was lifting himself on his toes to deepen their contact. It lasted for a longer than Allen thought it would, and parting left him breathless.

"Ewwwww…" Lavi groaned.

"_Woot!_" Sable squeed.

"Baka Moyashi-kun," Kanda frowned furiously at him. "If they ask questions they'll get answers. What do we care if they don't like them?" His arms had fallen around the younger Exorcist's waist so that his fingers drifted down to wear his pockets might have been if not for his over large jacket.

Allen grinned at him before pecking him lightly on the lips. "Good point."

"Oi! Love birds!" Sable called from her perch on Lavi's back. "Mr. Weaksauce here can't carry my fat butt and drive the boat at the same time, so c'mon!" The red head scowled at the _weak_ comment but didn't argue. Kanda and Allen smiled at each other with small, knowing smiles, and started for the boat.

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"Merry Christmas!" Lenalee greeted them the moment the four were in the doors. She had her dark hair up in a pair of happy little pigtails with sparkly bits of garland twirled around the bands that held them. She was hugging her clipboard impossibly tight to her chest, bouncing on the balls of her feet excitedly. Sable thought she had too much energy for one person in that little body of hers.

"Merry Christmas," Allen smiled back at her, gracing her with one of those heart warming expressions that now made Kanda want to melt. Instead he just tightened his grip on the boy's hand, amazed that the cheery Chinese girl had not yet noticed it.

Lavi grinned at her playfully and returned the greeting as well. Sable waved from her place on his back and groaned with less enthusiasm.

It was then, before she could demand to know everything that happened on their trip, that she noticed the hands. She also noticed that Sable wasn't standing on her own. Her happiness was somewhat dimmed by the second fact, but the first required attention immediately – and perhaps a bit of squealing glee on her part.

"Allen-kun," She said almost stoically. The two hadn't spoken since the day he had called to tell them of their new developments. For all she knew, the two of them hadn't touched each other sense. "Are you and Kanda-san…h-h-holding hands?" As she said the words a light blush spread across her cheeks. Allen had to smile at her when she did that, just because it was so very much what he had expected from her.

"Yes."

"And he's not threatening you?"

"No."

"Then—then—then!" She was absolutely crimson now, "_Who's the seme!?_"

If he hadn't been so very happy in that moment, Allen might have smacked himself in the forehead with his palm.

"Honestly…" He looked at Kanda and Kanda looked at him, they both shrugged.

"He is." They pointed and said in unison. Kanda pulled Allen to him, glaring down his nose and pressing their bodies together. The British boy's hands came to rest on his upper arms, his fingers curled in the fabric of his shirt.

"Is that so, Moyashi-kun?" He asked huskily, leaning downward. "That's not how I remember it."

Allen smiled a little at him before taking Kanda in a long kiss, the three watchers for the moment forgotten for the sake of his pet name. His right hand slid around the back of his lover's neck and his left hand traveled the distance to his back, forcing them yet closer. When Kanda's lips parted he slid his tongue in easily, relishing in the warmth, amazement slowly filling him as he realized how wonderful kissing had become. It wasn't like before, when he had to think about where he wanted to touch and what Kanda wanted to feel, it was as natural to him as breathing.

When they parted, two heady sighs escaped the female members of their forgotten audience.

The Chinese girl gaped. "You can't mean—Allen—ohmygoodness!" She whirled to face the British boy, bowing lowly, her squee silenced for the moment. "I'm sorry! I never would have thought that you had it in you!"

"It's… not like what you're thinking…" He tried to explain from Kanda's arms. "He _is_ the seme, he just doesn't know enough yet."

Kanda laid his head on top of Allen's, looking content. "And I'm fine not knowing enough."

"I wish I had my camera…"

Kanda sighed. This was all taking up horrendous amounts of time. "Che. If you're done fangirling we have reports to make. And Sable might want to head down to the infirmary."

Sable rolled her eyes. "I do not need to be poked and prodded. I need food."

"To the cafeteria then," Lavi sighed. "Shall we all make our reports, take showers, get fresh clothes, and meet someplace for presents?"

Lenalee nodded. "You should all come to my room, being it's clean, fresh, and my gifts are rather large this year. How long do you think it will take for you guys to get done?"

"An hour."

"A half an hour."

"An hour and a half."

Lenalee grinned at the four of them. "Just come whenever you're ready then. And… I'm really glad that you're all home."

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The Li sister bounced away to her room still smiling, her boots clacking on the floor until she came inside. She had redecorated somewhat, mostly out of boredom, partly out of inspiration. Her curtains were green, the new rug matched them, and she had had the old issued bedspread replaced with something softer and more fitting of her theme. Over all the place looked darker, but she liked it more all the same.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, checking to be sure that the garland was still in place, before going to her bed and dragging her presents from beneath it. She loved Christmas. It was always so wonderful to see her friends and loved ones smile because of something she had given them, because of something she had done. It all just made the world seem brighter. When two bags, a box, and a rather mushy ball of something wrapped in paper were placed on the floor in front of her bed, she elected to wait quietly for them, even though she could hardly contain her excitement.

_I can't believe it,_ She sighed, sitting down on her bed. _We did it. We got them together. Mission accomplished!_

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When Lavi went off to take Sable to the cafeteria and Lenalee headed out to be sure her room was prepared, Kanda and Allen made their report to Komui. The two spoke about everything indifferently, saying nothing about what had happened between them out of fear of the other's wish for silence. There fears were unfounded though – the scientist had learned everything that Lenalee knew when she had demanded the return of her camera – because he wasn't just going to give her that valued piece of technology without knowing what it was used for.

The girl had spilled her guts easily. Komui, however, did not tell them that he knew.

When they were finished, Allen's thoughts returned to his last two concerns: living arrangements and presents. It would not have bothered him so much if the second were not dependant on the first. The more he thought about it though, the less he felt like bringing it up – because he didn't just want to assume things. When the two of them came to the turn from which point Kanda lived right and Allen lived left, there was no avoiding it anymore, and his pace slowed until his boots were still against the hard floor. Kanda looked back at him when his arm snagged back.

"What is it, Moyashi?" He asked, swinging his hair out behind him.

Allen's feet shifted for a moment. "Er… I was just uh…well…"

"Che. Can you say anything without groaning for a half hour first?"

"Yes."

"No, you moan up to that one too."

Allen blushed until the tips of his ears were crimson. "I just don't want to jump to conclusions!" His fist tightened on the handle of his suitcase as he spoke. "But if you want me to, I will."

Kanda gave him a smirking kind of frown that was filled with nothing but affection. He turned to face him. "Jump."

"Should I be turning left, or right?"

Kanda lifted an eyebrow at him.

"My room is left, yours is right, so should I be going to my room or yours?" There. It was out. It was dangling in the wind, flapping in the breeze, vibrating through the air until it came to Kanda's eardrums. The British boy was expecting the samurai to call him stupid and send him to his own room, because even _if_ they loved each other they stilled needed places to be alone. But that was not what was said.

"Well, Moyashi-kun," Kanda's voice was steady. "I have something to give you, so would you like it now, or later?"

He blinked for a minute, stupefied by those simple words. His recover was quick though, even if he was feeling a little disappointed by that. Did Kanda not understand what he was asking? "Now, if you want."

The Japanese Exorcist shook his head as they started off again. _Sometimes, he just thinks too hard…_

And then there was his last thought. It was still there, beneath the surface of Allen's mind, gnawing at his ideas and making him nervous. He had come up with the idea when they had coupled on the floor, and since then it had refused to leave him alone. So he had taken time, money, and all of his skills at stealth to 'create' his gift, and the resulting thing was almost too much to think about with Kanda's hand in his. Sweat broke out on the palms of his hands and warmth began to spread from the middle of his chest outward, a thousand little butterflies leapt to life in his stomach and his feet tried to carry him faster. When they came to Kanda's door he was almost overcome with excitement.

Kanda's room was sparse and clean. Nothing was out of place and nothing was decorative – it was if the man lived with his eyes shut to the beauty he could have placed there. Yet, despite how very little color there was, there was still a shelf of books with titles Allen couldn't read, and in the middle of his low table a lotus incased in glass.

'_I have a lotus flower in my room at headquarters.' _He had said at their first shared lunch table. Allen had never imaged it to be something like that. Next to it though, was something he hadn't expected; a stack of delicately thin paper, a pen, and calligraphy brushes – just the thing one would need for letter writing.

His lover, who was very used to his own room, sauntered in and placed his suitcase on the bed, flicking the latches with experienced fingers and pulling out his soiled clothes. They had both put in requests for new jackets, so he threw the old one aside, marking it as something to be thrown out the next time garbage was collected. Without so much as glancing over to see if Allen had come in, he picked up his filthy clothes and dumped them unceremoniously in the bedside hamper, went back again to pull out his extra boots, a sharpening stone, a brush, a comb, and all manner of other small things. He went about putting each in its place before he turned back to the white haired boy standing in his door way.

"Che, don't just stand there, Moyashi."

"S-sorry." He stammered, looking again at the pristine quality of the room. He felt that just stepping on the immaculate rug would mar its purity. But he did it anyway. Kanda was telling him to.

"It's just my room, Moyashi-kun."

"Uh huh…"

"Che," Kanda sighed and turned back to his suitcase, reaching in and pulling out a small white box that was slightly longer than it was wide, perhaps an inch in depth. He held it for a long moment before he offered it to the younger boy, eyes averted.

"What is it?"

The Japanese man swallowed hard. In a small voice he whispered, "Merry Christmas."

Allen blanched. "You… got me something."

"It's not the end of the world."

"I just didn't expect it."

His dark blue eyes came up and sparkled at Allen, almost darning. "I told you to expect it, didn't I?" There was something oddly dangerous about his voice. Allen knew that not taking the box would be either rape or death, and he was sure both would ruin his present for sure. _I just… can't believe he got me something… he's _Kanda

Shaking he took hold of the little paper box, setting his suitcase gently on the black rug on the floor. With extreme caution he pulled it open. His silver eyes went wide. Inside, lying on a bed of cotton puffs was a long blue silk ribbon, identical in size to the red one that now hung from Kanda's hair. It had a slight shine in the overhead light, the kind that made him want to run his fingers across it, the kind of glimmer that reminded him of Kanda's eyes. He picked it up gently, almost as if he was afraid to unwind it, and gasped when something fell back into the box – something that had been wound up in the bottom of it.

A key.

He looked at it for a moment, perplexed. "Wha—"

"And happy birthday," Kanda said hurriedly. "I think sixteen is old enough for something like that. And for making up your mind about keeping it."

"Is this…"

"Yeah," He nodded. "It works on the door."

"You mean… you want me to…"

Kanda shrugged at him. "Che, Sable said it, didn't she? We _have_ to live together, or something. It's not like I'm asking you to marry me, if that's what you're thinking."

"Marry…" Allen's head fell to the side as it was overwhelmed with thought. He found it_very_ hard to believe any of it. A key. He had a key to Kanda's room in his hand. And if he wanted it to be, it would be _his key_, the key to _their room_, shared, both of theirs, not just_Kanda's_. "You mean… you want me to stay with you?"

His lover smiled at him, the expression made him feel warm despite the two feet of space between them. "Would I give it to you if I wanted otherwise?"

Allen had no answer. For a moment he just stood there, with the ribbon and the key and his expression of disbelief, the blood pounding in his ears. He had been so very worried about rejection, so afraid that Kanda would tell him they needed separate rooms and could just visit each other, that holding the key in his hand was almost ethereal. When he came back to himself though he was happy beyond reason – and more than prepared to give the gift he had prepared.

"Thank you, Love." He tucked the key and ribbon deep into his pocket.

"Hn."

"My turn?" He asked as he bent to his luggage. The lack of an answer did not stop him from throwing the lid open and reaching in among his dirty clothes to come out with a shirt draped around a lump of suspicious looking objects, his cheeks blazing as he brought them out. "I… didn't have time to wrap it but…" He bent his head low and offered up his gifts, doing all he could to mimic what Lavi had taught him about polite Japanese behavior. "_Dozo yoroshiku!_"

Kanda blinked at him for a moment, curious as to why he would say something like that now. Normal people said that after introductions. Even so, he took hold of the odd lump and stoically lifted the white fabric from it, less than half enthusiastic about seeing what waited for him. When he took it Allen remained bent low, his eyes screwed shut against whatever reaction his lover would give him.

"Are you _serious_?" Kanda asked softly.

"Would I give it to you if I wanted otherwise?" There might have been mischief in his voice.

The Japanese man grinned lopsidedly at the objects in his hands, a chuckle bubbling up out of his throat. Wrapped up in Allen's garment had been the two things he had thought least likely on earth to be there, and it made him want to laugh. It also made him want to admit that Allen was a master of irony. After all, who else would be clever enough to give him a belt and a bottle of honey?

_Lavi._

"We'll be late if we do this."

Allen's head tilted back slightly as he looked up at Kanda, still bowing despite the motion. "Well, don't let it change your mind but…" He held up his left hand, the massage oil held between his fingers. "This fell out of the wrapping."

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**Don't wanna make it any longer than it is… so… YAY!! Yullen is a coming!! And I LOVE YOU READERS!! 3!! And thanks for the reviews! I like knowing what you feel when you read it, and I like knowing when you think something is annoying or whatever too :D**

**Happy Holidays! Macaroons for all!!**


	29. The Rest of Christmas

**Niamh is long winded.**

**I don't know D.Gra-man.**

**WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS LONG AND JAM PACKED WITH HOMOSEXUALITY! MAN SEX! MAN-LOVIN'! YAOI! SHOUNEN-AI!**

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The Rest of Christmas

Lavi tapped the side of his head as he watched Sable vacuum her plate with her mouth. He hadn't particularly planned on watching her eat, but it had happened that way. After all, if a big mound of assorted food didn't make her able to traverse the distance from the cafeteria to her room and he left, who would carry her?

"By je vay," She said around a rather sticky blob of rice. "I'f gut ya prejent imv meh bag ip ya wont ip."

After all the time they had been together in Sweden he knew what this meant: 'By the way, I've got you a present in my bag if you want it.'

_I am now well versed in the language of food-talk._

"Aw, Sabe-chan you shouldn't have!"

"Buf I did."

"Heh…"

She mimed with her hands that she would simply bring it with her to the little get together, and he nodded with a serious lack of enthusiasm.

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Kanda wasn't going to argue with that bottle of oil. He wasn't going to argue with the white haired boy bowing to him either. If this was Allen's gift, Kanda wasn't going to send it back for the sake of Lenalee's little party – it would be horribly rude. So he dropped the belt and the honey and cupped his hand around the base of his lover's skull and pulled him up into a kiss. What else was he supposed to do? Stand there waiting? No. So he kissed him mightily, dragging his tongue across Allen's lips and letting his other hand come up to touch his smooth cheek, trying to memorize the feel of that skin against him.

_If he's giving me himself,_ Kanda thought lingeringly, _He should never have to regret it_.

Allen almost dropped the bottle. Kanda kissed him so deeply, so strongly, that he felt his knees knock together with the force of it. A shiver shot up his spine when his lover's fingers graced the bottom of his back, their slight pressure guiding his hips forward until he was standing upright, his chest mere inches from Kanda's.

When their lips parted the older man did not pause to look at him and study the blush on his face nor did he give Allen time to ask what was next. Instead he kissed again, sweeping his smaller lover away with his touch, allowing his fingers to slide to the top Allen's collar and begin undoing the buttons of his jacket. The British boy touched his chest but did not go near the buttons – he could feel the Japanese man's heartbeat, smell his flowery scent, taste his almost salty quality, and even though he wanted more he would not take it. Kanda was running things now. Unless Kanda told him to, he would leave those buttons alone.

When the coat fell away to the floor Kanda stopped his slow exploration of Allen's mouth and pulled back to look at him, his hands came to rest on either of his shoulders. The boy looked up at him expectantly, a blush on his pale cheeks, his hair falling lazily around his eyes, a small smile curling at the edge of his lips. He looked like a mischievous seraphim, a halo of light reflecting off of his hair.

"Did I ever tell you that you're beautiful?" Kanda asked fondly, caressing the side of his face.

Allen gave a small chuckle and leaned into the larger man's chest. "No, but I called you pretty."

"Che, are you trying to hide your blush him my shoulder?"

"No, I was aiming for your hair."

Kanda laughed. "I can hardly rape you when you're smothering yourself in my shirt, Moyashi."

"You couldn't rape me if I wasn't."

"Oh?" He let his left hand trace Allen's side until it came to his hip, which he proceeded to take in his grip and force against him, eliciting a small whimper in response. "Is that a challenge, Moyashi?" There was no denying the slight hardness he felt pressed against him, or Allen's suddenly slack jaw. "Because I'd like to try."

Allen giggled, wagged a finger at him almost as if he were scolding a child. "You forget one key fact, Love."

"If you say that I can't rape the willing, I'm going to prove otherwise."

"Hee," Allen grinned at him.

Kanda placed both arms around him and heaved him into the air momentarily as he turned around toward the bed, plopping him down on it in much the same way he had deposited his dirty clothes into the hamper. Allen hung on though, so when he fell on the mattress Kanda followed him shortly after, surprise and gravity carrying him down on top of his lover. The younger Exorcist smiled at the older; Kanda glowered at him with twinkling eyes, fully aware that Allen was right about his correction. It wouldn't matter if Kanda took the boy and leaned him over the bed frame without asking – he was willing to do it so long as Kanda was.

Carefully he rolled off of him, propped himself up on his right arm and looked down at Allen. Allen waited for whatever would come next, a blank slat of expectancy on his face. At an agonizingly slow rate Kanda started on his shirt buttons, tracing his fingers down the newly exposed flesh as he went, all the while watching the learning grow in Allen's eyes. Where his lover thought that his rhythm was off, his technique questionable, he thought that Allen went about things too quickly. Yes, he wanted to get to the good part, and yes, he liked the good part, but what was good about the part good was getting there – or at least it was in his mind.

"Love," Allen said when his shirt was hanging open off of his arms. "Are we going to be done with this by New Years?"

The Japanese man frowned at him. "Patience," He explained, running his hand back up his lover's skin and crossing sideways to tickle the nub of a nipple, "Is something you have lacked until this point. I thought I teach you a few of its disciplines."

Allen narrowed his eyes at him. "Yes, and I'll teach you a few things about premature ejaculation."

Kanda snorted at him, grinned so that his straight white teeth shown in the lamplight. "Che, there is only one cure for that, Moyashi-kun." He leaned forward to kiss him lightly, gave a small flick with his tongue. "And that is to do it again many, many, many more times."

Allen smiled even as he feigned a groan of discontent. "Get _on_ with it then!"

His lover hunched over him as he pushed his shirt off of his shoulders, gently drew his tongue from the soft place below Allen's ear to the hollow of his throat, feeling his lover shiver the entire time. He could see his hands twist in the blankets as he nibbled lightly, could feel him arch his back ever so slightly at the contact. The more he watched and felt the more he realized that all of Allen's reactions were under his control, that he could make him gasp if he bit to strongly, could make him moan if he let his fingers traverse the distance navel button and pants more than twice, could make him clench his fists if he so much as touched his neck with his tongue. It reminded him of dancing; guiding his partner through the movements he desired in order to for a masterpiece in the end. He silently decided that he would use these things to his advantage, make them into a natural pattern that would end with a very happy, very satisfied little Moyashi.

He pushed Allen's shirt off.

And all the while, Allen thought he was going to die. While Kanda was studying his reactions to every bit of contact he was trying to suppress them, trying _not_ to push the other man off and pin him down, rip off his clothes, and have his way with him. It took all of his will not too, and then some. When his belt came off his hand went up and touched Kanda's face of its own accord, but the Japanese man glared at him when that happened. He just blinked questioningly, letting his fingers run slowly to the back of his hair so he could pull out the ribbon that held those ebony tresses.

"What?" He asked innocently. It was hard to do anything innocently when he was breathing raggedly.

"_Baka, Moyashi-kun_." Kanda spat, taking Allen's left hand – the one that was gliding through his hair, and pushing it upward. "That's something else patience can teach you – self control." With a nimbleness of fingers Allen could hardly imagine possessing he looped Allen's belt around his wrist and the iron bed frame. He hadn't noticed it before, but the black metal frame was indeed well suited for this sort of thing. The metal itself was arranged to look like flowers and leaves, with an arching branch over them, smaller twigs shooting from the main limb at calculated intervals. With the belt hooked around Allen's left wrist and the bar he could shift his arm back and forth perhaps six inches either way. When Kanda forced his right hand through the same loop that distance shrank to nearly nothing, but it still wasn't good enough for him. So he wrapped first his wrists, then the bar, then came back down again through the same loop he had made – buckled it just so that Allen couldn't reach it no matter how hard he tried. All the while Allen whined that he had learned his lesson and wouldn't touch him anymore – Kanda ignored him.

"Love, I _know_ that I gave you a belt but you don't _have_ to use it," He protested, doing all he could to try and reach the buckle with his fingers.

"Che, should I use mine and the one you gave me on your ankles then?" Kanda raised a questioning eyebrow at his struggling lover.

Allen narrowed his eyes at him. "Yes, because I can not only magically warp out of my pants I can also get rid of my own desires using my toes."

Kanda laughed at him, leaned down to start his slow caressing again. All of Allen's responses were the same as before, though they were growing slowly in intensity, the bump in his pants getting larger with every passing moment. It wasn't until Allen bent his legs and lifted his hips at his lover that Kanda began to wonder if maybe the other belts were indeed a good idea. He decided against it though, because if he teased too much it wouldn't be fun for Allen anymore.

The British boy sighed in relief when his pants were gone. But just having them off wasn't enough – he wanted Kanda. What annoyed him most though was that there he was, completely naked, and the older man was fully clothed. He made to say something about that but his lover had other ideas. Kanda's mouth came down firmly on his as his right hand played gently with his arousal, making him moan into his lips, which then allowed his lover to slip a no longer shy tongue into him, penetrating with a ferocity that made his blood roar. If he had been paying more attention to what was going on outside of his own body he might have noticed Kanda was taking off his own clothes in a rather frantic manner. He wasn't ambidextrous like Allen was, so going about it left handed made the going slower.

When the kiss broke Allen was breathless and Kanda was shirtless. Allen had given up trying to control his vocal chords anymore. "Love," He half-whispered. "Touch me."

Kanda smiled at him crookedly. "Ah, Moyashi-kun," His left hand came back to the boy's hip, pressing him down as he sank down onto the bed, placing a slow line of kisses down his stomach. "If I do that, you won't ever learn patience." He pressed his lips onto his lover's thighs, inwardly grinning when he whimpered again, small pleads falling from his lips at the lack of satisfaction. Knowing full well what Allen would do he traced the outside of his leg at the same time and managed a sound of disappointment when he threw his hips forward, moaning for Kanda's touch.

In a feat of limberness that would make most gymnasts proud, he reached without leaving the bed for the second belt, captured it between his toes and pulled it up onto the bed with them. It amused him mildly to think that just a few moments before he had decided against this and now he was going back on his word. But what else was there? At this rate Allen was going to take control without even realizing it.

Allen didn't understand what was going on until he realized that the electrical heat around his middle had stopped swirling and he could no longer lift himself with his bent right leg. He realized then that Kanda was standing at the end of the bed, securing his left ankle in the same manner, a look of determination on his beautiful features. "Kanda…" He said pleadingly. "This is hardly fair…"

The Japanese man crawled onto the mattress again, placing a warm hand on the side of his face and kissing him kindly, undoing the top button of his pants as he did so. "Che, tell me this, Moyashi," The hand that wasn't on Allen's face gently grazed his erection, making the boy's eyes go wide. "If you weren't tied down right now, what would you be doing?"

"_You_." He half growled the word as Kanda's hand passed over him again.

"Exactly. Sometimes, it's better to make someone wait."

And then it struck him. It wasn't that Kanda liked tying Allen to the bed; it wasn't that he enjoyed having control; it was that he had wanted to it to last longer. Allen blinked for a moment, his lusty mind taking a bit longer than normal to comprehend what that meant. He had lacked patience. He had always wanted to give as much pleasure as he could as fast as he could – it had never occurred to him that the frustration beforehand could make it better in the end.

"Che, you get it now, ne?"

He rolled his hips and turned his lips down in an almost childish frown. "That doesn't make waiting easier…"

His lover kissed his neck softly, finishing with his pants as he did. _Lesson learned_, he thought with an inward sigh. _Now, for the good part_.

He was thankful that Allen had dropped the bottle of oil on the bed (and he snickered a little when he realized that it was half empty). He watched Allen's eyes light up like a pair of candles when he picked it up, watched him make suggestive glances in the direction of his phallus. If Kanda hadn't already decided that now was the time, he would have made him wait longer because of that – but he wasn't _that_ sadistic.

Instead he pulled the cork out of the bottle and poured oil into his palm, coating himself with it until he thought the amount sufficient. He then started with his fingers, careful but as careful as before, he kept his left hand on Allen's erection, trailing slow lines from top to bottom and back again, watching the expression on his lover's face as he did so.

"Don't—be—so careful," Allen gasped as his hips gave an involuntary convulsion. When he did that he pressed Kanda's fingers into him until they came into contact with the thing they quested for; he trembled and moaned at the sensation. Kanda smiled. If Allen didn't want careful he wouldn't get careful, because now that the lesson was learned there really was no point to patience. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, positioned himself so that he was in the place he needed to be, just outside of Allen. He looked down at the pair of silver eyes that looked up at him eagerly, pleading with him silently to do this.

"If I hurt you—"

"Kanda. Rape me."

"Che," And so he forged ahead, his breath catching in his throat when Allen's eyes pressed shut, his breath hissing into him half in pain. But the younger boy knew that he had asked for it, and even as it hurt Kanda hit the place that filled his whole being with pleasure. He was perfectly unaware of the sound he made when he threw his head back, even more oblivious to the fact that he continued to make it the harder his lover pounded into him, the more pleasure rippled through him. Before long there was nothing but that good feeling and Kanda's eyes, both rendering any sense of discomfort or fear moot.

And, to top it all off, Kanda's rhythm fit him perfectly.

Allen found his peak first and Kanda followed shortly after, both of them released giant sighs and went limp upon the mattress, breathing hard. After a few moments of recovering Allen turned his head to his lover, a dreamy smile on his face.

"Love," He said quietly.

"Hm," Kanda's face was long behind a curtain of hair, his sapphire eyes closed while he caught his breath.

"That was magnificent."

Kanda chuckled, reached out to pull himself closer to his lover.

"Also, could you unbelt my wrists? I can't stay here all day…"

Beneath his vale of hair Kanda smiled evilly. "Che, _Baka Moyashi_," He put his palm on Allen's chest, dragging it back and forth slowly. "Christmas isn't over yet."

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"My goodness you two are late!" Lenalee chimed when she opened her door. Allen glared at Kanda from beneath his wet hair and Kanda gave Leanalee his best I-will-kill-you-momentarily stare. She didn't seem to care though, because she just smiled at both of them and opened the door wider.

Lavi was already sitting on the edge of the bed, Sable sating on the floor with a book in her hands, slowly being consumed by it. The two gave less than enthusiastic waves as the newly showered couple came in and took up the last two remaining chairs by the door, holding hands.

"Geez, Yullen-chan what kept you?" Lavi chimed, grinningly.

"Kanda."

"Allen."

The younger glared at the older. Kanda failed at looking innocent.

Sable looked up from her book momentarily, giving either of them a slight lift of her eyebrows. "They were busy with presents," She said vaguely. Lenalee, who had taken up the edge of the bed next to Lavi, grinned at the two of them as if she absolutely knew what that meant. But instead of squealing or glomping or even going mildly fangirl on them, she pulled a camera from the folds of her skirt.

"Could you two do us a favor," She tilted her head, smiling yet broader, "And just be cute for a second?"

The two looked at each other for a moment, one of Kanda's eyebrows pushed itself over the other, Allen just glowered at him. "Che, don't you want to sit on Santa's lap, Moyashi-kun?"

Allen squeezed his hand and pointed with his free hand, his face changing quickly to the color a beat. "You think that's funny, don't you?! You're lucky I can sit on a plush chair – let alone your lap!" He was so loud he didn't even notice the looks he was getting. Lavi's eye was as round as a saucer dish, Lenalee held her camera in front of her slightly open mouth, fighting a sudden urge to whoop. Sable stoically turned a page in her book. "Four times!? What the hell Kanda?! It's not like I've done that to you _ever_!"

The Japanese man blinked at him for a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smile. "Che, you weren't complaining much then, were you Moyashi?"

Silence.

"You liked it. Furthermore, if I recall correctly, it was you who challenged me," He leaned toward the smaller boy, a lock of ebony hair falling down in front of his left eye. "Moyashikun…"

Allen sighed, his half-indignant anger running out of him like water through a strainer. He couldn't be mad at Kanda anymore, not when he was looking at him with those half-apologetic, half-sexy, half-mocking, (that's too many halves…) eyes and said his name like that. It was like trying to be mad a kitten that had peed in his favorite shoes. "Ok… I forgive you…" He leaned forward himself, closing his eyes as they met over the arms of their chairs, hands intertwined, kissing deeply. The British boy did not falter when Kanda stealthily slipped his tongue between his lips.

They did falter, however, when a shutter clicked.

"Aw, that's one for the photo album…" Lenalee chimed.

"Che."

"Anyhoo!" Lavi cheered, standing. "Time for presents!"

"Yay…" Sable didn't even look up.

_She's a barrel of happiness these days…_

"Hand out your gifts!" He continued, pointing at each of them. Lenalee handed him the large lump wrapped in paper almost at once, have the box to Sable, and offered Kanda and Allen the two remaining bags. Sable pulled four boxes from beneath the bed, each one differently sized. The smallest she gave to Lavi, a long, narrow one went to Kanda, and a short square one went to Allen. Lenalee got a large rectangle, which she grinned at.

"Those are kind of from both Lavi and I," Sable said, sitting back against Lenalee's bookshelf. "Being we shopped together."

Kanda, and Allen were quiet for a moment, not looking at anything. "We… erm…I…" Allen tried.

"Che, you get the same thing as last year."

That made Lavi smile. "Aw! Yay!" He dashed across the room and wrapped his arms around Kanda, giving him a full on frontal hug – the kind that normally would have resulted in having Mugen lifted to his throat.

"_Lavi_," It was Allen who spoke. The red head looked at him to see stars of danger burning in his silver eyes, jealousy burning on his cheeks. "_What are you doing_?"

"Uh… ugh…" He blithered for a moment, withering beneath that powerful gaze. "When Yuu-chan doesn't get me anything I get a threat-free hug and then we get to braid his hair. It's been that when sense we were six." He smiled at the bemused look on Allen's face. "Isn't it adorable?"

Kanda hit him on the top of the head with just enough force to knock him to the ground. "Hug time over."

"Aww… I didn't even get to nuzzle!"

"Next…" Sable groaned. "Everyone just open them at once, 'kay? Get things over with."

"You have no sense of suspense…"

"Sure I do. I am forever anticipating the moment Kanda drives you through with Mugen."

"So cold…"

"Rip!"

The room was filled with the sound of shredding paper and disintegrating boxes as the five tore into their gifts, exclamations of glee and horror filling the small room as each gift materialized from its packaging. Sable received a book from Lenalee, the subject matter of which made them wink at each other. Lavi received a large orange blanket, which he proceeded to hug. Allen and Kanda both found photo albums in their bags, which was somewhat curious.

It was then they moved on to the gifts from _Lable_.

Lenalee found within her box a large shall, black, embroidered with silver roses across the bottom. She was very happy to have it. Lavi discovered that Sable had bought him a small amount of silky pink rope that was somehow covered is yellow bunnies, which made him blush and made her talk about how he had had rope on his mind. It was horribly awkward. And then – when they were nearly finished – Allen opened his package.

First there was a card, hand written, that read: _To be worn for Yuu-chan, and under no other circumstances._ Beneath it was a pair of black cat ears and a pin on tail – which he proceeded to cover back up again and hide under his chair. Kanda only demanded that he see them twice before Sable explained what they were anyways. His reaction was shocked silence.

The last box to be opened was perhaps the most dramatic, because everyone wondered what long thin object would go with Allen's cat ears. With an air of stoic indifference Kanda ripped it apart, smiled when the gift fell silently into his lap. Slowly he picked up it up again, wrapping his fingers around the black handle and turning it over so he could study it more closely. Allen scratched his head at the odd object, his mind struggling to comprehend what exactly he was looking at.

"What's it for?" He asked in a quiet voice, the sinister grin that split Kanda's face striking fear into his soul.

"Well, Moyashi-kun," Kanda turned to him, brandishing a feathered end. "Do you remember our war?"

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**Done! And I'm sorry that it was freakishly long. There was a LOT to do in a chapter :D**

**I love you readers! And happy holidays! XD**


	30. Kitten Plans

**Niamh is dying slowly… but is taking Advil so she can update her fic… bleee**

**Sorry that I invented my own stress induced problem… and sorry this really has very little to do with the plot… and sorry that I ended on such an incomplete note…**

**I LOVE REVIEWS!! They make my day brighter :)**

**Disclaimer of Dipodies: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Anita never would have bit the dust QQ**

**WARNING: Man-on-man! Shounen-ai! If you are insulted by gay men, stop reading!**

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Kitten Plan

The snow falling outside of Allen's window was completely silent, the flakes curling in slow circles from the sky like fallen petals, gathering in heaps on the ground bellow. Watching them reminded him of his ever distant childhood, Mana, how he felt before his foster father had died. It all seemed so far away now, like a broken dream slipping through his fingers.

Unconsciously his right hand wrapped around his left arm, pulling the sore limb close.

He tensed when a pair of warm bare arms came around his shoulders and pulled him backward into and equally warm and bare chest, hard muscles cradling him as he relaxed with a sigh. He had spent Christmas night curled beside his lover, sharing a bed – their bed – and waking in the morning without the worry of another day's travel or another day's wounds was like breathing in a cold breath of fresh air. He had not known that he was so worn out, but the morning made him realize. There was no need for him to throw his things together or to sit next to his wounded friend or to hold his memories back because he needed to focus on _now_ – he had time enough to do his exercised and then go about his normal day, the routine of which he had all but forgotten.

"Che, you look sad, Moyashi-kun." Kanda's chest rumbled as he spoke, Allen leaned backward so that his head rested on that slab of protective heat.

Allen gave a small smile and put his hands in Kanda's. "You're wet."

"I showered. It's what people do it get clean." As he spoke he leaned his head on Allen's – which seemed to be becoming a habit – and his down, damp hair fell across his shoulder and onto the younger boy's. If it hadn't have been cold he would not have minded. "Why are you sad?"

"I'm not," He said half-honestly. "I was just thinking about things. It's nice to have a day off, you know?"

He felt the head on top of his give a slight nod. "After nearly a month in Sweden it is rather odd to come back here, to not have one of us dying or the floor rocking beneath our feet. It's strange and yet," He arms became tighter. "Good. It's…" _Like our time together has changed me_.

The British boy didn't look up, he just turned so that his hand could snake its way around Kanda's hips and he could press his forehead into his chest. He stopped short when his fingers traveled over naked flesh. "You're not wearing any clothes."

"Che, your sleeve just knocked off my towel, _baka_."

"Oops." Allen gave a small, mischievous grin playing shyly behind his tired expression. "You know… if you hadn't gone completely _rapist_ the other day, I might not actually mind doing that again right now."

"But I did."

"But you did."

"So you mind."

"So I mind."

"And you won't let me do that again for a week."

"Have I really said it that many times?"

"Che, if you said it anymore I would think you were reminding yourself."

Kanda looked down at him, running a hand through his hair and cupping his face gently. He had no qualms of standing there naked, his towel over his feet, the fully clothed boy just leaning on him like some sort of well built wall. Allen blushed at him though. "You don't think I can seduce you in that time?"

Allen narrowed his eyes at him. "You overestimate your seductive power."

The older of the two raised an eyebrow. "Then why are you blushing?"

"You're naked! That's hardly fair." But even as he said it the younger Exorcist did not push himself away or try to turn back to the window. He stayed as he was.

"If I was _trying _you wouldn't last ten minutes." Kanda gave his hair a little ruffle and gave him a tight squeeze, his face breaking into a sideways smile. "Should I try, Moyashi-kun? Or shall I give you a few days to build up hormones?"

"_Neither_." Allen glowered. "Can't you put some clothes on? What will you do if someone comes to the door?"

Kanda turned away from him, walking to the dresser even as he recalled the words his lover had used when offered a similar question. "I'll wave."

Allen sighed while Kanda dressed, turned back to the window that had occupied is eyes before bare skin had distracted him. The snow still came down in wet flakes, sticking to the trees and building up in mounds, clogging gutters and blotting out the darkness of the paved path that ran to the edge of the cliff. The falling crystals shined dimly in the overcast light, the gray sky offered no liveliness; the four black swallows that flapped across it did nothing to make the day seem brighter. The winter was like a soft white blanket, cloying on the earth, pressing down, down, down, never letting up, never letting go, growing warm only in passing. The season had lost the luster it had had only moments before.

His left hand gave a painful twitch and his right moved to clamp it down, hold in the trembling. _What's wrong with me?_ He thought with a frown. _First I'm being melancholy, then I can't even properly tease Kanda, and now my arm wants to do things on its own. I don't understand. Yesterday was normal, but today—_

"Oi, Moyashi," Kanda's voice derailed his train of thought and his anti-akuma weapon gave another twinge of pain; he tried not to cringe. "Do you have plans today?"

_I shouldn't say anything,_ Allen decided immediately. _Not today, at least._ "Yup – sleep in, eat lots, and lounge around wa-er-re-eh-and that's it." He had almost finished with 'watching you' but that seemed a bad idea when he was not planning on offering himself up to the secret nymphomaniac his lover was. The Japanese man's eyes grew wide when he heard that list of objectives.

"Che," Kanda rolled his eyes as he pulled a brush through his hair, frowning at the few strands that broke off as he did. "That is not a plan for the day. You exercise in the morning and then do nothing? You might as well just not shower, not get dressed, and curl up in bed with that sort of plan."

"And what's wrong with that, exactly?"

Kanda shrugged even though Allen wasn't looking at him. "But for the serious lack of physical activity, mental stimuli, and purpose…nothing." By now he was standing behind his lover again, and he could see the reflection of those distant silver eyes in the glass. He did not look at the snow nor did he study the sky; his gaze took in the odd expression of sadness and worry on his lover's face. "Allen," When he said the name it sounded foreign, but it made the boy look at him all the same. "Are you seriously alright?"

"I'm fine!" He chimed back, smiling. "Just tired is all."

The taller man draped his arms around the smaller, setting himself down on the window seat as he pulled him into an embrace. For a moment Allen did not respond to the touch, his head falling onto Kanda's shoulder wordlessly, his left hand held tightly in his right. He didn't understand. He did however, know that Kanda never would have done this a month prior, never would have continued to ask questions after he had given his answer, never would have placed himself here, like this, as a stone foundation. He would have pulled out his sword and threatened Allen's life for moping.

"Just because you smile all the time doesn't mean you smile the same, Moyashi," He said twining his arms around him. Allen wished beyond reason that he could trust his left hand long enough to do the same. "It's not that you are tired. It's not nothing. It's not that you are thinking of your depressing childhood. Now stop worrying about how it might make me feel to find out what it is, and just say it."

_What the hell,_ Allen thought, blinking stupidly. _Since when is he sensitive to my emotions? Since when is he sensitive to _anyone's _emotions?_

_Since he started caring_.

"I'm sorry," He let go of his left hand so he could take hold of Kanda's open jacket with his right and lean his head on Kanda's. Together they were looking down at the object of his discomfort, their foreheads supporting each other. "Between everything that's happened…and the time of year, I'm just kind of down, I guess. And my arm hurts for some reason." He flexed his fingers, amazed that his almost scaly limb would perform the action, if only a little more slowly than usual. "I don't think it's serious though. Maybe just sore. Or moderately over used."

He stopped when Kanda took hold of his deformed hand, turning it over slowly until his palm rested on his, Allen's wrist trembled ever so slightly. He silently amazed at Kanda's willingness to touch it.

"Ah, there it is," He said softly. "You have a stress bug."

"A what?"

"A stress bug. Sometimes, if an Exorcist is thinking too much, worrying too much, or just generally feeling low, this can happen."

"What does it do?"

"Anything it can to try and make you feel less worried – or at least it tries. Usually they make you feel _worse_, which isn't the purpose of them and just makes them bigger."

The blood was starting to drain from the younger Exorcist's face. "What do I do to get rid of it?"

"You have two options," Kanda touched the tendons in his wrist, giving the tender skin a massage with his ivory pale fingers. "You can go down and have Komui cut it out for you—"

"Uh…no thank you."

"Or you can let _me_ handle it," He gave the British boy a little smirk, straightening to give him a small kiss on the forehead. Allen raised a quizzical eyebrow at him, half disbelieving that Kanda could be so…_nice _and half wondering if Kanda was just as angry and stoic as he had ever been beneath his amused expression. "Che, don't look at me like you think I'm crazy."

Well, he still said 'che'. That never would change.

Allen's head tilted his head to the side, blinking at Kanda for a moment as he thought about it. "What does 'you handling it' mean, exactly?"

The Japanese man gave a little shrug. "Breakfast, maybe… something like this," He placed his hands firmly on the other boy's shoulders and gave a light squeeze, working his fingers from the wrong angle as he felt the tension in Allen's muscles. Before he could stop himself Allen sighed at the contact. "Perhaps a soak in a warm tub. Some time in the library, where you can attempt to ignore that stupid bunny-boy." And, even though he had just insulted Lavi, he said it in a perfectly friendly voice.

"Love," Allen chuckled. "Who are you and what did you do with Kanda?"

Kanda frowned at him, his old serious glare returning almost at once. The transformation was so instantaneous Allen could hardly bite down the urge to giggle at it. His lover narrowed his already glaring eyes and poked him in the chest with his index finger, his cold expression never faltering. "He died when I started loving you. Now get better or I'll cut off your arm with Mugen."

"Aw, that's the murderous samurai I'm used to…"

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"And if you like action I suggest you read this one! Oh, and this one has historical background, so it's not like one of those completely ridiculous violent ones." Lavi bashed the leather bound tome on the tabletop, too busy talking to notice Sable's unrepressed glare. "After all, everyone likes a little plot with their gore, ne?"

With a gentleness that was all too much like the calm before a storm, Sable closed her book and took it in her right hand, turning it so that the pages were pinched between her fingers. "Lavi," She brandished the book dangerously, her green eyes hooded for the coming execution. "If you don't stop suggesting books that I've already read, I'm going to beat you into submissive silence. Understand?"

The red head scratched his bandana for a moment, his jaw only momentarily slack as he blithered. "B-but how am I supposed to know what you've read?!" He demanded at last with a pout.

"Ask me?"

"But you won't even tell me what kind of books you like!" He whined.

She sighed, leaning back in her chair and pointing at the title of her current selection. "Can you read this?" She tapped the letter's lightly, one of her eyebrows lifted slightly above the other.

"Er… Lay Saint-a Bib-lie-a." Lavi failed.

"_La Santa Biblia_," She corrected, the words flowing off her tongue like water. "It's the Bible, Lavi, and it's in Spanish. Do you know how hard it is to read in Spanish with you babbling on about adventure books in a different language? It's not fun, trust me. And how do you think _God_ would feel about you distracting me from His sacred Word?" She opened the book again, shaking her head in mock disgust. "_Que horrible…_"

For a moment Lavi was actually distracted enough by here scolding to not speak. He was reading the Bible. Sable Adair – Queen of All Things Evil – was reading _The Holy Bible_? In Spanish? It perplexed him. He had known that she spoke English, Japanese, and Swedish, but Spanish as well? Wasn't she a bit young to know _all_ of those?

"Oi, Sable-chan," He said quietly.

"If you suggest I read anything by Charles Dickens I will be forced to beat you to death with a Bible."

"No, I was just wondering… how do you know so many languages? I mean… I'm trying to be a Bookman and you've got one more than I do. And you're not old enough to have learned them all fluently from nothing but context, I don't think." He stopped when her gaze caught his from across the table, his thoughts ground to a halt. "What?"

She gave him a small smile as she put the book on the table, threw her braid over her right shoulder only to pull it back to her on the left. "Remember when we were in Sweden, and I threw fire using my Innocence?"

He slowly nodded.

"What did I say when I did that?"

He thought for a moment, calling up that day easier than he might have thought possible. "You said _pyre_, and later, when you turned off the lamp in the inn, you called it _denki._ But why is that important?"

"You have a skull like a brick."

"Brick's don't have skulls."

"Not the point. In order to do those things I have to have words. And in order to learn those words I have to learn the languages they belong to. Thus, to increase the power of my Innocence, I must learn as many languages as I can as quickly as I can." She said this so matter-of-factly that it almost seemed normal. She flipped the pages of her book idly and she smirked at his expression. "Make sense now?"

Lavi shook his head. "No. Isn't your Innocence supposed to tell you how to fight with it?"

"It can't talk to me with words that I don't know. So I absorb superfluous synonyms and ridiculous amounts of language in the hope that I'll learn something new from it." She sighed, flipping open the book again, headed swiftly in the direction of ignoring him. "Now leave me alone, I'm training."

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After what might have been ten minutes of attempted massaging, Allen gave up on his week of celibacy. Not only was it impossible to be on the same bed with Kanda without thinking lecherous thoughts, it was also impossible to keep from acting upon them, or so it seemed. When the large hands on his shoulders slid onto his sore sides he didn't move away, instead he leaned into the touch, silently hoping that Kanda would notice his willingness to go back on his vow. The samurai however, did not seem to have eyes for such things. He worked like a disciplined monk, throwing himself into every tense place the boy had to offer.

His hands were tender when he helped Allen to get up, even more so when he offered him a shirt. It wasn't as if Allen was incapable of doing such things, he just wanted to be sure his lover wasn't forced to do them on his own. Kanda hadn't lied about the bug thing – he had seen it happen to many young Exorcists, including Lavi, and had learned over time what worked best to cure them. With the apprentice Bookman it had been library time and slowly sharing personal information – because he had felt hopelessly alone. Logically, because Allen had been faced with carrying the weight of Kanda's life, charged with defending corrupted Innocence, frightened by the chance that his friend had been seen with a Noah, he needed reassurance. Kanda wanted nothing more than to spend the day giving him what he needed.

But he also felt like doing… other things. And Allen's decision that they not touch each other for a week was the only thing keeping him from giving in to those… other things. _I wonder if I _can_ seduce him. It doesn't seem too impossible. He has been staring at me whenever he can for a while now…_

"How are you feeling?" He asked when the British boy sat for a long moment on the edge of the bed, blinking slowly. It brought a crooked grin to his lips when Allen's eyes closed and opened again repeatedly, like a kitten falling asleep on its paws.

_Kitten… why does this sound familiar?_

"Like I could fall asleep…just sitting here…" He sighed, falling sideways onto the mattress.

_Just like a kitten… but why does this ring a bell? God damn it Yuu, think!_

"Would it ruin your plans if we napped for the rest of the day?" As he said it, the white haired boy tucked his hair behind his ear.

_Ears! But could that…  
I couldn't… but…_

_Oh screw it.  
I am an evil bastard.  
I am a horny evil bastard.  
And I now have a plan._

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**Oh Kanda… it hasn't been that long and already… //sigh\\**

**Well, I hope you're enjoying it! I shall do what I can to update as soon as humanly possible. Hard to say when though, being I'm dying of the plague…**

**Reviews are love!!!**


	31. Dreams and Missions

**I'm getting better! I managed to not throw up my dinner, yay! I'm still not as healthy as I could be though :(**

**I love reviews! But please… don't kill me for this chapter… I know, I know… it wasn't exactly my first plan either… but I could not—resist—the urge. XD**

**Disclaimer of… d'hilarity: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Well… there would be more awkward craziness.**

**WARNING: Hmm… not much of one. Mild shounen-ai, and some not-real gore… and hard to see plot movement.**

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Dreams and Missions

Sable was halfway through the book of Deuteronomy when an idea struck her. It wasn't that sinister and it wasn't that fantastic, but it was an idea nonetheless. _Here we are, sitting in the library, and it's snowing outside. I haven't thrown a single good snowball this year…_

"Lavi-chan," She said suddenly, dropping her book to the table with a thumb. The redhead had been slowly copying the text from an old, worn tome and he nearly broke his pen when she spoke. Sable didn't seem to care though, because she went on without acknowledging the fact that he had been mumbling quietly to her as he worked. "Let's go get Yullen had take them out in the snow."

"What? Why?"

"Because it sounds like fun. I mean really, does it? We can get Lenalee too, if you need some eye-candy."

He blushed, blinking at her in disbelief. "Sn-eye-Lena—you wait just a second! Why would I bring Lenalee if you were coming?" It was out of his mouth before he could stop it; his hands went immediately to his lower jaw, covering his lips as if doing so would magically let him suck the words back in before they could reach Sable's ears. Seeing that his attempt at stopping that from happening failed he went at once into Plan B – which he had never even known to _be_ a plan. "I mean we don't need that many people to have a snowball fight – the teams would be uneven…"

Sable lifted an eyebrow at him but didn't bother questioning his odd choice of words. "Well, we could try and get someone else… like… Panda-chan, or Komui-san, or something. Then we can play with your _teams_."

"What's wrong with teams?"

She shrugged. "Nothing, but guerrilla warfare is more fun. It is winning that kind of battle that truly makes one feel strong." She clenched her fist as she spoke, pulling it to her chest. "And it is even _better_ when you betray your allies! Ah, I haven't pelted someone who trusted me in the face in a _long_ time."

"You're not on _my_ team… not ever…"

"Wuss."

"Am not!"

"Then go get Lenalee and I'll sit here and wait for you."

"Lazy _and_ traitorous…"

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"Kaaan-daaa…" Allen half groaned into the bedding. He still lay on his side, his limbs more or less jellified by Kanda's strong hands. He didn't care so much anymore about his left arm hurting, and he wasn't thinking about his childhood when he was thinking about all of the places his spine might have been cracked. "Can't we… just… nap for a while…"

"Che, I'd almost think that you hadn't slept in years with that attitude." His voice was right there, not too far away, so Allen reached up without opening his now closed eyes.

"Is cuddling so much to ask for?"

Kanda watched him with an amused expression. He had never thought to see the day when Allen Walker reached out for him from his bed, eyes shut, eyebrows pressed together, and somewhat straggly white hair hanging over his face like a vale. Seeing that made him rethink his plan, made him want to do nothing more than just curl up and nap, regardless of his other ideas. The more he thought about it the more it seemed that that was what Allen needed – a pair of warm arms to protect him not only from the cold but also from the melancholy that had slowly taken root in him.

The bed bent at the side as Kanda's weight joined Allen's. The British boy sighed contentedly as his fingers took hold of the other man's jacket and he pulled them both closer, burying his head in the crook of his lover's arm like a small animal seeking warmth. He didn't open his eyes when Kanda leaned him sideways, curling his arms around him, the pillow fitting perfectly beneath the Japanese man's wet head. Even if he wasn't tired Kanda could spend their nap just watching Allen sleep. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

"Love," Allen's voice was very distant.

"Hn?"

"Thank you. For distracting me and for not giving in to the desire to seduce me."

"Che, I told you not to thank me."_ If only he knew…_

The fingers of the boy's left hand swirled in a gentle circle on the bare space in the middle of Kanda's chest; his eyes still did not open. "But you know… I don't think I'd give much of a fight really. Even if I'm tired and sore and slowly falling asleep on you."

His pillow gave a short laugh. "I thought about it, Moyashi-kun," He said, running his hand through his lover's hair. "I even came up with a plan. But do you know what made me decide against it?"

"Logic?"

"Che. Nothing. I'm going through with it right now."

Allen giggled, his hand slowing to a stop as he gave another heavy sigh. "You fail. Well… wake me at lunchtime…"

"As if you can sleep through it."

_Well, that didn't work,_ Kanda thought as he watched Allen drift away on a slow moving dream, his breath coming in deep waves. _He never even opened his eyes to see them_.

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"A mission!?" Lavi's hands came down hard on Komui's desk, rattling his coffee cup. "But I just got back!" The man sitting across from him just pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave a sigh. When he narrowed his eyes like that he was like some sort of seriously annoyed teacher or a man who was somehow related to Kanda. "You can't seriously send me out already…"

Komui sighed at him. Lavi never acted like this. He was usually either more that happy to go out into the world or mildly depressed that he had to miss out on what was happening at the Order. He never got mad about it. And he never pointed out when his vacation time was shorter than he wanted. That was more Sable's forte.

"Look, we only have so many Exorcists to go around and you were the only one of the last group to not be wounded physically or emotionally. _They_ need more time to recuperate."

_But what about what happened with Tyki?_ He thought but did not say. He had not spoken of that, knowing it would lead to all sorts of problems for everyone. So long as no one knew, no one would be hurt. So he would keep his silence. "I understand."

"Good," Komui nodded turning to his phone as if expecting it to ring. "You and Lenalee will leave in two hours. Pack warmly – even if it's just someplace here in England that doesn't mean it won't be cold."

_I'm screwed,_ Lavi thought as he walked out of Komui's office. _Literally _and_ figuratively._ It hadn't been a week since they had gotten back to the Order and already his was going back out into the world, back out where he was prey, back out where a shadow was waiting for him. _Even though I decided that I could handle it, that I made up my mind to take whatever was give to me, I still feel frightened._ _Could I… want it and yet… not want it at the same time? How can I do that? I shouldn't want it at all. No one wants to be tied up and forced into something like that, it's not normal._

_I'm broken._

"Lavi!" It was Lenalee's voice, calling from the direction he had come from. He turned to look at her, his hands coming out of his pockets as he did. She was jogging ever so lightly to catch up, a large smile on her smooth face. He had always liked her smile. It made him feel warm inside, like someone had put a candle in his chest that burned brighter with her presence. Now though, he felt nothing but a chill within him.

_She doesn't know._ He thought, giving her his best grin. _And she wouldn't understand if she did._

--------------------------------------------DREAM SEQUENSE----------------------------------------------

_His feet were not cold despite the snow, his hands, though, were numb within his gloves. It took the greater part of a minute for him to realize that he was standing on a hill, looking down at a long valley of trees, the silver sun setting against purple clouds to his left. It might have been a scene from a story he had read long ago, or a long distant memory._

'_I'm dreaming,' Allen thought aloud as his eyes swept over the barren landscape, catching on the occasional footprint in the glassy snow. It seemed as if the sun had melted the top of the snow only to have it refreeze again in a sheet of transparent ice, making his hill slippery. 'I was with Kanda but… Kanda? Where's Kanda?'_

_His mind went from wondering what the dream was about to demanding that he find his dream-made lover. He started down the hill, his boots crunching loudly as he half-slid down its surface, stumbling until he nearly tripped on his own feet. When he tried to move his frozen arms from his sides they would not respond. For a moment he panicked, lost his footing and went tumbling down the razor sharp hillside, scraping his face and tearing the knees of his pants along the way, stopping only when his momentum left him in a ball at the edge of the valley._

'_Stupid dream,' He said, spitting blood that he couldn't taste. 'No Kanda, a hill that hates me, and I can feel pain. I hate nightmares.' He turned away from his hill to face the ever expansive stand of trees; the wind whipped his hair from his forehead, sticking the silvery strands in his blood, blood that wasn't warm on his skin. The more he thought about it, the creepier his dream felt._

_And then, as his eyes passed over the same stand of trees again, he saw one thing that could make his dream better – Kanda, facing him, sword drawn, and a serious expression on his face. Allen smiled. It didn't matter if he was having a horrible nightmare if Kanda was there – because even dream-made Kanda would help him defeat whatever evil haunted his mind. That was the way things worked, it was the natural order. He staggered toward him with that same expression, happiness replacing his annoyance from just moments before._

'_Love, I was just—ugh!' The samurai took hold of his shirt collar when he was close enough, pulling him off of his feet by the fabric. It didn't particularly surprise Allen that his dream-made Kanda could hold him out at arm's length, but it did surprise him that his dream would take such a turn. Why would his mind make Kanda violent again? 'K-Kanda, what's wrong?'_

_The Japanese man looked up at him, his fingers clenched tightly around the hilt of his sword. His deep blue eyes were filled with tears, his black hair flecked with bits of fallen snow. Silently he lifted his right hand, his blade tip coming to rest on the material above Allen's heart. Allen's hands wrapped around the wrist by his throat._

'_Lov—' The blade went through him._

_It was the most confusing thing Allen had ever felt. Why would Kanda impale him? Why did he feel like Kanda was impaling him? Why was his lover crying? When his back came into contact with the cold ground he became acutely aware that his blood wasn't warm, and that the man standing over him was looking at him as he had done something impossibly wrong. He tried to speak, to tell Kanda it was alright, only a dream, that the sword in his hand wasn't real, that none of it would matter when he opened his eyes. But his words would not come. He was forced to watch in horror as his lover turned the blade on himself._

'_No!' He only wheezed. He didn't want this to happen. Even if he was really dying, even if it wasn't really Kanda, he didn't want him to kill himself. It didn't matter that his mortal wound had been caused by Kanda's sword; Allen still wanted him to live. But he could not speak such words. He was forced to watch. The last thing he saw was Kanda falling to the snow beside him, blood soaking his jacket, before the world slowly faded into crimson and black oblivion._

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Her knuckles rasped against the dark wood of the door, her overlarge coat made soft swooshing noises as she shifted on her feet, waiting for an answer.

_If those two are doing each other, I'm going to castrate them both_.

With a suddenness that made the knocking at the door seem trivial, Allen's hands closed tightly on the fabric of Kanda's open shirt, jerked him closer as an exclamation of descent escaped his still sleeping lips. The older boy shook him gently, drawing a hand across his forehead as Allen attempted to burry his face him Kanda's neck, tears running unhindered down the sides of his face. He didn't understand what was going on, but Kanda knew whoever was at the door could wait.

"Che, what is it, Moyashi," As he spoke he pushed himself up on the pillows, trying to drag the sobbing boy from his shoulder. It didn't work though, so he gave up, and instead wrapped his arms around the smaller boy. He shushed him quietly, rocking him back and forth until at last his breath had slowed again and a second more persistent knock came at the door.

He chose to ignore it.

"I…I had a nightmare." Allen spoke to his neck; his eyes had yet to wander to his lover's face and instead they seemed to focus on his collar bone. He was shaking lightly, though it wasn't from the cold. "I've never dreamed anything so real in all my life." He breathed deeply, his arms curling around Kanda's middle as he leaned into him. "I had thought… that you died…because of me."

Kanda pulled him back and looked down at his dazed silver eyes, and wipe away his tears with gentle fingers. Allen just blinked at him, seemingly unable to speak. "Baka, it was a dream, nothing more. You're not stupid enough to get me killed." As he spoke he watched Allen's eyes go slowly out of focus and upward, until at last seeming to find something to latch onto and blink at. "You didn't hear a word I just said, did you Moyashi-kun?"

His lover's face turned a dark shade of crimson as he covered his mouth with his fingers. "Y-you're wearing—m-my ears!" He said with a shrill giggle. His distress from the moment before was lost when he saw those black cat ears poking innocently out of Kanda's hair, making him into perhaps the most adorable thing he had ever laid eyes on. The glare his words elicited only made it worse. He grinned despite his swollen eyes and reached up with his right hand to give his head a little pat. "I've never seen something so… so… _cute!_"

"_Moyashi_," There was death in Kanda's voice, the kind that made Lavi run in fear of losing a limb.

"Yes, Love?" His eyes were absolutely sparkling.

"Are you telling me that you're done crying in my hair?"

He grinned yet wider. "My arm doesn't hurt either."

"Che, the amazing healing power of cat ears…"

"You know what else sounds nice?"

"What?"

Allen rolled slightly away from his lover, drawing the fingers of his right hand up the side of Kanda's neck until he hooked them around his shirt collar and heaved him closer. "Would you purr for me Neko-san?"

"Heh heh…Prrr…"

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Sable had had enough. She kicked the door repeatedly, ignoring the fact that it hurt her toes.

"God dammit you two get off each other long enough to answer the door, you mindless sex mani—oh! _Hello, Kanda_." She gave a small bow before continuing. "Didn't mean to kick your shin there. And nice ears. Make you look like something from a doujin I read once…"

"What the hell do you want?" His voice was husky, his glare murderous.

"To get right on out of your way and not invite you to an Order-wide snowball fight, that's for sure."

"Che, is that all?"

"Nope. Have you seen Lavi?"

He took a half second to be sure she was very well acquainted with his death-glare before he answered. "No."

She sighed. "That's too bad… really wanted to pelt him a good one. Oh well, there's always Komui. Have fun and… uh… don't be surprised if that boy wants to give it to you after what you pulled last time. The last thing on his mind is taking it like a man."

Kanda blinked at her for a long moment, allowing her to forever imprint the image of him wearing a pair of fuzzy black cat ears on her brain for life. "Che, _baka onna…_" He closed the door on her.

"Heh…" She shrugged to herself. "Have fun… maniac…"

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**And… for now… the end! Sorry, you know how it is… sleep and all that. I have yet to fully recover from the plague but I feel better than I did. I should be going well by Sunday-ish. Sadly, I will not be in my cold, frigid, snowing, not warm, not bright, not bright home town – I will be helping my sis move to Sacramento. That means I may not update until after the 31st (when she gets internet), but if that's the case, it will be a **_**big**_** update. Well… if I can write between unboxing crap.**

**Happy New Years! I love reviews! I shall continue ASAP! Love and little explosive New Year's poppers all around!!**


	32. Nightmares and Confessions

**Niamh is AMAZINGLY SORRY that she was GONE FOR SOOOOO LONG.**

**But! I do have pretty much a triple dose of TFL for ya'll. Think of it as a long-winded apology in the form of smut, plot, and excessive description. Because that's how I am :D**

**Also, YAY! Reviews are wonderful! And boo for being in Sac con mi hermana… being here means less time to write, and more time devoted unpacking and cleaning. I maybe slow responding to reviews for a while, but I will do my best.**

**Lastly, sorry that I sorta invented another character. She's not actually in the chapter, but she'll show up later. You'll see… I hope you like her…**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Far too many characters would be emo.**

**WARNING: Man-lovin'-man. If you are a homophobe or just generally dislike penises, this is not the fic for you.**

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Nightmares and Confessions

Lavi looked down at his suitcase with a frown, wishing that it would either grow teeth and attack him or mysteriously develop the power to council him and his mental problems. It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to go on a mission, and it wasn't that he didn't _want_ to find a potential shard of Innocence – it was that he found himself looking forward to the night a certain Noah would wander into his room and attempt to rape him. After coming to the conclusion that he just wasn't normal and it therefore did not matter if someone looped his wrists with barbed wire and strapped him to a bed, he had had other things to consider – like what his reaction would be if someone else did that.

Now he was very worried.

While packing his first layer of clothes he had envisioned Lenalee – or tried to – with a sideways grin, rope in hand, being aggressive. That didn't work at all. He had actually laughed out loud at the mental image. Next he attempted Kanda – and suddenly felt as if he should hide behind the largest piece of furniture in the room for fear of that ever happening. Sable though he could totally imagine. The rope, twisted smile, and teasing touch – it all fit her personality like a glove, if not like a second skin. And, to top it all off, he kind of liked that idea too.

_Oh thank God,_ He thought sarcastically, putting his last shirt in and closing the lid. _I'm not completely homosexual._

With a large sigh he hefted his suitcase from the bed and turned for the door. Distantly he wondered if maybe Tyki wouldn't even come find him this time, if maybe that was part of it – that he would never know where or were to expect him. He found that unlikely though, because the Noah always did seem to be there when you wanted them gone and…well… he honestly couldn't say that he'd wanted them there before, so he figured the guy would show no matter what. As his feet passed over the shining hall toward the main doors he mused to himself, thinking of any number of situations that might arise and an equal number of reactions he could prepare.

In the end he knew only one thing that might make it all end. And he didn't like it.

"Lavi," Lenalee was blinking at him, having taken up stride when he passed her room. "You're terribly quiet."

He gave her a weak half smile and an attempted wink. "No, I'm just taking Yuu-chan's advice, he says I don't listen to silence often enough and therefore cannot appreciate it."

"Oh…that sounds…quiet."

He didn't try to keep the conversation going.

_I can't kill him unless he tries to kill me. So I just have to trust him. With my life. With my Innocence. With…everything…_ His hand tightened around the handle of his luggage, his eyebrows did little pushups that he wasn't aware of. _Just…not…_

"Gah! Mr. Angsty-angst has picked up his sparkling _teammate_, someone shoot me now…"

And, to make his day even _better_, Sable – Queen of Evil, Princess of Laziness, and now Mistress of Masochistic Fantasies – was there to see them off. He silently wondered to himself how she had accumulated so many titles.

Lenalee just greeted her as if she hadn't heard a word. The two smiled at each other, seeming to share some kind of silent language he couldn't understand. It did make him happy though, to see that the two had become friends even if they were like night and day. As he watched they broke into conversation as if they had been talking for hours previous, the most common words being 'hot', 'man', and 'lover', and honestly, Lavi found that interesting.

"Sable-chan," He chimed enthusiastically, attempting to forget his previous thoughts. It was rather difficult when she was looking at him with one eyebrow raised, one finger scratching at the place her wounds had been across her forehead, almost as if they were not fully healed. "Erm… never mind. Just wondering what you were talking about."

Her expression was incredulous. "You're curious about something that has to do with man-love and fangirling? I'm actually not surprised."

Lenalee did what she could to shush Sable, waving her hands as if she were lost as to what she was saying. "Haha… you're funny Sable-chan… 'fangirling'…heehee.."

Lavi chuckled at her, not needing to try and smile. "It's alright Lenalee, I won't tell Komui."

She grinned as a thank you.

There was silence for a moment.

"So…" He said, his emerald eye twinkling with mischief. "Wanna tell me what you were talking about?"

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"I swear that's the second most attractive expression you've ever made." Allen mused, taking a gentle hold on the end of his hair and twirling it between his fingers.

"What's first, Moyashi?" Kanda asked between kisses.

Allen pulled back and pierced his lips in thought. "Hmm… the day you brought me food in Sweden and you glared like I was the bane of your existence. And then I kissed you. It's a tie between the look you gave me when you walked in and the look you gave me after I did that."

Kanda gave a little sound of amusement, laying soft kisses on Allen's neck; his finger's pulling at the shirt he had given him only moments before. "Che… did you… want to talk about it now, Moyashi?" His right hand curved around Allen's neck and he leaned in to lay another kiss on his lips, aware that if they went much farther it would be him rendered incapable of listening.

"About what?"

"Your nightmare, _baka_."

The younger boy looked up at Kanda for a moment, remembering the horror of his dream. He found it odd that he was not at all worried about his own death – Kanda would never kill him, that was obvious – but the part about suicide was horrifying. Would the Japanese man go so far if something happened to him? He hoped not. Allen wanted Kanda to have a long, healthy, happy life, with lots of soba and tempura and love, even if he wasn't a part of it. Not being there wasn't a worry.

"You want to hear it first?" He asked, tugging lightly on his lover's hair. "Or can I touch you?"

"You're mind won't be on _me_ if you don't tell me, will it Moyashi?"

"Yeah… I guess that's kind of unfair…" The Japanese man's teeth bit sharply at his collar bone, making him yip. Allen poked him on the nose, a scolding frown drawing his eyebrows together in a mock scowl. "Bad kitty."

Kanda glared deeply. Allen blushed.

"Spill." He insisted, rolling away and reclining on the headboard. The silver haired boy was left bereft; his hands no longer within reach of Kanda's still clothed shoulders, his fine ebony hair. It was the same as it had been in the dream – just the same – and the reality of it made him wince.

With a great sigh Allen pulled himself closer, reclined his head on his lover's shoulder as he spoke. "I was standing on this snow covered hill, looking for you. I fell and couldn't catch myself. I don't think my arms worked properly. It was cold. I kept wondering where you were and then I saw you and…" It was hard to say it but he didn't know why. Thinking about it was like being there, feeling the cold blood on his face, in his hair, the sear of icy metal thrust through him. And it had been _Kanda_, making good on all manners of death threats. But then…

"Che, and I grew so impatient I ripped off your clothes and—"

"No! Nothing like that!"

"Then what?"

The British boy was very quiet for a moment while he thought about it, building up courage that kept him from burst into tears again. _It had been so real…_ "You took me by the shirt and held me away from you. And…you…" Why was it so hard? Why did it make him so frightened? "You killed me."

Kanda blinked at Allen's averted eyes for a moment, trying to comprehend.

"You dropped me in the snow, and you were crying. I tried to stop you but… you…turned Mugen on yourself too. And I couldn't breathe to say not to. I was so scared. I didn't see if you died but…I just _know_ that you did. There was nothing I could do to stop it." His right hand closed like a vice on Kanda's jacket yet he did not seem to be aware of his bloodless knuckles. "It was so real…"

Kanda hugged him closer, glad that it hadn't been a dream he had had. His two worst fears embodied – and suicide to top it all off. He was more likely to eat pure sugar than he was to do something like that. Hell, he'd eat sugar, wear a pink dress, and give Allen flowers before he offed himself. And he didn't even want to think about murdering Allen. There was _nothing_ more frightening than losing him. Not even the end of the world.

"I want you to listen to me, Moyashi-kun." He said softly, pulling Allen's head to his chest and wrapping his arms around his back. He felt the heave of a silent, suppressed sob but pretended not to feel it. "No power on Earth would make me hurt you. Not Noah, not Exorcist, no power in Hell or Heaven. And as for myself…" He leaned his chin on Allen's head; his hands ran up and down the boy's back reassuringly. "I have too many things to live for."

"Two?"

"Yes."

"Like what? Sex and destruction?"

"Che, love and revenge."

"Revenge?" He looked up at Kanda and his cat ears, amazed at the level of calm in his voice and expression.

"You shouldn't be interested in that right now." He lifted a delicate black eyebrow, but Allen didn't understand.

"What should I be interested in?"

The mattress creaked when Kanda slid down the headboard, the smaller boy falling easily onto him.

"Oh…"

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"Oh my goodness! That's – so – hot!"

"Seriously? I thought it was kind of cheesy…"

"I just can't believe that you were interested in this sort of thing and never told me! We've known each other so long!"

"Well… I only realized recently."

"Heh. Mr. Angsty-angst discovers that he's Ms. Angsty-angst. I'm going to start calling you Lala-chan!"

"Aw…what a cute nickname."

"No it isn't. I don't _get_ nicknames, I give them. Besides, who said _anything_ about me being female?"

"It's obvious isn't it?"

"I'd say so…"

"If anything were obvious I would have observed it by now, so what am I missing?"

The two girls looked at each other sidelong, winked opposing eyes. "_Uke!_"

"Oh like Hell!"

"Don't worry Lala-chan," Sable gave his shoulder a little pat, bobbing her head as if in approval. "It only hurts the first few times. Even less if you use good, water-based—"

"I _know_! It's not like I haven't _read_ about it. Now stop treating me like I'm your pet gay man, I happen to be attracted to a woman too." He crossed his arms, casting the book aside with a scoff. Why had he chosen to spend the last half an hour in the tower with _these two_? They were sexuality sucking leeches, fangirls, snakes to purity – and perfectly alright with it when he said he thought one man kissing another man was something he wanted to look at.

"_A_ wom_a_n, eh?" Sable tapped her lip at him, uncrossing her legs as she leaned forward on the bed. The three of them had gone to her room when Lavi made his half-confession, being it was the most brimming with material to test on him. She kept the place odd looking, but it wasn't completely unlikable. One might have thought her personality would demand dark colors, and a black rug, red bedding and curtains marked with skulls or chains, but that wasn't how she chose to decorate. Instead the curtains were a soft peach, covered with pink roses and bordered by heavy lace; she had no rug, but instead kept two chairs by her astoundingly large bookcase and a small tan mat in front of her closet, the black doors of which remained closed. Her bedspread matched the curtains down to the kind of roses on them, and her oak headboard contained both more books and few childish trinkets, a crystal unicorn among them.

But she did have a four-poster.

"Yes, what's wrong with it?" He demanded.

"You said, _a_ woman. That means you like one, Lavi, not all of them in general." Lenalee observed. "I think Sable wants to know who you have in mind." She leaned forward in her chair ever so slightly, attempting to look innocent. "And I honestly wouldn't mind knowing either."

"Heh… Er-ah-he-sh-ya-nerma-durpa-doo…" His mind did not quite understand what was being asked of it because he refused to let it, so when his mouth attempted to spit out the answer, chaos fell out instead. One thing he _could not_ say was that she was sitting in front of him, looking interested, but he couldn't tell them _no one_ because then they'd never believe him. _And once again,_ He thought, letting his head sag as if he were embarrassed. _I'm fucked._

"Lavi?"

"You look a little green around the gills…"

"Oh! Look at the time! We're going to be late Lenalee!" He chimed as soon as the idea had come to his head. "We best be off!" He took her by the hand and stood up, dragging her away from Sable nearly too fast for her to grab her suitcase. "Don't wanna miss our train!" He kept right on yanking even when she protested, Sable just sat in half stunned silence, chewing her lip. He prayed that his thoughts were still has hidden as ever, because he didn't want her knowing them.

"Have fun... you two…" She just waved.

When Lavi had closed Sable's door and they were a goodly distance down the hall, he unhanded Lenalee. She demanded answers immediately, but he wasn't forthcoming – he was once again losing himself in his thoughts. But it wasn't his most recent disaster that plagued his mind; it was a question that brought a ponderous frown to his lips.

He _did_ like Sable. But did he like her because she was like Tyki? Didn't that make him even more broken than before?

"I'm sorry Lenalee," He said at last, cutting her off short. "I… just… I'm sorry for my silence."

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Allen kissed Kanda deeply, even though his throat hurt from holding back the tears. Kanda's hands ran slowly up and down his back, not in a hurried manner and not in a demanding way, just in a way that made him feel very trusted, very safe, as if his lover did not want anything from him but just to be. When he pulled back he looked at Kanda's face, holding himself up on his hands.

"I cannot believe you actually want to make love after what I just told you." He smiled though, even though his words were somewhat severe.

"Che," Kanda narrowed his sapphire eyes and lifted his lips in a half-smile, giving a gleam of teeth. "I could make love to you anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances so long as you were willing. I could do you if my mother was in the same room."

"Kanda! That's horrible!"

"What? Honestly. She would most likely have a small heart attack though." The thought brought a small smile to his face as he imagined her, hard woman that she was, learning of her son's soft spot for Allen Baka-Moyashi Walker. He could see her, five feet tall, black hair hanging down around her scowling face, katana at her belt, unwrinkled face flushed from surprise and amazement. And hearing that Allen was _British_ would most likely get him hit over the head with the bunt side of her sword as well. "Or beat me."

"Why do you smile when you say that?" Allen asked as he played with the collar of his lover's jacket, gently tugging at it in order to slide it off his shoulder.

Kanda's hands were still rubbing at his back when he spoke, but he shrugged his left arm out when the boy prompted him to. "She shows her love with violence. Her last words to me before I left were '_don't get killed and don't bring anyone home with you_,' and she kicked me in the back, but that doesn't really do what she said justice." As he spoke Allen started on his other shoulder, listening as he worked. "The word she used for _you_ is closer to your word for _bastard_, and the word for _home_ was more like _house_. And there was cursing."

"Don't you die or bring anyone back to the house, bastard?"

"Something like that. Maybe… 'Don't do anything too stupid and die, and don't bring any dumb idiots back with you, bastard.'"

"She sounds lovely."

"Oh, you'll be the best of friends."

"What?"

Kanda laughed. "Eventually, many, many, long years down the line, when you maybe eventually accidentally bump into each other in the street – I think you'll like each other."

"Love."

"Hm?"

"Do you want me to meet your family?"

How did Allen always do that? Steal his thoughts even at the most intimate of moments and act as though Kanda had said exactly what he meant to say and not something sarcastically different. He thought about it for a moment. It seemed like a good idea, and Allen seemed like he would be one to want to do such a thing. And it wasn't as if his mother _wouldn't_ get over it eventually. "Che, might be nice."

"You know what I want, Love?" Allen's voice was dangerously low as he laid his lips on Kanda's chest, kissing slowly downward until he reached the farthest point he could without scooting down.

"You want me to shut up and touch you."

Allen's assent was nothing but a questing hand pushed beneath the line of his belt. "Might be… _nice…_" He whispered between kisses. The Japanese man smiled at him and let his hands quest more vigorously, following the lines of Allen's body until he received a gentle sigh of appreciation, and felt warm hands spread across his still damp chest as his lover moved higher on his body, straddling his hips. "_Very_ nice."

Kanda was amazed at the speed he could undo the button's of Allen's shirt. Mentally he noted that it must have been all of the practice he was getting, always taking the shirt off of his lover.

It took all of Allen's will not to rush things, but he chose not to. Last time, on Christmas, he had learned that Kanda was a patient person, so he would do what he could to respect that patience. It meant he could spend more time running his hands over his skin, gliding them through his wet hair, and his lips could find places they had never discovered were remotely sensitive. Like when he brushed lightly across his lover's ear – the shiver and goosebumps that spread down his neck and arm were a new form of entertainment.

Meanwhile, Kanda pushed Allen's shirt down his shoulders. This was a new angle for him, but it wasn't too difficult to get used to. He knew that sitting there the British boy would be able to feel when his passion was highest even through his tight pants, and he would be able to feel him there, pressing back. That alone encouraged him to lift his hips ever so slightly when a warm and searching mouth found the alerted surface of his left nipple.

Allen smiled at the short sound his lover made, a sudden ironic thought passing through his mind. Kanda had put on the cat ears in order to seduce him – but he was now sitting up on top of him, hands caressing, leading them on into further acts, having control. He wondered vaguely if Kanda even realized that he had actually managed to seduce himself.

None of that mattered anymore when Kanda took him around the shoulders and pulled him down into a long kiss. His lips parted but his tongue played lightly back when Allen found entrance, and the two did not separate for more than an instant before Allen kissed him back again, relishing in the sensation. It was easy for the smaller boy to lose himself in that touch, for more than one reason. He wanted it, yes, but it wasn't as if he would want it from just anyone. He wanted Kanda to kiss him, and only Kanda, because he really did love him.

"Love," He husked when they at last broke for more than an instant. His lover's fingers drifted to the fastener of his pants but did not open them, just ran slowly up and down the place of entry, drawing a slight gasp to his throat. Words were meaningless with that pressure there, promising ecstasy. So instead of words he rocked forward, placing a margin of his weight into the motion and eliciting a low moan from his lover. The hand against him stopped in that instant, stalled by the pleasure. "Do… you think…the pants…should—" The hand against him pulled a button open before going back to caressing. He bit his lip instinctually but the growl in his throat still escaped him. His hips gave an involuntary jerk that cause Kanda's voice to join his.

"Yes." The word was less than vocalized, more than whispered. At that prompting he let his fingers glide down Kanda's chest until he came to the top of his belt, which he proceeded to unbuckle as slowly as his will would let him, sliding it from the loops before he started on the buttons of his lover's pants. When those too were cast aside he rolled off of Kanda for the sake of discarding his own garment, but he rolled back again, as soon as they were gone. It was then that Kanda's true patience took hold.

"Hold it, Moyashi." He breathed when Allen was perched atop him once more, right hand going for his outer thigh. He stopped short, surprised by the sudden interference in his plans.

"Yes?" He was almost gasping.

"Let me see you for a moment." The Japanese man ran delicate lines over his shoulder; his left had looping back to the base of his spine. Allen watched his dark eyes travel the curves of him the sweeps and lines, pausing in the oddest of places – the turn of a knee or the shadow of a small and yet well defined muscle – then passing over his neck until their eyes met each other again. "I don't tell you often enough that you _are_ beautiful."

Allen blushed despite his urge to ravage. "Says the girly man…"

"Che," Kanda reached up and took him by the shoulders, pulling down with a sigh. "Shall I remind you how womanly I am _not_?"

The British boy smiled, rolled his pelvis against Kanda's, a motion that made his lover clench tightly to his skin, the air caught in his lungs. "That won't… be necessary, Love." He flicked the other man's nose with a free finger. "The ears will render me incapable of remembering any lesson you try to teach me today."

Kanda winced and chuckled, having forgotten that he was wearing them. Regardless of that though, he made up his mind and pounced.

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"Silence? Why are you being silent?" Lenalee asked as the boarded the train. "I don't understand, Lavi! And I won't unless you tell me what's going on."

The redhead plopped himself down in his seat, putting his suitcase beside him, trying to come up with some half believable lie before the girl attacked him or ripped out all of her hair in worry. He almost cried when he realized that nothing short of the truth would satisfy her. He didn't want to tell the truth. Not to anyone. Ever. But he would if it meant someone would be happier because of it.

"I can tell by how you're acting that it's not just the fact that you like a girl," Lenalee said flatly, confirming that she was indeed more observant than she let on. "There's something else too. You've been very reserved for this last six days – maybe even longer for all I know – and I just can't tell what's bothering you. Why won't you tell me the important part? Why won't you tell _someone_? Please Lavi, I'm your friend. I don't need to know who you like but I'd like to know what's been chewing you up inside. I'm here to talk to about whatever is bothering you." Her eyes were intense, her hand scampered across the fabric of her skirt as if it wanted to touch him, but she didn't do it. "Please."

He licked his lips, thinking. What was he supposed do? He couldn't lie to her. She was his second closest friend, falling behind Yuu by about half the secrets he knew. She would still be able to catch a lie though, unless he tried to go all Bookman and tell her with an honest face. He was bad at that though, very bad. She'd see through that too because she'd seen him in truth telling mode too often.

He would have to tell her, even if he hadn't told Yuu.

But he wouldn't tell her everything.

"It's… not what you think." He said, leaning back into his red upholstered seat. She relaxed a bit, seeming to know that he wanted to go on. "There's something wrong with me. I know there is. I…" The words came out so easy that he had to wonder why he wanted to keep them in. "On my last mission I had an unfortunate turn of luck that on one knows about. It was no big deal, nothing I can't handle with a little thought, but it taught me something about myself that scares me that isn't supposed to be true."

"What?" She prompted gently; her voice lacked any serious curiosity.

_How does one make that sound nicer?_ He thought for a moment. "I…for one don't care if a person is male or female."

She smiled, giving a light laugh. "Honestly, I don't think most people do."

He smiled back for that note of encouragement. "And secondly…" He swallowed hard, aware that his heart was pounding at just the thought of it. "I enjoy… being unable to interfere. I hate it with a burning passion, but at the same time… I liked it."

_I hope she doesn't notice that I said that in the past tense._

Her smile did not fade and her eyes did not blaze with the conclusion that he had come to. "Is that why Sable gave you that rope for Christmas?"

He deftly nodded.

She laughed again, covering her mouth with her fingers as she giggled. This was not the reaction he had been expecting. He didn't see the humor. Sure, he had left out the part about Tyki, and the fact that it had actually happened, and a lot of other stuff, but it did not deserve a giggle fit in answer. "Sorry," She gave one last bubble before settling for a wide grin. "You had me so worried, and really it's nothing at all."

"What?"

"It's alright to like rope or feathers or cat ears or men or girls or frustration. It doesn't make you anything that you weren't two weeks ago. So long as you accept it, everyone else who likes you will."

"But it's not normal."

"It's _your_ normal."

"I'm not sure if I should take that as an insult or a compliment."

She tilted her head, still grinning. "Neither."

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_Patience is only a virtue until someone else has more than you._ Allen thought as he met Kanda's kisses vigorously, acutely aware of the hand traveling lower and lower on his spine. _After that, it's nothing but clothes._

They were both attempting to run things at least a little, Kanda by coax Allen into frenzy, Allen by trying to outlast his patience. In the end neither succeeded in his goal – they both gave in at the same instant. The smaller of the two did so by leaned ever so slightly to capture the nearly three-fourths gone bottle of massage oil that they kept on the nightstand, while his larger lover wrapped his legs around him to pull him close. The British boy let out a small giggle when their chests collided, sending his left hand just a tiny bit too far and knocking the oil to the floor. He couldn't rescue it with Kanda holding on to him like that, but he couldn't do anything with Kanda' without it. He stretched as far as he could without activating his arm, ignoring the lips on his throat, the hands that had given up on his spine entirely. A slight pain, beginning in his wrist and traveling his whole arm alerted him that whatever had been making it twitch earlier wasn't entirely gone, but he ignored it for more pressing matters.

The bottle was at last captured.

When the Japanese man saw the innocent bottle he felt himself grin – he hadn't totally lost the war just had something of a draw. It amazed him. Allen really could keep up with him if he knew there was something to keep up with, and Kanda found himself perhaps more eager than he had known himself to be. The two were rubbing off on each other, he thought as he watched his lover uncork the bottle with his teeth out of mild frustration. He was still unable to imagine him holding a katana, or wearing a kimono, or even saying more than 'please be kind to me' in Kanda's native tongue – but it was a start.

The warmth of a finger against him brought him back to the moment, and he moaned into Allen's lips as it slid gently within. His lover responded in kind, pressing deeper, his free hand curving around Kanda's hip as he leaned into the kiss. With most of his weight on his knees Allen pitched forward slightly; Kanda tensed beneath him, his back arching away from the mattress like a bow at the touch. It was enough. It was either now or never.

Kanda let his hands move upward, fingertips dancing over ribs that expanded as Allen replaced his fingers with his length. He had learned by now that the presence within him was not something to be rejected or feared, so their love making was much smoother than it had been in the past. Allen was amazed by it; Kanda had so much self control he could will himself to the point of shared rapture, his muscles tight but not pressing, his eyes close to the pleasure that poured through him. All the while Allen lost himself to the torrent. The legs that hooked around the back of his pulled him as close as they could, helping with the first thrust, but after that he was on his own, gone astray as he watched the bliss on his lover's face, felt the same ripple through him like a wave.

He heard himself moan into Kanda's collar bone, felt the hands on his shoulders curl as his hand at last found his lover's erection. He rubbed in time with his thrusts – which was difficult with Kanda arching into him at every wave, head pushed back in the pillows. The sight of Kanda's release sent him plummeting over the edge. His world shrank to nothing but the two of them, here, in this moment, and not in the cold, dark world outside. There was nothing but them.

Kanda sighed deeply as Allen fell to the bed beside him, rolling on to his back, his expression warm. He turned slowly so that he faced him entirely and could reach over and trace gently shapes on Allen's pale skin. He could still find the place that he had cut his skin with Mugen, though it was hardly more than a whiter place on the boy's skin. His fingers followed it unthinkingly, down to Allen's hip and up again, gently.

"You're very touchy-feely today, Love," The object of his affections said with a yawn.

"Che, is that so bad?"

Allen smiled sideways at him. "Nope, just means we have to shower more."

Kanda laughed.

_He never used to laugh,_ Allen thought, twirling a bit of his lover's hair through his fingers. _Or smile. Or grin. Or anything. Did I… do that?_

"Well then… whoever's cleaner should go get the water warm. And I should lie here waiting."

"What?!" Allen we incredulous. "Who decided I was cleaner?"

Kanda che'd and shrugged, his hand stopped its trek down memory lane. "I did."

"Have you not noticed that I have your _love-juice_ all over my stomach?"

"Love-juice? What a horrible name. Is that why you're sticky? Oh… I couldn't imagine where that had gone…"

"Kanda, are you…being sarcastic? That's… kind of scary."

The Japanese man scowled. "_Baka_, just go get the shower ready before I kill you."

Allen smiled. "Aw, good…you are the same beautiful man I fell in love with…"

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**Yes, hecka long, but hey! This is what happens when I don't have the internet – my standards go out the window when it comes to word count. This chapter is about 5600 words, and the next one (unfinished) is 4951. Chapter 31 was 2872 words. Jesus! It **_**is**_** hecka long!**

**Thanks for reading! And for waiting :) And for getting through my GIANT chapters of DOOM.**


	33. Durnshire and a Leave of Absence

**Niamh knows very little about England and therefore makes up cities. Sorry.**

**I must apologize for the people who read other people's fics that involve the Kanda family. Yes, I am writing about a Kanda family as well. No, I am not stealing anyone else's Kanda family because I like them. Instead I'm trying things out like this – because this is how I imagine them in my head… and they seem like a good source of hilarity and playful Allen-torture.**

**Furthermore, IfeelhorribleaskingformorereviewssoIwillnotask. Iwillsimplymentionthem.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… there would be a magical way to watch episodes without the internet. And I would donate copies of the translated manga to the "Pour Niamh's Manga Fund," because I don't have the most recent releases.**

**WARNING: Man on Man. Mild molestation. Angst, attempted humor, and HOMOSEXUALS. You no likey, you no ready, k?**

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Durnshire and a Leave of Absence

He stood outside of the door, wondering if it was a good idea to make his presence known. The two were talking casually, exchanging facts about the case, reminding each other what they were supposed to be careful of and when and where they would rendezvous. He half wanted to go in, just to see the look on the boy's face, but he also wanted to stand back and listen, just find him before a meeting and steal him away into the night.

Or into the day.

Just steal him away in general.

Tyki had the sinking feeling that things were getting out of hand within him. After what he had done before he had found himself thinking about Lavi, and at the most awkward of places and times – like dinner with the family. The new and improved Uri had actually mocked him for not paying attention to plans, which had not ended well. It was now he who felt like the Noah on the outside, accepted and yet watched, his mind forever tangling with the prospect that maybe, just maybe, his plans had backfired.

There was only one thing that he could think to do short of murder, and it filled his blood with a sporadic heat the same as it filled his mind with self loathing. He would not do it. Not yet. Not while there was a chance of breaking the boy another way.

_I am not worried for the boy's sake,_ He thought surely, adjusting his glasses. _I am worried about his Innocence losing its luster._

With that discouraging thought, he wrapped lightly on the door.

"I wonder who that could be." Lenalee said standing. Lavi shrugged, moving his luggage from his seat to the overhead compartment. He distantly wondered why he hadn't done that sooner.

When the door slid open the two took in the image of a Portuguese man in his mid twenties, his curly brown hair strewn about his face disorderedly, his glasses pushed up so they couldn't properly make out his eyes, and a good five or ten o'clock shadow blossoming across his chin. He gave them an over wide smile, apologizing even before Lenalee could ask him what he needed.

"I am so very sorry but I have been wandering this train looking for a place to sit for the last hour," He lifted his suitcase as if he were used to talking with his hands, which was half true. "Would either of you mind if I borrowed some of your space?"

Lavi knew that he knew that voice and he knew where he knew it from, but he was convinced that he would not let himself comprehend it unless absolutely necessary.

When Lenalee invited him in, it was absolutely necessary.

"I really am sorry to intrude like this," He chimed, sitting down on the seat next to Lavi. "Oh, forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Ty. Thank you for having me."

"Oh, it's no trouble at all," Lenalee smiled, taking up her seat again. She was completely oblivious. "I'm Lenalee and the boy beside you is Lavi. We're traveling to Durnshire, so we won't be needing the extra space to sleep or anything, will we Lavi?"

It took him a moment to recover from the sound of that ever-so-familiar voice, but he managed after a moment of floundering for words. He realized then that since the man had taken up residence on the seat beside him he had been amazingly tense, every muscle from the top to the base of his spine was rigid like the string of a bow, and his cold hands clutched around each other like a pair of icy vices. He cleared is dry throat and gave a smile that was only for Lenalee's benefit.

"No we won't. But what brings you to this part of England, _Ty-chan_." He forced himself to relax, lean back in his chair, and breathe a little. So what if this was Tyki Mikk sitting next to him? So what if he had been thinking almost nonstop about him for the last week and a day? That didn't mean anything if he wanted to sit there in a disguise and be friendly. So long as he didn't hurt anyone, didn't try, he was just another person riding the train – someone Lavi was associated with.

Tyki saw the change immediately and took note of it. Lavi had seen through it but he wasn't being violent or angry or defensive; in fact he looked at ease with the situation and even reclined as if interested in his answer. "I am traveling to Durnshire as well, though I doubt for the same reason. It appears as though an acquaintance of mine is headed that same way, and I hoped to find him there."

"Oh?" Lenalee asked.

He nodded. "Rather interesting young man who sparked my interest the first I met him. I am worried that if he goes to Durnshire without my advice, he may be hurt." He looked between each of them, trying not to devote anymore time with one's eyes than the other. "I will do everything in my power to stop that from happening, but I can only do so much to preserve the game."

"The game?"

He laughed lightly, waving at her as if he had let slip the punch line of some failed joke. "I am sorry, I am rambling. I should not borrow your space and then start spouting off things that have naught to do with you."

"Oh no, it's always nice to hear someone else talk about their friends." She smiled, "Even if I don't entirely understand it."

"That's good to hear, Lenalee-chan. Very good to hear."

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When Allen had the water the temperature he wanted he didn't bother to go get Kanda, instead he leaned out of the door long enough to yell at him and then got in, ignoring the low growl the Japanese man made at not being properly invited. The steaming water was like a battering ram on his shoulders, relieving the still pained parts of him as it washed away the drying sweat and tears. He was feeling tired again, very tired, and when he lifted his left arm to put the shampoo in his hair it gave a horrible spasm that twitched most of the substance onto the floor. He almost followed it the pain was so sudden, but a pair of dry pale arms caught him around the middle and held him up when his knees gave way.

"Are you alright, Moyashi?" Kanda's voice was obviously worried, his earlier sentiments about killing forgotten. Allen leaned into him, his breath coming in gasps. It took a few moments for him to fight past the agony washing through him and force his legs to do something besides turn to jelly.

"Yeah," He pushed himself up slowly, turning in his lover's hands. "Just…give me a moment."

The two stood beneath the pouring water for a moment, Kanda not asking questions out of worry, Allen trying to control the fire running from his fingertips to his neck and back again, like a flaming knife carving out his bones. This had never happened before. As he stood with his head against Kanda's chest, water running down his back in hot waves, he thought about why it would hurt, what he had done that was different from normal.

He had gone back to eating normally, his sex life was not_ that_ aggressive, and he hadn't done anything too dangerous in a while…

Hadn't done anything too dangerous.

Hadn't killed an akuma.

The pain in his arm flared until his fingers clenched and then subsided somewhat, fading to dull ache.

"Kanda," He said suddenly, the idea hitting him at once. "I know what it is. I know what's wrong. You're going to hate me for it, though."

"Che, I couldn't hate you if you said you'd never sleep with me again."

Allen let out a barking, mirthless laugh. "What if I said that I have to go kill something? That I have to go on a mission and sate my arm with the blood of akuma so it will be happy with me? What would you do then?" He asked it all with his shining eyes on his lover's deep sapphire irises, leaning into him. The corner of his lover's mouth turned up in an odd smile.

"I'd say 'take me with you.' _Baka_." He bonked Allen on the head lightly with his left hand, holding him up with his right. "You always worry about the nonsensical things."

Allen smiled up at him, pushed himself up on his tiptoes so he could kiss him gently. It wasn't a thank you, but it was as close as he could come without voicing the words. The older of the two grinned at the contact, slanting his torso over his smaller lover until his hair fell down over his back and into the steaming water.

"Now, you want to do me a favor, Love?" Allen asked when they parted.

"Hm?"

"Help me wash my hair one handed?"

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Uri amazed himself. He didn't specifically remember much of the last month, or a lot before that, but he knew that his tastes had changed in room décor. For one he didn't like the dark curtains, and for another he didn't know who the blonde girl in his one photo was. He shrugged it off though. If he didn't remember, it couldn't have been important.

He did, however, still have the urge to sit down at his desk and put words on paper. He remembered doing that like a primal part of him, so he thought it was a good place to start. So he pulled up a chair and took out a notebook and a pen and flipped back to the starting pages, resting his feet on the edge of the table for comfort. It seemed normal. It felt like something he had done before. And as he read what he had written slivers of memory came back to mind that might have been what he wanted to happen.

_So,_ He thought, tapping the pen against his desk. _I haven't changed that much…just forgotten what kept me from being good at my job._ He tilted his head to the right, listening to his tapping, blinking at the page before. _I wonder if I would have felt violated to have that happen before._

"Oh, hell." He sighed, throwing his notebook down again and turning toward the window. "What does it matter, anyways? Even if I'm not the me I was, I'm still me. Uri Adair. Noah. I can still talk to myself, think poetic thoughts, and hate what I am even if I don't know why and even…whoa…" He paused; catching sight of the page his pad had fallen open to when he had thrown it. It was a sketch like none he could remember doing. In the fire of the hearth he could make out the details of a young man with long, flowing hair, a loose collared shirt billowing in a breeze. He stood on what might have been a beach, eyes closed to the sunlight, and in his hand was held the hit of a katana, the blade held over his right boot by that same hand, his left placed gently on the sheath at his left hip. The pants he wore were the kind Exorcists used, and his beautiful face was drawn into a complacent mask of pseudo-sleep. In the distance an ocean wave broke on the shore.

_His eyes are blue,_ Uri thought without knowing why he knew. _Like a crisp ocean wave on the shores of a white sand beach, so do his eyes contrast with his fair ivory skin_.

"Kanda Yuu. Eighteen. Mugen. Favorite color is blue. At the time he strongly denied how much he liked Allen Walker." His fingers glided across the wood until they touched the paper, drawing it to him. The picture was unfinished, but he could tell what he wanted it to look like, as well as imagine the young man bond to a chair in the position that had inspired him to draw it. Lastly, as he studied the sketch yet more closely, he remembered the young man's two greatest fears.

He smiled. His grin went from ear to ear as his lips parted to let out a low, reverberating laugh. He remembered wanting to save this man, to help him, but looking back that seemed like a very stupid idea. Now he wanted nothing more than to reap his thoughts and flay his mind, take from him every dear memory and force those fears on him. It made him giddy at the thought. There was none of the old remorse, not a shadow of doubt, yet he felt the pang of a forgotten wish in his heart, like a lost melody playing in the back of his mind.

_I wanted him to kill me. How ironic that I will make him kill himself_. He drew the paper yet closer, lifting his pencil in his left hand as he brought it down to finish his art, his smile never leaving him. _And I will have fun doing it, my feminine friend._

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Komui blinked at the two young men across the table, trying not to laugh. He had heard never heard of a parasitic-type Exorcist needing to go kill akuma, but it didn't seem too far fetched. The part that made him want to laugh though was that Kanda held Allen's hand ever so subtly behind the folds of their jackets, his scowl as permanent as always. The older of them had demanded that he be sent with the younger, which was very odd considering how they used to despise each other.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say the two of you have become fast friends." He smiled, pushing his glasses up on his nose. The two looked at each other sidelong, as if trying to decide if that was as good a description as any.

"You could say that," Allen smiled at length. His left hand twitched against Kanda's right as he spoke, his lover closed his fingers more tightly at the feeling. Allen wondered what would have happened without Kanda there to hold it still beside him.

"Well then," Komui lifted one of his papers and pretended to read the heading before placing it back down in the 'to be ignored until a later date' pile. "I'll send for both of you when something comes in. Too bad you came in now though, I just sent Lenalee and Lavi on a mission and he seemed reluctant to leave so soon. If you had come in two and a half hours ago, I could have sent you instead."

Allen shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Just knowing what will fix me makes it feel better."

"Che," Kanda glowered at Komui, pulling Allen closer out of habit. "Then you have no objections about me going with him?"

The man had a mischievous gleam in his eye when he answered. "Of course not. We may be part of the clergy but you have no vows of chastity or sexuality or whatnot to worry about, so if you two want to be wholly devoted to each other and work as partners, I have nothing against it." He waited for the explosion. It never came.

"I'm glad we have an understanding." Kanda said flatly.

Komui was taken aback. Sure, Lenalee had told him that the two were intimate, but he hadn't actually _believed_ it. It just didn't seem to click in his head that Kanda Yuu and Allen Walker would seriously be 'wholly devoted' to one another. It was like a raven falling in love with a dove, or – or – or _Kanda_ falling in love with _Allen_. Things like that didn't happen. They weren't supposed to. It was totally against nature! And, aside from how completely out of character it was for either of them, there was still a single burning question that the situation left unanswered!

"Then – then—" He stood up, his palms coming down hard on his desk. "_Who's the seme!?_"

Together they sighed. Why was everyone interested in that one damn question? "He is."

The head of the science department blinked at the two in further skepticism. Not only had they answered, they had also given the same, opposing answer – and now they were glaring at each other, bickering that point as if it had come up before.

"Dammit Love, I've told you a thousand times that you are."

"Che, that's why you haven't taken it at all this week?"

"No, that's why I had to put you on probation, _baka_."

"Probation, eh? Why I ought to cut _you_ off for six days for not realizing how much of a leader that makes you."

"If that makes me a leader your glare makes you into an alluring sex god! All you have to do is look at me and I'm asking for it."

"Don't be stupid, Moyashi. I never touch you unless invited, and glaring is not a means by which I intend to improve my odds."

"Ha! If that were true you'd give up smiling all together and just glare at me just – like – that…"

"Stop! Stop!" Komui waved his hands back and forth before him, nearly leaping in the air to distract the two. "I believe you already; now stop acting like an old married couple and go! You have my blessing."

The two looked at him with round eyes. One of Kanda's eyebrows twitched.

"Your… blessing?" The British boy asked blinkingly.

Komui sighed. "Yes. Ask later. _Leave._"

"Oh… but…" Allen blinked at him. "I have one more request, Komui-san."

He raised an eyebrow in question.

"How does an Exorcist go about taking a leave of absence?"

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Reaching Durnshire was perhaps the happiest moment of Lavi's life. 'Ty' said goodbye to Lenalee like a good natured fellow, but asked if he could have a short word with Lavi before he went on. That rained on his parade somewhat. Not wanting to seem antisocial and not wishing to give away the man's identity for reasons beyond his understanding, he followed him around the back of building, leaving his suitcase with Lenalee.

When they came into the ally, all matters of illusion were cast aside.

There was a hand on his right wrist, another on his back; he gasped as he was thrown forward into the darkened bystreet, his arm twisted up behind him so he couldn't reach for his weapon. He did not fight though. When his face came into contact with the brick of the building he didn't scream for help or demand to be released, he simply waited.

"Do you not find it rather dumb of you to follow someone you know to be your enemy into what you know to be a trap?" Tyki's voice whispered into his left ear, his warm breath caressing the side of his face in the cold. A shiver rippled down the side of his body. "Shall I have you here for your stupidity?" A finger ran slowly down the side of his face with the words.

"Please do," Lavi said with a note of amusement. "Might get what happened off of my mind for a while."

"Oh?" The finger when from the side of his face down his neck and across his shoulder, following the curve of his back to the side of his hip, "Have I really taken up that much of your thoughts, Lavi-san?"

He tried to nod but the wall wouldn't let him. "Yes. I can hardly sleep because of you—" He gasped as the hand came around the front of his hips and ran slowly down the inside of his thigh and back again, moving slowly inward every time.

The Noah laughed low in his throat. "Have I scared you so badly?"

"No." He answered, swallowing deeply. "I…wanted to see you again."

The touch stopped abruptly. "What?"

Lavi couldn't read his tone. Was that disbelief? Hope? Fear? What was that emotion in his voice? Somewhere between hate and love? He didn't have time to decipher it – he needed to answer. "You're pretty good at relieving pent up sexual frustrations, Ty-chan. And causing them." He smiled a little, even though it pushed his cheek into his teeth. "I was also hoping to return the favor this time."

The man behind him scoffed, changing his grip on his wrist so he could twist him around. Lavi's mace hand was held up by his head, his eye was captured by the Noah's. He did not fight back when a hand was laid softly on the fabric of his coat.

"What, exactly is that supposed to mean?" There was definitely _something_ in that tone, but he still couldn't place it. The older man's face was so very close to his, and yet he couldn't read his expression in the dimness.

In answer he leaned forward and gently kissed Tyki Mikk. It was hard to explain it, but he did not feel sinful or revolted by doing it. He felt a little flame of happiness alight within his chest – the kind of candle Lenalee used to evoke, only hotter. He thought his heart might have been able to melt iron. When the man kissed back he thought his chest would burst with the feeling. His left hand abandoned the wall and took hold of Tyki's waist so he could pull them closer.

_This seriously cannot be happening,_ He thought as the hand left his wrist and touched the side of his face. _If it is… I have more problems than I have ways to deal with them_.

Tyki did not know why he was kissing back, why his grip moved away so that the boy could take hold of his weapon if he wanted. But Lavi wasn't going for his hammer, wasn't pushing him away when the opportunity arose. Instead his palm brushed through Tyki's hair, drawing from him a small sound of confused pleasure. Tyki deepened the kiss, drawing his tongue over Lavi's lip and rocking him against the wall as his thumb traced the line of the boy's jaw, slowly falling to the curve of his throat. He felt Lavi's right knee bend as his foot came into contact with the brick behind him.

They stood that way for a long moment after their lips separated, not moving their hands, trying to find the emotion in the other's face. Confusion was prominent. Neither completely understood what had happened exactly, but they both new that going further would end up with them both being in over their heads.

Lavi realized that he didn't care. With agonizing slowness he titled forward again, the hand he had left on Tyki's neck took a tight hold on the other man's lapel as his head fell onto Tyki's chest.

"I think we have a problem." He said quietly, his fingers curling yet tighter on the hip he held in his left hand, the lapel he held in his right. "And I don't think I care."

When he spoke Tyki's voice lacked its usual mocking quality. "I must say, I did not expect this from an apprentice Bookman, at least."

Lavi laughed. "I never said I loved you, Ty-chan. I just want you. And…even if you're supposed to kill me, supposed to drive me to suicide, supposed to make me give up my Innocence for you, I still trust you."

"Then you really are a fool."

"I don't really care about that either."

Now Tyki laughed. He looked at the one emerald eye that Lavi had left and was amazed by the honesty there. How could the boy have done this to him? Why wasn't he ripping out his heart to end the game? Why hadn't he come to the conclusion that none of this was worth it? That it could not end nicely? That he had to make Lavi hate him?

_Make…him hate me?_

It was the plan he did not want to use. It was the idea that might destroy the apprentice's mind the same as his Innocence. But Tyki _had_ to do it. If he didn't, what else would there be? Them? There could never _be_ a them. It shattered all manner of unspoken laws between the Earl and his followers, and it undermined the very reason Tyki had come up with this game he was playing. The point was to be cruel and selfish, to take what he wanted and leave his victim crying in the dark – not make himself into a traitor.

As swiftly as he could he stepped away from the Exorcist, making up his mind that even if he did not want to, he had to. He swung his left hand from his hip to upward and to the side, effectively backhanding the smaller man across the side of his face, directly in the temple. Shock splashed across Lavi's face as he staggered sideways, his hand coming up to hold the only means of sight that he had left. He fell to his knees on the dirty, snow sloshed pavement, blinking rapidly up at the swirling figure that had hit him with the back of his hand.

"Ty…chan…?" He asked distantly. He could not recall having been hit so hard in all his life without losing consciousness, and the longer he looked up at the man in the top hat, the more he felt passing out was inevitable.

_He hit me. Hard. But I don't care that he hit me. It doesn't change anything._

Tyki reached down to place his fingers delicately on Lavi's forehead before he steadied himself and pushed them slowly through his skull.

Lavi knew better than to move.

"When I find you next I will end this little charade we have been playing at. You will give me what I want, or I will take the pleasure that you offer." He pressed his fingers slightly forward, watched Lavi's eyes widen as he found what he was searching for.

"I'm s-sorry." Lavi's words were slurred together, fear and and mild concussion and Tyki making it hard to speak. "Sh-should 'ave known… about…responsibilities."

"You haven't the slightest inkling."

"'Sokay though… if you 'ave to kill me t'live, I'm not gonna argue."

Tyki frowned at him, fighting the urge to stop what he was doing and try to explain the growing disgust in his stomach. "Sleep, Lavi-chan." He instructed as he touched the place that would send the younger man into oblivion. "You are going to need it."

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_All of my life as a Noah I have more or less enjoyed what I have had to do. Not once have I broken a rule, disobeyed an order, or failed at a mission. I have been perfect. I have never been bad once._

_This may be the first black mark on my perfect record._

_Or a red mark, if I continue to let things go._

_One night of forced pleasure and kiss in an ally way, and already I feel as if I am breaking on the inside. My will is faltering. My desire to fulfill the Earl's will is fading. My trust in what I believe is disappearing. What else is there but those things? What else do I have but what I have always had? I haven't the right to question. I haven't the ability to choose. I must do what I have always done and move on; enjoy the pain I cause and the havoc I wreak, smile at the tears I cause._

_Even if, in the end, it is I who will cries alone in the dark. For even in pleasure there is unhappiness. And in unhappiness there is the desire for things one cannot have._

_It is my fate._

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"A leave of absence?" Komui and Kanda asked at the same time. Allen nodded at them both, his hair falling down over his eyes with the motion.

"Yes. How does an Exorcist go about taking time off? I know that must sound odd after I've demanded to go on a mission, but I'm curious for future reference." He undid the blue ribbon at his neck and attempted to tie it in his hair one handed. Kanda saw how he struggled with it, sighed, and tied it himself, giving the small ponytail he made a tug when he was finished.

"Why would an Exorcist need a leave of absence?" Komui asked, folding his hands across his desk.

Allen shrugged. "You know… wanting to go see people you know, or wanting to meet your lover's family."

Komui shuttered. _Lover._ That was not a word he wanted to hear out of a sixteen year olds mouth so casually. He sighed deeply, thinking about the policy of loved ones and family members and whatnot. "You can make out a petition to see your family, but it usually takes a while for anything like that to go trough. You would have better luck if a mission came up in the area of the family's residence, and then I can just send you there. It's less formal that way, and there is less paperwork, less worry from above, and less rule bending to get around."

"Rule bending?"

Komui nodded. "Strictly speaking a formal visit is supposed to be observed closely, for fear of the Earl learning who an Exorcist is connected to. If he does and an Exorcist dies, he can tell the family of the Exorcist and instruct them on the making of a new akuma."

Allen nodded in understanding. "So where does the Kanda family live?"

Komui looked to Kanda who blinked at Allen as if he were stupid. "Edo." He said flatly. He could not believe this was happening. First of all he and Allen had just been called an old married couple, then he had been granted a blessing, and now they were on their way to planning a trip to visit his mother. It all seemed very dreamlike. "The northeastern quarter."

Allen smiled at him, one of those glowing, happy expressions that made his heart want to melt. "Is that where your mother lives?"

He nodded. "Kanda Hiroko, Okaa-san, and Kanda Hitori, Ototo, live there last I checked."

"Ototo?"

"Little brother."

Allen blinked at him for a moment, trying to imagine a little Kanda, hair and eyes and katana and all. It wasn't possible to image it without giggling or smiling. A smaller Kanda would be _adorable_, unless he was murderous and glaring and stoic like Kanda had been. Then he would be _more_ than adorable.

"You never said that you had a brother."

"Che, you never asked."

Komui smiled at the two of them before taking of his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. "Well then, I'll call you when we need you and send anything in Edo your way. Now _please_ leave." He glowered at them from over the top of his frames when he placed them back on his nose, shifted his hat on his head. _I'm missing my mid afternoon nap._

"Thank you, Komui-san."

"Hm."

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**Doo doo doo. Está el fin de este parte! And sorry if I accented that wrong… my sis is the Spanish major, not me :)**

**That's all I've planned to write until I have internet again (yeah, like that'll happen. I know I'll end up writing more.) Thanks for reading, reviewing, and putting up with my slowness and my length. :D**

**Love you all! I promise to update soon (but not too soon XD)**


	34. Wife: The Allergen of Superstition

**Niamh is wishing she could write 3 chapters at once, because then she'd have the part she really wants to write out there already. And wanting glasses cleaner. Her spectacles are ew.**

**Anyhoo, here's chapter 34. And for once, it's basically plot movement. Please don't hate me, smut-lovers! Sometimes things have to happen!**

**I love you for reading and I thank you for reviewing:D**

**Disclaimer of I've Given up on the D-words, have you noticed?: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…I'm sure Kanda would be moodier than he already is :P**

**WARNING: EXCEEDINGLY MILD boy's love. VERY MILD. Like, I would let my grandma read it if she weren't a homophobe. If YOU are a HOMOPHOBE, you shouldn't read it either.**

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Wife: The Allergen of Superstition

Halfway across the world in a small house in the northeastern section of Edo, a boy and his mother sat before a table, her hands folded, his fist pressed flat against the table's surface. The woman's gray eyes blinked at him, studying the way he held his shoulder, the way his fingers curled into a fist. Her braided black hair waved in the variable breeze through the open door behind her.

"Wrong!" She shrieked, smacking him across the forehead with her practice word. "If you'd done it right the table would have broken done the middle, _bakayaro_."

The boy's shoulders fell and his head slumped against his chest as he sighed. "It's not my fault you haven't taught me how to do it properly."

"Che!" She turned the sword over twice and brought it down painfully on the back of his hand, though not hard enough of to hurt him badly. He recoiled, pulling his reddened fingers to his mouth. "Pay attention, stupid bastard, and it won't be a problem! Now do it ag—" She broke off as he small features screwed up in a loud sneeze. Her wide eyes squinted shut and her small, elegant nose wrinkled up, sweeping mouth forced open from the blast. She was a beautiful woman, regardless of her age, and her loveliness did not cease when it happened. Her ivory skin was a smooth as the day she was sixteen, her soft ebony hair was long for the most part, a few stray strands always hung down over her round, feminine face. She would have been perfectly built if she were but a few inches taller and not five foot even.

Her younger, taller son smiled crookedly at her explosion, his twin gray eyes sparkling with mirth. "I hope you aren't sick, Okaasan. We might have to call it a da—kk!" He sneezed also, his eyes watered from the feeling. When he was finished he looked over at his mother, jaw slack, eyes wide, thin dark eyebrows arched in wonder. "You don't think…_he's_ talking about us?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she dropped her wooden sword and placed her palm to the hilt of her katana, turning toward the west. "Yuu."

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"Shouldn't you call? I mean, it seems kind of mean to just show up unannounced." Allen said as they came back to their room. He thought of it as _their_ room now, even though they hadn't shared it all that long.

"Che, give my mother time to prepare a long lecture and a swift execution." His lover sighed, draping an arm over his shoulders.

Allen looked up at him with a disbelieving expression, leaning into him slightly. Though the ache in his arm was less intense it still hurt, and something in him warned that it was going to get worse before it got better. But that was no reason to be an unsociable humbug that was for sure – especially with _Kanda's_ family – he wanted to make a good impression.

"Oh, come on, Love. She can't seriously be _that_ much of an unhappy person. You don't come off as a bowl of sugar and you're just a happy, pretty, nice, affectionate—" Sometime after 'happy' Kanda had stopped walking to glare at him with death's eyes, but the silver haired boy did not notice until he had said the others. His list hadn't been anywhere near done, but those eyes could make him shut up regardless; he felt a heated blush spread across the top of his nose when Kanda looked at him like that. There was just something about sunlight on those dark eyes that made them more lustrous than diamonds. "What?"

"Che," Kanda intoned, taking up pace again. "Are you trying to compare my mother and me?"

"Yes?"

He raised a lip in warning before he took the smaller boy by the shoulder, looking down at him like a hawk sighting his prey. "We're _nothing_ alike. _Nothing_. We don't look alike, we don't talk alike, we don't act alike. There is _nothing_ about us that is similar. It's like saying Lenalee and Komui have more in common than coffee and blood." His tone was completely neutral, though his face still had that strange expression of half-fear half-love that he seemed to wear beneath his glare when someone talked about Hiroko. "Furthermore I am _not_ pretty. I think we've been over this."

"Fine, assuming that you have no shared qualities…" Allen sighed but then paused again. A sudden thought had struck him, something of an epiphany, though not so bright. "Then who do you look like? There's seriously _no way_ your father had hair like yours. And how else do you explain your elegant features? I mean…" He paused again, noting that though Kanda was still beside him, he had grown astoundingly quiet.

"Shut up." He said quietly.

Allen swallowed hard; reaching out with his right hand to take hold of Kanda's left. The limb was shaking ever so slightly, and the contact brought the shivering fingers to stillness. "I'm sorry… if I said something wrong." Kanda could hear that he was completely sincere with his words, that he honestly saw the change from not-more-than-annoyed-Kanda and reminded-of-things-that-anger-him-Kanda. His fingers wound ever so slowly around the small hand that he offered and he turned to the small boy with a shaking, crooked, half forced smile.

"It's alright. I just… don't like talking about...him." His scowl came back in full force now, and his left hand was very happy to have Allen's right to hold, otherwise he might have run it trough the back of his pony in attempt to brush away his anger. It wasn't that he did not like his father; it was that he _hated_ him. Kanda had sworn when he was twelve that he would not give up until that man had breathed his dying breath, and he still stood by it – and remembering what he lived for had saved him more times than he could count.

_I cannot die until I find that man._

Allen did what he could to laugh. "I can tell. You seem to get rather… murderous."

"Che, nice observation."

"You've been mood swinging lately… and touchy-feely…is something wrong?"

Kanda tried to look at him as if he were dumb, but failed. "No, I'm just worried about you."

"I'm fine."

"Right."

"No really. As right as rain."

"Che. I'll believe that when I see proof."

"But!" Allen chimed with enthusiasm that might have made a corpse smile. It was obvious that he was attempting to change the subject. "None of this talking solves our problem of calling Hi…ro…er… Okaasan?" He had forgotten the name, but hoped that 'Okaasan' covered it well enough. He never had _that_ much trouble with names yet Hiroko was so close to Hitori in his mind that he couldn't say one without worrying that he had said the wrong one. And he ran the risk of splicing them together, which would not be pretty.

Now Kanda's smile was genuine, and amused. He couldn't think of his father when Allen was talking about his mother like that. It was too… too… _cute_. "The day you seriously call her that is the day I start calling you _wife_."

The British boy gave a little grin and leaned onto his lover's shoulder gently, turning them down the hall toward the cafeteria. "Maybe I should start calling her that on a daily basis."

"What?" Kanda looked at him with his eyebrows pushed together, suddenly aware that the way Allen was leaning on him was very much like the days Sable had been leaning on Lavi when the two had started that _game_ that Allen had insisted on winning. He was almost blushing too, with his silver eyes cast up like a pair of sparkling stars. "You _want _me to call you wife?"

Allen shrugged giving a little wink when he spoke. "Might make the introductions easier." He straightened somewhat, doing his best to make a Kanda-esque frown. "Okaasan, this is my wife, Allen Walker. Moyashi, this is my mother, Kanda Ho…kiro?"

"Hiroko."

"Eh…" He waved it off. "See? Besides…it's not that much of a stretch it is? I mean we're… basically married as it is."

"Che, and to think that I was worried about giving you my room key a week ago..."

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It was day still. Bits of light seeped under his eyelid and shone against his pupil, making him blink against it ever so slightly. He swallowed in a dry throat. Vaguely he felt that his head hurt and that the side of his face was swollen, there was a blanket over him and most of his clothes were missing, but his limbs were free. That was encouraging.

"Lavi?" It was Lenalee's voice, tearing through his head like an ill sharpened knife. He felt himself flinch at it, willed his face to calmness. It would not help his pain if he held his face bushed up in a position that made him sore. "Oh, I'm sorry," She said more gently. "I spoke too loudly."

Slowly, as to not make the light burn him light a hot poker; he let his eye come open to the face hovering above him. He felt an odd resistance that meant it did not want to do that because it was swollen, but he wasn't about to let a black eye render him blind, and he could not think of a better way to convince Lenalee of his health. She smiled down at him, relief washing over her face in a wave. He tried to smile at her crookedly to reassure her further.

"Wa-t'r." He managed after a moment. He had never felt quite so incapable of movement in his life – and just saying the word made him wonder just how much was messed up in his brain. She nodded and reached over to what he figured was a nightstand and came back with a cup between her fingers. Tenderly she took his head in her hand and lifted it, placing the cup on his lips.

When the cup was half empty he coughed and she pulled away. Just that tiny bit made him feel like a new man. With a little effort he tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but Lenalee stopped him before he could manage.

"You shouldn't move yet. I'm not sure how badly your hurt. Or what happened."

He blinked at her momentarily before he ventured to speak. "I'm okay. Nothing hurts but my head, and that won't get better from just lying down." He pressed on the mattress again she let him recline on the pillows, saved him when he tottered sideways. "I don't remember what happened specifically. Ty-chan was in the ally when…" Memories filled his mind like a slow flood. The hand holding his wrist, the touch of a finger on his throat, a kiss that he had thrown himself into without regard for his apprenticeship or his soul; it all hit him like a brick between the eyes. Heat blossomed in his chest like a wildfire, running rampant down his arms and across his abdomen before circling back up again to curl around his heart and hold him there like a molten vice. It did not make any more sense than it had before, but a small, sad smile still crawled across his lips, brightening his eye.

For a moment, before the blow up, there had been no palpable hate, no build up to what happened, and nothing had seemed planned. It all had just kind of happened. And when he had pulled Tyki to him and laid his head on the man's chest, he had felt a heartbeat just like his against his skin – and he was not yet dead, which was a plus.

"When what?" Lenalee pulled him back to the moment at hand – the moment where he shouldn't have been smiling.

"I… I don't know. Something happened though, and I think I hit my head on the wall." He lifted an arm that shook a little when he moved it then gently placed his fingers on the side of his head where his temple was. The flesh was very tender, and the hasty bandage that had been placed there was crusted with dried blood, which meant that he had indeed been hit _very_ hard. That explained why his eye was puffy – the blow had been strong enough to make him bleed. "It wasn't fun though… and I don't know what happened to him. I was just… on my knees in the snow and then everything went dark."

Half-truths. That was better than an all out lie wasn't it?

She leaned slightly forward, looking very closely at his face. Her hand came up and gently brushed the bandage, making him blink at the contact. "I should change that."

"I can do it."

"You can't see it."

"Oh, right."

While Lenalee stood to get things for his face he watched her, noticing the little things she tired to hide. There was tension in her shoulders, her face was pale, and the room did not look as if she were staying in it. The hollows under her eyes were darker than normal, and she was fighting off a rather persistent yawn. She was worried.

"Lenalee…" He wanted to reach for her, but the movement made him wobble back and forth again and he had to use the hand to save himself. Slowly whatever was wrong with his brain was going back to normal, but he wasn't yet at full balancing capability. When he faltered sideways she glanced at him, but did not move when he pushed himself back into place on the pillows. "I'm really alright; you don't have to worry so much."

She gave a small, broken smile that did not encourage him. "When he left the ally I saw him, Lavi. I saw what he really was. He was a Noah. We shared a train car with a Noah. We gave him our space. You followed him into a dark, confined place without even thinking about it. You could have never come out again. He could have killed you."

He shook his head at her. "But I'm not dead, Lenalee. I'm fine."

"That's not the point!" She stopped looking at him, turning instead to question the wall above the dresser that she faced. "_Why_ didn't he kill you? This _isn't_ a game we're playing. It's all of humanity that's at stake. So _why_ would he not kill you? Why would he walk out and wink at me then go on down the street like any traveler? It's not a game. He shouldn't be playing with us like this!" With the last exclamation her voice became uncharacteristically loud and she threw the roll of gauze she had found back down on the dresser, from which it bounced in the air again and hit her in the forehead.

Despite how serious she had been in that moment, Lavi had let out a tiny, half-amazed chuckle. The sound brought her eyes back around to the boy she had dragged out a bystreet and into an inn, who she had watched over for hours until he had come to. He could find humor in the situation even if it was oddly twisted humor, even when it was him that had lived for no apparent reason besides someone's sick idea of jest, so she would do her best to do the same. It took her a moment to smile, and yet longer to let the little snicker through her lips, but she managed. _I just hit myself in the face with a bandage…_ She sighed at Lavi's never fading smile. _I guess it is ironic_.

"See?" Lavi offered as she picked up the gauze again and came to sit on the bed beside him. "Even if we don't understand why or what or how, we can still handle things like this if we smile. And learn to laugh at our own mistakes."

She nodded, tearing the old linen from the side of his face. "Thanks Lavi, for being so bright."

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Sable tapped her chin as she looked at the chessboard, a thought creeping into her brain from the man across the table. She frowned at the thought that came to here – it made winning too easy.

Crowley watched in horror as the young woman in front of him moved the last piece he would have thought of, and then smiled at him. She was brutal when it came to this game. Worse than Bookman when it came to wigging him out too, because she would openly cackle when she saw something to her advantage and smile when she thought there might be a challenge; Bookman would just be indifferent until Crowley won – then he would be disbelieving.

He slid his bishop across the board, hoping she would not see that it left a rook exposed.

She smiled. _He's not thinking about his queen…heh…heh…_

He hand stopped before she could take hold of a knight, her face going pale. Without explanation she stood up, drawing a hand to her forehead, her mouth falling open as she pushed her chair back.

"Is something wrong, Miss Sable?" Crowley blinked up at her with his dark eyes questioningly and she tried to smile at his ghostly face.

"I'll be back in a few – just hold the board down for a minute." And with nothing more than that she dashed away from the table, attempting to escape the cafeteria and its people before blood started oozing between her fingers. She wasn't used to having to running away when this happened, nor was she used to trying to find her room with her hand on her forehead and her eyes downcast. She felt her eyes starting to tear when her hand found the knob of her door and opened it, her feet carrying her in the direction of the bathroom.

It hurt more this time, like her head was going to split down the middle if she moved her left hand away from it for more than a moment. She turned the shower on one handed, praying that the bleeding would stop before the hot water ran out, and further praying that no one would care that she came back dripping with a headband. This was the safest thing to do short of destroying one of her shirts for the sake of moping up the blood, and also the easiest way to ensure it was clean without using any of her stash of medical supplies. She didn't steal those very often, and she didn't want to use what little she had.

By the time she had wriggled out of her clothes, someone was knocking on the door in her room. She ignored it, locking the bathroom with fingers that left red smudge marks across the handle.

_I wondered when he'd do something like this again…_ She thought, placing a palm on the counter and leaving another handprint. She would have to clean it all before she got back to that chess game. _And I wonder why it hurts like this… like there's going to be nothing left of my skin. He doesn't regret it, I don't think. He's just…fine with this. Whatever he's doing, whoever he's killing, whatever mind he's tearing apart seriously makes him feel happy…_

_Good. If he's going to be evil, he might as well have fun doing it._

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Hiroko sneezed for the thirtieth time in twelve hours, curses following shortly after. "Che! Goddamn idiot son, talking about me with someone across the world and does not even bother to call. Fucking retarded, bastard, stupid, idiot, slut-faced, shit eating, weak, brainless, easy, soft, ridiculous, stupid—"

"You said stupid twice, Okaasan…"

"Shut up before I…_fwk!_" She sneezed again. The two of them had been attempting to practice all evening and now part of the night, but every time she tried to show Hitori how to properly execute a move she would be fumbled by her nostrils. And it was all Yuu's fault, she could just feel it. Her eldest son was just the kind to go flapping his mouth about family when they weren't there to shut him up with the blunt side of a sword. "I'm done. No more for today."

"Ah…" Hitori lowered his katana and sighed, his soft mouth came down in a frown. "We'll keep going tomorrow right?"

She nodded slowly, ran a hand through the hair that hung down into her face as her eyes narrowed. "Yes. You need the practice." _And if he doesn't call tomorrow,_ She thought venomously, turning her back on her younger child. The breeze from the morning was still blowing, and she caught the sent of rain on it. _I'm going to talk about him until he does._

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"Caaaaaaall." The voice was very quiet, but he knew he could hear it. "Caaaaaaaall."

"Moyashi."

"Hm?" Allen looked up from his plate of food with eyes that only vaguely cared what they were looking at. His mouth was too full to have said something with such a horribly long 'A' sound.

"Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall."

Allen was definitely chewing.

_I'm losing my mind._ Kanda thought, looking down at his soba. _There's no explanation_.

Across from him Allen grinned at his mess of dinner. Jerry really could be subtle when he was asked nicely. And Allen was the king of asking nicely, after all. It had taken nothing but a smile and a polite word and the cook had volunteered to help him convince the Japanese man to call home – and only slightly more niceness had got him to do it without speaking outright.

The cook had used a rather elaborate arrangement of pots to somehow, perhaps magically, direct his voice at their table.

"_Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall…."_

Kanda would not give in to the creepy sensation that someone was telling him to call home. Even if he was crazy. Even if ignoring it made him crazier. He wasn't going to do it. Nothing would make him. Calling would make him want to go home, which in turn would make him antsy, which would make work harder. And there was still that other reason for living, wandering out there somewhere in the world, and just talking to his mother would make him think about that even more.

And then, despite his resolve, he sneezed in his noodles. _She's talking about me… she wants me to call… Che… I really should, regardless of my own wishes. She _is_ my mother._

"Hurry up, Moyashi."

"Huh, why?" Allen asked, pretending to note how little of his food Kanda had eaten.

"Che, I need to call Okaasan."

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**Owari, ne? Kind of an odd note to end on for everyone there, but I'm trying to keep things going with the plot so that nothing ends up happening too soon. I hope the next chapter does what I want it to… kind of hard to say if it will or not until it happens, ya know?**

**Thanks for reading! More to come! I'm sorry for the Kanda-moodiness, he's having a rough time with all of this crap with Allen's arm and nightmares. Odd that it bothers him and not Allen…hmm…**


	35. Night

**Here we are at chapter 35, 1:09 AM, and I have come to realize that I write pretty much all of this at the hours I should be using on sleep. QQ**

**I must apologize – most of the plot movement here is kind of… well… you'll see. Don't kill me! I'm still a nooblet! And… yeah… Hiroko scares me…**

**Disclaimer of…D…: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…Kanda would wear the cat ears **_**every single day**_**. XD**

**WARNING: Um… confusing pronouns and implied man-love.**

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Night

Kanda waited until the late, late, late hours of the night to even think about phoning his mother, just because he knew the time difference would make things difficult. She was always an unpleasant person, but ripped from a calm sleep she was even worse. He found it very likely that she would demolish the phone before she even realized it was ringing.

And, because he had hoped that Komui would forbid the phone call, the head of the science department had told him to take as much time as he needed, being no one used the lines so late.

It was all just perfect. And Allen was forever making that face that spoke volumes about how much he enjoyed it all. He really _was_ excited about it. And his excitement just made Kanda less excited.

When he sat down in the chair in front of the phone, Allen pushed himself up on the desk where he could easily hang up if the need came. He wasn't there just to listen – he was there to be sure his lover said nothing damning, embarrassing, or mean. If he did, there would be more consequences than just and angry Okaasan and disgruntled Kanda. There would be war.

_War…_ Kanda thought as he picked up the receiver and started dialing numbers. _I should put that gift to use when I'm done here._

When all of the numbers were in, he lifted the phone to his ear.

It rang twice.

"_Moshi moshi?_" It was a young voice, older than he remembered, but still not yet grown.

"Yo, Hito-nii."

'_Yo?'_ Allen mouthed at him, shaking his head. Kanda narrowed his eyes at him.

"_Masaka!_ It cannot be… there's no way… Yuu! It's Yuu! Yuu! _Teme…_ you haven't called in _years_." The boy's voice went from excited to frowning in the course of a second. "'Kasaan is going to have your head on a dish for it, you know."

"Che, she'd have to cut it off first, _baka._" As he said the words Allen's eyes went wide, fear spreading across his face like a cloud passing in front of the sun. His mind was not on the correct body part and Kanda knew it. "Is she there, by the way?"

"Yup, but you're not talking to her until you tell me why you're calling. She won't tell me one Goddamn thing and you know it."

"Hitori!" Kanda scolded. "You are _not_ old enough to say curses like that."

"Yuu-nii." His voice was even. "I'm sixteen."

"Shit."

"Uh huh. It's been a _long_ time, ne? Which is what happens when you don't _call_."

Allen watched Kanda fold his one arm across his chest as his face went from glaring to half-smiling. It was an odd, between-expression he had never seen. "Stuff happens. I get held up. I can't just call whenever I want to. Nor can I talk for as long as I want."

"Gah, just tell me what the hell you want then. I know you're dying to say it."

Silence.

"Yuu-nii…"

_I'm going to say it. I am. And I'm going to say it with a smile._

"Yuu?"

_Here it goes…_ "I'm married."

There was a short gasped from the line and a small giggle from Allen. For some reason, hearing Kanda say that seriously made him lose it.

Hitori made a number of nonsense noises before he reigned in his mouth and reconnected it to his brain. "_Choto matte._ You, as in _Yuu_, Yuu-nii, hater of all human life –_married_?"

"Did I not just say that?"

"Say it again, Nii-chan. For my benefit."

"I am married."

"Holy shit."

"Hito! Stop cursing!"

"Sorry, sorry. It's just… wow… That's like… why hasn't the world ended?"

"Che."

"No, I mean seriously. Where the Hell did you find a woman who would _marry you?_ I don't wanna be insulting or anything, but _gees_ – I'm surprised."

"For one, I didn't. And for two, thanks for the vote of confidence, Hito."

"Hee. What do you mean you didn't? Did she order you in the mail or something? Oh gosh, I bet you were whoring yourself out or something like that…"

"Hitori!"

"Whoring is a verb! It doesn't count!"

"I was _not_ a mail order bride!"

Allen laughed so hard at that he nearly fell off the desk. He wasn't sure what was being said exactly, but it was still hilarious. It took him a long, long minute to recover, by which time he was nearly breathless. He glanced at Kanda, who was staring at him almost as if he wanted to kill him – which was not actually the case.

"What was that?" Hitori pulled his attention back to the phone.

"Nothing. Just my _baka Moyashi_, laughing at your joke."

"Your stupid Bean-sprout? That's hardly a descent pet-name, Yuu."

"Che, you're not old enough to know that."

"Sixteen. Juu-roku. Say it with me now – Six-teen."

"Hn."

"So! If you didn't find a woman to marry you and she didn't order you in the mail, what happened? All of the men in England get some horrible disease but you? Nothing short of that could possibly make my older brother desirable…"

"You're dead when we get to Nihon."

"Oh? You're coming?"

"Hoping to. Might be a while though."

Hitori made a sound too much like a sigh. "'Kaasan will be glad for the warning. She'll want to make your woman a nice kimono as a wedding gift. Or something. What size would you say she is?"

The corner of Kanda's mouth turned up, a wicked grin darkening his features. "Small. Very small. Hardly any bust at all."

Allen blinked at him for a moment, trying to imagine the rest of the conversation. Things were looking dangerous.

"What?! Does she at least have a descent rear?"

"_Hito!_"

"Just answer the question, Nii-chan!"

"Heh. It's not half bad. Very tight and smooth… don't let me talk about it; I'll scar you for life."

"It's not one of those round, nice, hot, squeezable—"

Kanda just growled in his throat. When had his brother started saying cuss words and talking about women like they didn't have girl-germs?

"Gah, just pretend I finished the question and answer it."

"Not like that at all. Tight and smooth."

"Ew! What did you do? Marry a man?"

"Yes."

Silence. Kanda waited for a moment for his brother to answer.

"Hito-nii?"

More silence. He wondered if many he had fainted.

"Hitori?"

"You're…gay."

"No, I just happen to be married to a man."

"Same difference."

"Che."

Yet more silence.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Che, have I _ever_ joked in my life before?"

"Yes…" He thought for a moment. "No…"

"Then logically…"

"Yuu…nii…" There was another pause for thought. "For one, _wow_, and for another, _oh my God wow, _and lastly, I'm not telling 'Kaasan. She'll kill me being you're not here to impale."

Kanda laughed. "Good. I'm looking forward to what she says when they meet each other."

Hitori shuttered. "You're the only one. Oh, so… what's… her… his… name?"

"Allen," Kanda said brightly. "Allen Walker."

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"_Married?!"_ Hiroko shrieked into the phone upon hearing the word. Yuu had cut her off mid-lecture to give her the news, and now she wasn't sure if she should continue on or congratulate him or berate him on not at least bringing the not-so-lucky-lady to meet them before they'd tied the knot. "Who in the fucking world did you find to marry _you_?"

Kanda inwardly sighed, though he'd never actually let his mother hear it. "Che, like I told Hito-nii, I didn't _find_ anyone."

"Ha! It's been years since I've heard you talk and you still 'che' just like me. Nice to see that you're still a mama's boy..." There was an obvious smile in her voice that made his eyes darken anymore. "So what did you do? Bump into some blind and deaf ninety-two year old virgin with a soft spot for _bishounen?_"

"Okaasan."

"Yes my idiot bastard?"

_She never changes…_ "If you call me that again, I'll kill you when I come to visit."

"Oh, Yuu-kun! You've made my day. First a 'che' and now a death threat… ah… I feel so loved."

Kanda could not help but smile. She was the same, and so was her response to violence and love. He figured she'd cut off his arms and then hug him when he walked in the door. "You did hear what I said, didn't you?"

Hiroko nodded out of habit. "Yeah. So you are finally going to drop by and say hello to your beautiful mother and your _stupid eavesdropping_ brother." She chuckled lightly, the sound was almost hollow. "It was your wife's idea wasn't it."

"Heh. Yes, it was."

"Che!"

"My wife is a curious person, I guess." And when he said it Allen grinned at him idiotically, which made him smile wider. "And rather manipulative."

"Am not!" The British boy interjected.

"She with you?" Hiroko asked at the second voice in the room. It sounded decidedly low for a woman though.

"It's complicated."

His mother didn't ask for more details. "Are you going to give me a time frame, or should we just say home for the rest of our natural lives?

"Che, we'll be there some time in the next few months I bet. Whenever something work-related happens in the area." He picked up his feet and plopped them down on the desk the phone was sitting on, right beside Allen's knees. "And then you can meet… my wife." _If I say him she'll die now, if I say her it's a lie… so I'll stick with wife._

"Hm. Sounds to me like you found yourself a nitwit who doesn't even care if you use her real name. I bet she's ugly too, being you couldn't get someone prettier than you. Stupid and ugly. Ha! You'll have normal looking, _really_ dumb kids. Like Hito."

Kanda chuckled again, this time the sound was biting. "Moyashi-kun doesn't seem to care about those little things anymore, and I don't think you have to worry about grandchildren."

Allen thought he was going to die of either laughter or embarrassment at that. Instead he covered his mouth with his hands and wheezed into them, Kanda reached out and took hold of one of them, pressed it yet closer into his lips. The last thing he needed was boy-laughter to ruin his mother's surprise.

"Bean-sprout, eh? I guess it's better than Cupcake or Shnukums."

"Please, Okaasan."

"But then again, a softhearted douche like you wouldn't be able to come up with anything meaner." She heard that he was making to retort and cut him off – as was her way, always. "Regardless of your obviously shitty pet-naming abilities and your virtually empty brain, I'd like to ask you a favor."

"Oh?"

"Give me her measurements."

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Lavi sighed deeply, letting himself sink down into the bed quietly. He had already decided that when Lenalee left for bed he would get up and move to the plush chair by the fire, because he would rather be stuck sleepless with something to watch than sleepless with nothing but the ceiling. He could not think correctly or he didn't think he could think correctly. Every few moments his mind would leave whatever they were talking about and go off to Tyki-land, where it would light a fire and pitch a tent if he weren't careful.

_I kissed him and he kissed me. But then why? Why did he hit me? Why do I not care that he hit me? How come I can't read that note in his voice?_

'_What, exactly is that supposed to mean?'_ The words repeated over and over in his mind like a broken record, and each time he listened to the intonation of each specific word, trying to understand what it as the speaker was feeling. Sometimes, long after history had played itself out, such little details became important, so he always tried to remember them – but it didn't help if he couldn't understand their meaning.

"Are you alright, Lavi? You look distant." It was Lenalee, calling him back to now, tearing his mind away from things he half-considered more important. He gave her a well faked smile that did not warm her heart.

"Just tired." He lied.

She looked at him in all seriousness, knowing that her words might one day come back to haunt her but not really caring. She was Lenalee, he was Lavi, the two were honest with each other so far as she was concerned. "Me too. I guess we should both turn in before it gets too late to." Her smile came back out of habit even as she said the words she had prepared for. "And if anything happens, _anything,_ you can just come down to my room and knock on the door. In fact, don't bother knocking, it'll be unlocked."

Lavi stared at her for a long moment. For some reason, he was almost unable to believe that this girl, one that he had known for a very long time, would not be able to see through his mask of lies. He was not a good liar. He was not good at presenting fiction as fact. So how could he have fooled her so easily?

Slowly he realized that he hadn't. She knew he was lying, but she wasn't going to say that she knew. If something happened to him that way, she would honestly be able to tell her brother that Lavi had never told her truth and she was therefore not responsible. But at the same time, in offering her help, she had let him know that he had a friend if he needed one.

"Lenalee…"

"Sleep well, Lala-chan." She giggled. "You'll need it tomorrow if you're well enough to help me find the Innocence."

He did not try to stop her again when she went for the door.

He sighed again when she was gone, willing himself to forget. Be he couldn't do that either. With a groan he shoved himself up into a sitting position, stopped for a moment while the room span around his head, the wooden dresser migrating to the place the fire was and the fire melting slowly into the chair. With a hard swallow he closed his eye to it, breathing slowly in and out as his fingers clenched the blankets with all of their strength; even without looking he felt as if the bed were rocking beneath him. After a moment though the feeling passed and he was able to gradually slide his feet off of the edge of the bed, his bare feet on the cold wood floor almost burned. Whatever was messing with his equilibrium was also messing with his sense of feeling it seemed, so he thought it safe to assume something was wrong with his nerves in general. Not that ears were responsible for the balancing thing.

Ears. Tyki had breathed in his ear. Whispered in his ear. It made him shiver just thinking about.

"What wrong with me?" He asked the room in a quiet whisper. "I shouldn't think about him this much. I shouldn't think about him at all. If anything I should hate him. I should want him dead for what he's done. I am a Bookman. Emotions aren't something I should have a problem suppressing of changing – so why the hell can't I just stop feeling whatever it I'm feeling and _forget_?"

No one answered. The silent room remained as quiet as it had ever been. The silver stars shown through the window like diamond shards sprinkled across the ebony velvet of the sky, and the round yellow moon looked down from beside them like a great eye which nothing could escape the gaze of. The night held no reverence. No solace. Lavi thought that the peace of it might have been mocking his verbal outburst, because he could find no other reason for things to remain so settled.

_I am a fool._ He thought as he staggered toward the plush chair. _Yet somehow… It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I'm an Exorcist. Or that he's a Noah. Or that this maybe the stupidest thing I've ever thought of. None of it matters because…_

_Because…_

_I want to see him._

He plopped himself down and the chair and let his head come down in his hands. "Damn it!"

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He had been staring at the ceiling of his room for more hours than he usually slept, running the events of the afternoon over and over again in his mind, remembering what had happened in that dark ally, the things that had gone through his head. Deciding to make the boy hate him was one thing, and acting out the plan he had come up with was another. It was beautiful in its horror and yet…

_Yet…_

That word was getting in the way. So was the word _if_. Together, the two could take the broken world Tyki saw and twist it into something bright and happy looking, design a future that made him want to tell _someone_ about all of this just to get it off of his chest. Made him want to quit killing. He could still do it, heartlessly, with a smile, but a small sliver of his soul looked back at that young man in the ally way and his willingness to trust. His willingness to give up. He lived to save the world he knew, and yet he would reach out like that for a man who wanted nothing more than to watch his dreams reduced to ashes. Maybe, if he really tried, Tyki could…

And there it was again. _If_.

With a low growl he sat up in his bed, a curse falling from his lips. He did not want to think about _if_. _Yet_ he still did. He still let his mind wander away, back to that pleading green eye, the red hair that had looked like blood in the semidarkness. And the hands against him. The warmth of those enthusiastic lips. It was all there in his memory, and his mind refused to leave it alone for more than an instant.

_I will do it tonight then._ He thought as he threw his blankets aside. His hands led him through his room to his closet; his feet were nearly silent on the floor. _While he doesn't have the strength to fight._

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**El fin! For now. There will be more either late late late tonight or tomorrow… depending how long it takes to let this next scene stew. I know what I should write, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to post it, ya know? We'll see… //scared\\**

**Once again! Thanks for reading! And for reviewing//hearts\\**


	36. A Thousand Plans Aside

**So long. Sorry this late. Love readers. Reviews good. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the episodes would be movies.**

**WARNING: YAOI! Man-on-younger man. Shounen-ai! Gay men! You HAVE BEEN WARNED!**

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A Thousand Plans Aside

Lloyd smiled at his sparkling new kitchen, glad that he had put the money to good use, or so it seemed. The wall had been fixed for nearly two weeks and the oven had been back for almost one and yet he couldn't bring himself to get used to it. Besides, everything was _clean_. Things were never more than just-clean-enough for use in Lloyd's house, but this was really, really, _clean_.

He had gotten up this late at night to grab a bite to eat and he was immediately distracted by how _clean_ it was.

_The Sow Side Log_ only needed three more things for it to be absolutely what he had always dreamed of. One thing in need was more rooms, because three just didn't cut it. Second it needed a new sign – _The Sow Side Log _was not a place that got many travelers, and _The Snow Side Lodge_ was no longer taken after that unfortunate ordeal. But there was one more thing, the one thing he wasn't expecting to have for the longest time, if ever again.

Sable and Uri were lost to him, that he knew, but he hoped to have a family again someday.

She would be off fighting demons, coming by whenever things got bad in Sweden, but Uri he didn't know. For all he knew, the middle child was dead and buried. The thought made him sad even with the new kitchen before him.

A hollow knock sounded at the door. That wasn't out of the ordinary. Now, as small as it was, Lloyd's little inn filled last of all the inns in town, which meant late night visitors and early morning demands for service, both of which he provided for a spectacular fee. It worked though, because he had to keep things going even if it meant charging rich men an arm and a leg to sleep in beds they did not think fit for dogs.

When he pulled the door open he was very thankful to have left his boots on, the air was absolutely freezing. The figure that stood before him was swallowed in the shadows, his hat pulled low, his jacket done up, both glistening with frozen rain. The stranger shook his head back and forth as Lloyd opened the door wider, knocking ice across the entrance mat.

"Nice to see you this evening…night… thing!" He chimed, waving his arm as if to invite him in. "You don't have to knock at the door of _The Sow Side Log_, just come right in." He was giving one of his merry smiles, the kind that made his already thin face look thinner.

"Lloyd," The voice from under the hat made his breath catch in his throat; as did the presence of a sudden, strong hand at the collar of his shirt. Even if it was gloved he knew that hand, as he had known the voice. And now, blinking at the pair of deep emerald eyes that studied him, he felt himself go suddenly paler than usual.

The name on his lips hovered there for a moment before it escaped softly into the night. "_Uri_?"

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Lavi felt himself dozing in the warmth of the fire and did not fight the feeling. Sleep would be a sweet release from everything that had happened and the tumult of chaos that his mind had become. He didn't usually think while sleeping, though he figured if he were going to start now would be the time. He knew who would be in his dreams, and it did not bother him.

"Are you sleeping?" The question brought his eye open and forced him to gasp in a small breath of air. He blinked at the desk chair for a moment, which was straight ahead and slightly to his left, before he comprehended that there was a man sitting in it. The room was set up so that even if he had not been tired it still would have taken a moment to see in the dimness. The bed was at one wall, the dresser opposite its foot, a desk next to the dresser and a single plush chair turned slightly sideways before the fire. Walking in it looked cozy, but sitting there it felt chaotic.

"Almost," He answered quietly. What were the odds that the object of his thoughts would come waltzing in the door and into his room? Zero. Or at least less likely than having him slink surreptitiously through a wall to take up residence in a chair beside him. Lavi wasn't sure how to feel about this new development – hopeful, afraid, happy, worried – so he settled for trying to feel indifferent, which did not work when the Noah's eyes met his. "I didn't expect to see you so soon."

His heart felt like thunder on his ribcage.

Tyki smiled at him from the corner of his mouth, it was a lopsided expression that might have been friendly and might have been dangerous, though which it was Lavi could not say. He wouldn't ask. He wouldn't fight. He would take things as they came.

"Neither did I, honestly," Tyki told him without moving. "Do you know why I am here, Lavi-san?"

The apprentice Bookman nodded. "You want me to surrender."

The Noah's smile did not fade as he pushed himself out of his chair and closed the space between them, his boots completely silent on the floor. When he was standing in front of the younger man he reached out gently to touch the place he had hit him, Lavi twitched only slightly under his fingers. "I don't want you to surrender, Lavi-san," He said softly, leaning forward so that he could look into that blazing, gem-like eye. Lavi was as stiff as a board under his gaze. "I want you to beg me to let you surrender."

Lavi laughed a little, deciding at last that it was alright to feel happy about his night visitor. Even if only a little. "You're going to have to do more than hit me to do that." He reached up and took hold of the fingers that lay softly on the edge of his face and pulled them down over his heart, unaware that doing so forced Tyki to lean yet closer to him. "I'm still living, Ty-chan, and why that is the case I will not give you my Innocence."

Tyki grinned wider at the unintended pun. "Try to remember that courage for when I make you break your vow."

"Try to remember that determination when I make you stop trying."

Without further warning Tyki kissed him. Lavi was expecting a ravishing touch, something violent like before, but the contact was soft, almost gentle, almost as if the older man were trying to make him enjoy it. He let his lips part and leaned into the hand that moved from his chest to his shoulder, his own fingers crawling across the Noah's sleeve until the found the crook of his arm to hold on to. Tyki leaned into him when he pulled him closer; his knees fell to the ground without him thinking about it as his left hand cupped the side of Lavi's face as he kissed his lips, his jaw, then slowly down his neck.

Lavi heard himself let out a half moan. _I've wanted this too,_ He thought as his right hand lifted the hat from Tyki's head and let if fall to the ground. _Even without the ropes._

As if reading his mind the older man stopped his exploration of his throat and looked at him, nearly breathless. This was the last nice thing he was going to do for the Exorcist before he went through with his plan. That was part of the plan's beauty. First there was this, and then afterward _if_ he was stopped from leaving the way he wanted, he would crush the boy with his own hands.

"I didn't bring anything to tie you up with." He said huskily. He watched Lavi's face grow bright at that, even as his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. How could this apprentice Bookman be so light if his mind had been reeling the same as Tyki's?

Lavi let his wicked grin creep across his face as his hands came to Tyki's shoulders. "I have something… if you really want to do it that way…"

Tyki just blinked at him. _Did he actually say that?_ "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. Well, it kind of makes it difficult to tie you up if all I have is a necktie. Where do you keep it?"

"In my suitcase, the outside zipper." His voice was sure and his hands were not shaking, his grip loosened until Tyki could pull away unhindered. "It's softer than that horrible stuff you used last time."

Tyki let out a short laugh as he pulled away, spotting the suitcase next to the dresser. "Do you make a habit of carrying such things with you?" He asked as he pulled the bag to him without standing, began to rifle through the outside pockets.

"I only brought it because I figured you'd show up again." Lavi said without losing a beat. "So… I guess I do."

"Heh," Tyki's hand found what it was questing for. He took the silky cord between his fingers and pulled it out of it place in the bag, an eyebrow raised in curiosity at the texture and the design on it. He had could not envision the boy before him purchasing such a thing with a straight face, nor could see him getting the bunny-printed version of his own volition. It seemed out of character. "This is interesting."

Lavi found that he was still smiling, even though his heart had gone from happy to near apprehensive. "It was a gift. I never would have thought to get it myself."

_Honesty._

"That aside, Lavi-san," Tyki said as he ran the rope through his fingers, gave it a few strong tugs with his hands. It wouldn't snap, that was for sure. "Shall we start?"

The words alone made the heat rise in the younger man's chest. He did not trust his voice to speak so he simply nodded, and, thinking that it might help things along, offered his wrists to Tyki. The Noah gave him a sad, amused smile and shook his head, coming back to once again touch the bandage on the side of Lavi's face. The boy's expression was confused to say the least, and his hands had taken to shaking now that he did not know what to expect; just that tiny show of weakness made Tyki smile from the corner of his mouth.

He kissed his smaller companion gently as he bound his right wrist with the rope, careful to increase the intensity of the kiss has he increased the tightness of the bond. When Lavi was kissing back with equal ferocity he pulled experimentally, and the jerking motion made the apprentice fall into him, a small exclamation on his lips. That was good, because it meant he could go about this the way he wanted, and once he got started, Lavi would have no say in it than he had previously.

"We are changing chairs." He said flatly.

"What?" Lavi could hardly think properly. First the kiss, and then the other kiss, and now a leash on his wrist – there was just too much going on for his disconnected mind to absorb it all. And it didn't help that his skin wasn't talking to him properly.

"I cannot properly tie you to this one." Tyki explained as if it were a given.

Lavi snickered up at him, trying to hold himself off of his chest but finding it rather difficult with his right wrist being held behind Tyki's back. "Then… can you help me get over there? Whatever you did to my head hasn't worn off yet." He tried to smile at the almost worried look Tyki gave him. "It's not that bad though, mostly just makes it hard to balance."

Tyki hooked an arm around Lavi's waist as he stood, felt the boy sway against him. He had meant to leave that side effect but he wasn't going to say anything about it, confessing might lead to premature hatred, which would not be the strong emotion that he wanted. He did not want strong dislike, or mild aversion, he wanted Lavi to want him dead. It was the only way to make the _ifs_ go away.

"I will not be taking that into account." Tyki said quietly as he lowered him into the desk chair. The piece of furniture was perfect for what he wanted to use it for; the main frame was hard wood, and the back was slatted with three lesser posts held securely in place, and heavy seated to avoid tipping. He had thought to use it the moment he sat down on it – because a Bookman, a desk chair, and a length of rope were about as ironic as one could get without being laughable in his mind.

"I wouldn't expect you to." Lavi answered. He could feel himself starting to shiver all over, anticipation running through his veins like boiling water while his nerves sang with the mixed messages he was getting. The cold floor was not icy, it was fiery; the lips that pressed momentarily against his were not warm, they were brands against his flesh; the fingers twining through his hair were not human, they were electricity dancing on the edge of feeling. When the rope and his right wrist went through one of the slats behind him he didn't struggle, but the fingers left his hair to take hold of his left hand and force it through another whole beside the first, and that was mildly frightening. He began to worry most when Tyki's mouth abandoned his.

He slumped forward wordlessly as Tyki wound his wrists to each other, binding them until Tyki was confident his captive would not be escaping. With the extra length he secured Lavi's ankles to the legs of the chair, and silently he thanked whoever had purchased such an odd gift for him; the length was perfect for this, and he even had extra if Lavi's knees needed to be held later on – but for now that wasn't important. For now it would be enough that he could not stand up out of the chair without Tyki releasing him.

Lavi found that with his hands behind him he had to sit on the very front of the chair, and with his legs held in place he could not even straighten his spine entirely without feeling that he would tip the chair forward and onto his face. "What's the point of this?" He asked when Tyki came around to face him again. "Just want to kiss without me getting in the way?"

The older man laughed as he took a gentle hold of Lavi's headband and slid it off. "No, my dear Lavi-san," He said sinking slowly down until he was nearly sitting on Lavi's lap. "I have much more in mind than that."

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As soon as they got back to their room Allen had curled into a little ball on the bed and proceeded to fall asleep like a kitten in the covers. He didn't even bother to change his clothes. It made Kanda smile though, seeing him so peaceful in his bed, not even thinking of the irony of it all. When he had changed his own clothes he sat on the edge of the bed, watching the slow rise and fall of Allen's chest in the light of the single bedside lamp.

Allen's hair was getting long again; long enough to be in a ponytail whenever he was doing something that required him to lean down or forward. Kanda liked the ponytail. Somehow it made him look less childlike, more serious, even though that much hair was supposed make one look immature and joking. Without even thinking about it he reached out and brushed Allen's long white bangs out of his face, and smiled when his silver eyes fluttered open at the contact.

What would he do if something happened to those eyes or that hair? What would he do if something terrible happened to Allen? The more he looked the more he thought about it and the more his lover's recent nightmare came back to haunt him. Why would Allen dream something like that unless he was afraid of it too?

_He should never have to be afraid of me. Not even when he sleeps._

"You shouldn't sleep in your clothes Myashi-kun," He said quietly, running his palm over his forehead again. "You'll wrinkle them."

Allen blinked at him a few times before his lips spread out in a very sleepy smile. "Then what should I wear, Love?"

Kanda grinned back at him and the light on his features made his eyes shine. "Che, how about nothing?" But even as he suggested it there was not a note of lust in his voice, only a twinge of caring.

"Turn off the light." Allen instructed. When Kanda did Allen reached up and took him by the hand, pulled him down onto the mattress and laid Kanda's arm over his chest. It was very similar to the first night Kanda had slept next to him with his bare arm on him, the Japanese man's face just inches from his ear, a dull pain coursing through part of his body. The difference was that this time he honestly did not mind the touch, nor did he care that Kanda was pulling him closer. He settled his head on the pillow as Kanda placed his by his shoulder.

Quietly, Allen giggled.

"What?" Kanda asked seriously. He had been perfectly content to just lean his head there and sleep like that, but his lover had to go and laugh in that innocent, cute way.

"For one, I'm still wearing clothes. And for another… it's just funny." He turned his head ever so slightly so he could look at the older man's sinfully blue eyes. Sometimes, when they were that close, he imagined that he might one day fall into them, but then Kanda would blink and the illusion would be broken. He felt that way now. "You're… cuddling with me."

"Che, _bakayaro._" He gave Allen the look he used when he called him stupid in his mind, and Allen blushed under his gaze. "This is not cuddling, it's _attempted sleeping_. Now, unless you're going to peel off your clothes to avoid wrinkling them, I suggest you shut your mouth and close your eyes." Without waiting for his lover to respond he snuggled his head down closer, lifted his knee just so that it was propped on Allen's leg, arranged so that he was absolutely comfortable. "Besides," He mumbled. "I'll wake up this way, so what's the point of not falling asleep like this?"

Allen laughed a little before placing a gentle kiss on Kanda's forehead and allowing himself a final sigh. "Yeah, I guess… if you wake up to find that you've been _attempting sleep_ all night..."

"Moyashi-kun."

"Hm?"

"No more talking."

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The fabric in his mouth tasted terrible, but he wasn't about to try and chew through it. It was his headband. He would have to be nice to his headband if he ever wanted to wear it without someone seeing teeth wholes.

If he could wear it without thinking about Tyki, that was.

Tyki had knelt down gently on the floor between Lavi's knees, facing him, and the apprentice Bookman was surprised at how light he was when he leaned up into him. Lavi figured the weight was made easier to bear because of the placement of his feet and the way the older man held himself without swaying. He never would have thought it possible but he was more or less comfortable like that, even if he could do nothing about the hands spreading slowly across his bare chest.

_The night I chose to sleep shirtless…_ He thought, unsure if he should feel good about that decision or to hate himself for it. He watched Tyki's almost yellow-brown eyes carefully as the Noah touched him, his expression serious. This was different than last time, Lavi could see, but he was once again unsure how to feel about that. The fingers on his skin were almost reverent; the lips – when they did touch him – were slow and tasteful, leaving no pain behind them but the slowly growing ache in Lavi's heart. He wanted Tyki to do what he had before, to be cruel. It would make things easier if it hurt to do this, if he had to fight to get what he wanted, it made finding the hate inside much easier than how it was now. Instead, with feather-light kisses running up his neck and a skilled hand tracing the side of his stomach like a breath of wind, he wanted to lean into the touch and give himself over to the enemy. Part of him wanted to just melt into his captor.

"What's wrong, Lavi-san?" He asked as the boy's head fell forward onto his shoulder, leaning sideways to draw his face across the fabric of Tyki's lapel. He took the boy by the shoulders and pushed him back slightly, drawing his eyes up to look at the expression on his face, the pain in his eyes. Tyki could not understand why Lavi looked him like that, as if he could not breathe if they parted, but he felt a little part inside of him twist at the expression, bend and threaten to break. "Are you not enjoying yourself?"

The boy just pushed himself forward again until his head was over Tyki's shoulder, their chests pressed together. _If it's going to be like this, I'd rather have the power to touch you the same way._

Tyki breathed slowly in and out again, indecision making him do nothing but sit up on his knees, the Bookman falling into him. What was he supposed to do? Abandon the first half of his plan and jump to the second? He did not feel like it. Because even if his arms were slowly wrapping the younger man in an embrace, even if his heart was pounding in his chest because of it, even if part of him screamed that no goal of Millennium was as important as this one person, he knew that they were on different sides of a war.

_A thousand black marks against me,_ He thought as he pulled Lavi closer. _I can never kill him. But why? Is it because he wants me? Is it because he doesn't fight?_

"If…" The word fell from his lips even before he could think to stop it. "You want me to untie you, Lavi-san; I will not keep you like this. I…am sorry." As he spoke Lavi leaned up again, looking at him with his eyebrows pushed together in a question. He was very, very confused about all of this. Tyki's right arm snaked its way out of the embrace so that his fingers could once again caress the place that he had hit. "I am sorry that I hurt you."

_Baka,_ Lavi thought tilting his head toward the hand on his face. _I've hurt me more than you ever could._ He did not speak when the hand on his face removed the headband from his mouth, instead he kissed Tyki, willing all of the confusion he felt, and the heat, and the impossible hope into that one single action.

_I'm not a Bookman anymore, if I ever was one. But…I honestly don't give a damn._

He was powerless and he knew it. This Exorcist, this _enemy_, had awakened in him some part of him that he did not know existed. He felt a tiny, flickering warmth in his heart, and its presence made him wonder if, maybe, perhaps, somehow…

_**No.**_ It was a resounding word, spoken from the bottom of his soul. The sound of it made his hands stop their slow progress toward the ropes that still held Lavi in the chair. _**I am Noah's pleasures.**_ It said darkly, pulling his hand back again and forcing him to straighten. Tyki did not want to straighten, nor did he want to leave those hands in a place that they could not work to stop him, but it happened regardless. For so long the Tyki Mikk he was inside and the Tyki Mikk that was Noah's pleasures had had an understanding, a balance between human and monster, that he had nearly forgotten that there _was_ a monster. And now his blacker nature was fighting him, attempting to reestablish the natural order of things.

Lavi blinked at the older man, trying to understand the emotions that were sweeping across his face in waves, his eyes never blinking. For a moment he thought the Noah was pausing for thought, but he realized how wrong he was when a wicked grin split his face like a gaping wound, a harsh laugh escaped his wide mouth.

"Ty-chan?" He asked quietly. It did not take a Bookman to see that something had changed.

Without warning the Noah pushed him painfully back in the chair, his twisted smile blossoming across his face even farther, his left hand came forward with enough speed to knock the air from Lavi's lungs but the hand never hit; it passed through his flesh as easily as a fish in water. Lavi stared at the arm protruding from his abdomen, astonished that this was the same man who had just held him so closely. It did not make any sense unless…

_They aren't the same person,_ He thought in amazement. _This isn't the man I want touching me._

His eyes went wide with fear and the other man moved his hand until he seemed to like where it was, a sinister gleam in his dark eyes.

"You're not… Ty-chan…" He said softly.

Tyki laughed at him, curled his fingers around the place he had been looking for. What had he been thinking just a moment ago? Something about not killing him? About not causing Lavi pain? He could to recall. It all seemed unimportant now that he was feeling like himself again. "It was almost enough, Lavi-san. For a moment, you almost had me." Before his captive could respond he let his fingers gently prod the place within him, provoking a shuttering gasp from the boy. That one green eye had taken on a glint of fear that reminded him why he was here, what his plan had been, who he was.

The pleasures of Noah were not always kind. Tyki was not always kind.

"Ty-chan…" Lavi gasped as a finger flicked again, forcing an unwanted good feeling to sear through him. He knew what Tyki was touching he knew that in a few more twitches the Noah would have him begging for more. He had to say his thoughts before that happened. "Even if…_ah!_" His hands were straining at his bonds, his heart was slamming in his chest, and the calm that had filled him a moment before was lost. If the Noah wanted to, he could have pleasured him beyond the point of thinking clearly. "I don't… have you. You still have me."

"Heh," The Noah moved his hand again, amazed at the immediate response he got from his prey. Just a single finger could make him writhe like a snake in his bonds. "And what makes you think that I would want you, Lavi-san?"

He could not speak at first because Tyki would not stop hitting that place. He could not breathe. He heard his own voice ringing almost softly in his ears as he whimpered, his head thrown back over the chair, fingers clutching desperately around the wood that he could reach. When the hand pulled out of him he was left more than half bereft, his face falling forward until the pull of his arms stopped him. This hadn't been what he wanted nor did it seem that this was what Tyki had initially hoped for, but this was what he was getting. When Tyki's expression had changed something else had changed with it – and something told him it was the man's willingness to let him free.

The boy's red hair clung to the sides of his face in strands, his shoulders moved rapidly with his gasping breaths. It was perhaps one of the most gratifying things he had ever seen.

"And, Ty-chan," Lavi said after a moment of catching his breath. Slowly he lifted his sagging head until he could look at the man between his knees and focus on that sadistic smile. "I would have hit me too, in your position." He watched the gaze of the man before him falter for a moment as he continued speaking. "So, if it makes you happy to do that, feel free to hit me again."

He blinked a few more times before he swallowed hard. Then, because it was the only way to be sure Lavi said nothing to distract him again, he picked up the makeshift gag and placed it on his lips. That mouth was dangerous. It said things that made him want to stop being cruel, things that made him want to act human. He was glad when Lavi did not protest and instead slackened his jaw so he could secure the obstruction properly. He felt a thrill go through him as he turned his attention to his captive's throat and his chest, aware that he could caress any part of him without being stopped. It was a compromise now – the half of him that wanted to give Lavi happiness would indeed supply him with that, but the other half would have fun doing it.

_Lots_ of fun.

_He's like a void,_ Lavi thought as a hand ran up the inside of his thigh and teeth came down hard on his shoulder. But the thought still did not matter. He had learned that there were two different sides to Tyki, one that would hold him close and offer to free him, and a side that would try to drive him insane with yearning. The man he was at the moment Lavi did not know, but his body did not care. It still responded to the touches as if it wanted every bit of the man before him. He did not like that idea. He did not want this. This was not the same as kissing Tyki in an ally way. If this were going to happen, which it most obviously was, he wanted it to happen with the may who had apologized for hurting him, not with the man who smiled at his fear.

His hand was not gentle when Tyki undid the draw string of Lavi's pants. He felt the boy tense and begin pulling at the rope for the first time. It made him smile. Even if he had tied them while still only half-appreciating their use, those knots were more than secure. There were some things that his white mind and his black mind did equally well.

"I am guessing that you have noticed, Lavi-san," He said softly, pulling the boy's pants to his knees. "That I have changed in our last few moments together?" As he spoke he lowered himself so that he could more easily touch Lavi's exposed erection and draw his tongue slowly over the inside of his thigh. There was a strangled moan and an involuntary thrust of hips before Tyki spoke again. "The truth is that sometimes, if I am not careful, a more humane part of me will find its way to the surface of my mind and cause me to do stupid things like feel." He hand brushed gently over the place his mouth had been as he took to the other side with his lips. "I must fight to keep it more or less docile. To not do so threatens my standing with the Millennium Earl. You, dear Lavi-san, almost made me forget to restrain it.

"But I have remembered. So I can now do what I intended and please you with my torture." He licked the tip of Lavi's phallus, grinned when he made a choking sound that might have been out of pleasure or pain. That was what he had come for – he had not come to fill the hollow ache in his heart. "Would you like that, Lavi-san?"

_No,_ Lavi shook his head, trying to comprehend what Tyki had said about being humane. _I don't want the torture this time. I don't want the ropes. I want to hold you. Why can't you see that I want to hold you?_ It was more frustrating this time because he wasn't ashamed of his eagerness and because it was his fault things had turned out this way. If he had kept his hands to himself in the ally, Tyki would never have even been tempted to hold him like that, and he would not have known the impossible emotions that filled them both. _And the more you talk about this, the more you let out about the Noah, the more I just feel sorry for you._

Somehow, the expression the apprentice made at his question made Tyki very angry. It was almost pity. He needed no one's pity. "If you do not like that idea, Lavi-san, I can simply keep you this way." He ran a light hand over him, holding his hips in place with his free left hand to be sure nothing went father than he wanted it. "Perpetually filled with desire, unable to do anything about it, there when I wish to release you but incapable of it so long as I say. If you would rather have it that way I would be happy to help," He smiled at the horrified look in Lavi's eyes, the sudden strength he put into tugging at his restraints. "Shall we try that until dawn? Though your friend might come back before then. What a horrible fate it would be for her to find you this way…" Lavi felt his hand was running slowly up and down him, being sure that he stayed as aroused as he was, so he threw himself at it only to have the hand pull away completely. Tyki laughed at him again.

"No, that would be too difficult on both of us to explain." He said sadly. "We shall have to do this some other way." While he spoke he sank yet lower, his lips mere inches from their destination. He knew his breath could be felt on the sensitive skin there.

Lavi was stuck between feeling physically and feeling emotionally. His body screamed that it wanted this, that it was _good_, but his mind told him that this wasn't how he wanted to go about things.

_I'll stop him._ He decided finally. _When he tries to leave, I'll stop him. I'll tell him what I'm feeling. Goddamn it, I don't care that I'm an Exorcist and he's a Noah, there has to be a way for us to just be people._

Impossible warmth closed around him. He had expected it, but he couldn't stop himself from gasping at the sensation, or making pleasant sounds as Tyki's hot mouth encased him, his soft hand stroked the length that did not reach his lips, sending wave upon wave of pleasure through him. His hips bucked forward into the sensation, rocking the chair ever so slightly with the force of weight until the hand at the base of his erection left to take steady his thigh. It was still great feeling, and he was vaguely aware that Tyki was not pulling away even has he came impossibly close to release.

Tyki waited ever so patiently for the moment when Lavi came and sank his finger though him to stop the action. It was so very simple a thing, to just block the escape of his seed, and the response it provoked was perhaps the most glorious thing he had ever seen the boy do. His eye was wide and fearful, mild confusing clouded it, and his hips continued to trust wholeheartedly even though the motion was completely futile. An aggravated growl escaped his throat and he stared at Tyki as if he did not understand, his mouth opened and closed despite the cloth between his teeth. He tried to form a word. Frustration made him yank at the ropes desperately and he rocked back in the chair nearly far enough to tip it.

"Kly-ki…" It came out wrong, but it was enough. The finger that was obstructing his release gave way when Tyki stood up to avoid the ensuing moister, and he moaned again when it happened. Tyki smiled at him when his limbs first went ridged and then went to putty, his arms and the silky rope the only thing that kept him from sliding out the chair and onto the floor. For a long moment Lavi just stared at nothing, trying to remember everything that had happened in the aftermath of what might have been the greatest sexual experience of his life.

"That was not so bad, was it Lavi-san?" Tyki asked rhetorically as he reached around to unknot the ropes behind his captive. When his hands were free the apprentice Bookman slowly reached up and pulled the gag from his mouth before tremblingly slithering his pants back up onto his waist. His eye did not look at Tyki, he simply let it focus on the self-inflicted red marks his bonds had left, and then the glossy shoes of he man standing before him. "Did I break you, Bookman-san?" Tyki asked, reaching out to touch the side of Lavi's face.

He recoiled slightly, but the action was more out of habit than anything else. After a long moment he remembered what he had hoped to do before all of this had started, before Tyki had seemed to have an argument with himself. No, this wasn't the man he had hoped to see tonight, but he was in there somewhere.

When Lavi stood he nearly toppled over, the problems with his equilibrium and having his feet still tied to the chair did not help in catching him – it was only Tyki's arm that truly saved him from the fall.

"But what about you, Ty-chan?" His voice was worn and tired, cracking in the oddest of places. He watched the Noah's face change from somewhat happy to somewhat worried at the sound.

"What?"

"Doesn't it seem… unfair if I'm the only one who gets to be… _tormented_ all the time," As he spoke he let his left hand drift up to Tyki's neck, let his fingers twine through his hair. "Wouldn't it be more fun if we each had a little…" His right hand came up from his side to touch the older man's belt; Tyki was too surprised to stop him. "Of what you're always giving me?"

Tyki narrowed his eyes at him, but he could not bring himself to push the boy away. "If I am to get any pleasure out of you, _boya_, it will not be a good experience for you."

Lavi lifted an eyebrow at him. "Is that so?" Tyki gasped at him when he shoved his hand down the front of his pants. "Seems like we were both enjoying what just happened, Ty-chan." He gave the hardness against his palm a little pat as Tyki took a strong hold on his shoulders. "Unless you have an unripe banana in your pants, you want me."

There was no arguing that point, and Tyki was well aware. "Unripe?"

The mischievous grin that passed over Lavi's lips was entirely different from the first smile he had let Tyki see; he did not need to talk himself into this one. "Ripe ones aren't this hard." He pulled on Tyki's neck, silently thanking whatever force it was that kept the older man from throwing him aside like an old toy. Without speaking he brought his lips up to the other man's, stroked with his fingers, and leaned in with his weight. He had to fight a triumphant smile when the lips against his kissed back.

_I can't hate him._ He thought as he pulled away. _Never._

The sides of Tyki fought each other in the moment of that kiss, the one side demanding that he embrace the boy, confess his obsessive thoughts, and truly make love to him, right there. The other half wanted nothing more than to pin him down and forcibly take the pleasure he sought.

When the kiss broke Lavi looked up at him, knowing that in all likelihood he was going to end up violated in more ways than he could ever count, but not really caring. Because if that happened maybe, just maybe, he really would be able to pretend that Tyki Mikk was nothing but ink on paper. But instead a strong pair of arms came down and wrapped around his back, pulling him into an embrace like the one before, and this time he hoped that it would never end.

"I am a Noah, Lavi-san."

"And? I'm an Exorcist."

"We are fools if we think we can get away with this."

Lavi laughed as he pulled his hand from beneath Tyki's belt and wrapped it instead around the small of his back. "I told you before; I don't care how foolish it is. What else am I supposed to do when my heart tells me that this is right?"

"Your heart?"

Lavi nodded. "Yeah, that thing I'm supposed to pretend not to have."

"Then…" Tyki said quietly as he lifted a hand to touch Lavi's hair. He had never really touched it before, only ran his hands through it, but now he had a chance to really know what it felt like. "Where do we go from here, Lavi-san? We are on opposite sides of a war. I will kill your comrades and you will destroy mine, what good can come of it?"

"It doesn't matter." Lavi insisted, tugging Tyki still closer. He could feel his heartbeat on the side of his face when he rested his head on him, a perfectly human heartbeat, to be sure. "None of it matters because I just want to be with you."

It was like a dagger to Tyki's darker heart to hear those words, and a flame to his brighter one. Before he even understood what was happening he had pulled Lavi flush with him, and was burying his face in his soft red hair, drawing in his scent as if he needed it to breathe. "Then we shall leave it at that for now? Even if I turn black on you again? Even if it marks us both as traitors?"

Lavi nodded into him, the warmth that had circled around his heart seeming to come to life again, seeming to spread through him like sweet poison in his blood. "If I'm in league with a traitor who betrayed his side, does that make me a traitor?"

For a moment Tyki thought about it until a real, baritone laugh escaped him. He playfully ruffled Lavi's hair, letting himself smile for what felt like the first time in his life. "No, Lavi-san. I guess it doesn't."

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**You like? I hope. I feel lacking. So long. Love all you!**


	37. Morning

**It's shorter than last time! I swear!**

**First, I wanna say sorry that this is kind of a getting-there-not-there-yet chapter. And I'm sorry that Allen is a manipulative bastard. And I'm sorry I have OC's. And yes my darling Yullen fans, there IS something coming, so please no hate mail.**

**Second… lovelovelove for you all! Thanks for reading!**

**Disclaimer of D-things: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda would be taller than Lavi. It's just wrong otherwise.**

**WARNING: Shounen-ai! Yaoi! Man-on-man!**

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Morning

She hadn't been well all night. Not since the chess incident, when she had had to tell Crowley through the door that she wouldn't be able to beat him until she felt better. Her heart had been pounding on her ribcage, her mind drawn to all sorts of different unhappy circumstances, and her forehead would stop bleeding for an hour only to start up again at twice the force as before.

It was Uri and she knew it. There was something different this time though, something very dark, something that made her want to cry and laugh at the same time – which was difficult while trying to keep her blood off of things. With shaking hands she pulled the towel from her face and looked down at the bloody prints left by the three crosses on her forehead, each perfect, exactly as they should have been, with no parts smeared or smudged or crooked. The flow was stopping again.

It was now time to see what her dearest older twin was up to. Because she wasn't going to sleep, even if she hadn't been in bed all night.

With shaking steps she traversed her room to the bathroom, which was the only mirror she had immediate access to, and flipped on the light with a thankfully clean hand. With a deep sigh she gazed into her refection, trying to not see the pale skin and gore streaked face before her.

_Uri_. She thought, breathing in slowly. _My brother Uri._

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"You scared me when you came in, you know. That grabbing me by the collar and then bear hugging me business made me think you were here to repossess my inn."

"Right, because this place is worth something." His voice was distinctly sarcastic as he lifted his coffee to his lips and took a long draught, enjoying the burn of the whisky his brother had mixed in. The feeling warmed his still cold limps and calmed the shivers there. "Though I must admit, the kitchen looks cleaner than usual."

Lloyd laughed before taking a drink of his own, nonalcoholic coffee. The two of them sat before the roaring fire, the younger closer, and the older with his now bootless feet propped up on the chair beside him. They had been that way through what little had remained of the night and now the beginning of the morning, each attempting to get information out of the other on what exactly had been happening in his life.

"It was destroyed when some of those stupid akuma – no offense – attacked three of my guests. I nearly died. You should be sorry." He said all of this with the same smile on his face, half serious, half not, his tired eyes hooded. The more Uri watched him the more he realized that this relative of his was a rather dangerous man, always watching, always saying things with a different tone than they deserved. It made him realize why Lloyd was the matchmaker – he could say someone thought Uri was stupid and make it sound like a confession of love. "It's clean because I had it replaced."

"It's not my fault if you choose to rent your rooms to Exorcists." Uri sighed, putting his cup down. "Doing things like that risks making you into collateral damage, which isn't really something I can be sorry for."

Lloyd's expression did not change. "There was a young man with them when it happened. He died. Turned to dust with no one there to see. One of them leapt in front of an attacker to save the other, ended up taking a blade across the torso for it."

"Your point being?"

"I don't think of that as collateral damage?" He shrugged. "And they don't fight like they're evil. They fight like their trying to save the world."

Uri shook his head at his older brother. "You don't get it. They don't _think_ they're evil, but they are."

"Have you ever thought that maybe they are as sure of their goodness as you are of yours?"

Uri frowned at him and his brow furrowed with the expression. "No, I know that I'm good."

Lloyd laughed. If that didn't sound like a conditioned response he didn't know what did. "Right, sure, there's nothing wrong with being _absolutely_ positive about something and being perfectly incapable of thinking otherwise." He swirled what remained in his glass, attempting to mix the cream at the bottom better. "Sable had her doubts you know, about the Exorcist thing. She has a hard time with you and that thing in her head all the time."

"Sable?" Uri blinked in confusion. The name sounded very familiar, and yet he could not think of a face to go with it.

"Your twin, idiot." Lloyd watched the expression of shock spread across Uri's face at that, and disbelief. It seemed that the middle child had forgotten he had a younger sister. Not surprising, considering the powers the Noah possessed could manipulate the mind in a number of ways. "Blond girl, short – I mean your height – big green eyes, scar on her forehead. She's got a hell of a habit of saying whatever is farthest from your mind…" As he spoke he watched recognition come onto his brother's face before he seemed to remember something else, something less pleasant.

"She… had doubts?"

Lloyd nodded. "I sometimes wonder what would have happened if she hadn't been born with that thing in her head. If she had just found it lying somewhere, picked it up, been able to put it down. Might have not decided to be _that_ kind of good."

"What are you saying?"

"Nothing. Just that you're both good, according to yourselves."

"What?" Uri was getting confused. Sable. That was the girl from the picture in his room. But how could have forgotten his sister?

"Never mind. You always failed at being a relativist anyways. So not the point." He quaffed what remained of his coffee, made a face at the superfluous amount of creamer at the bottom of his cup. He proceeded to twirl the mug by the handle on his finger as he spoke. "It's after dawn Uri, so tell me… why are you here?"

Uri sighed before he licked his lips and leaned back into the softness of his chair. This topic he understood. This topic made him want to smile. "I wanted know if maybe… you had seen an Exorcist by the name of Kanda Yuu."

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When he opened his eyes to the room he discovered that he had indeed not moved from the position he had taken up the night before. His right arm still lay across Allen's chest, his face was still the same distance from his neck – but it seemed that Allen had moved a little during the night. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, the eye that Kanda could see was open, and his ponytail was pushed sideways as if he had slid to either side a little during the night. Slowly, as if he did realize that Kanda was looking up he raised his left hand up and placed it gently across his left eye.

"Go back to sleep," He said quietly, closing his right eye. "It's too early for that."

"For what, Moyashi?"

"_Hwa_!" Allen leapt perhaps two feet off of the bed, twirling in mid air so that he landed on his left side, facing away from Kanda. He buried his face in the pillow, not looking at his lover. "N-nothing! I… th-thought you were sleeping." There was a hand on his shoulder pulling him up, but he would not let Kanda turn him as he spoke.

"Che, you were talking to yourself then, Moyashi?"

"S-sort of…" Allen said into his pillow. It wasn't a lie if he said it that way – being his words had not been intended for Kanda's ears.

It was the second morning he had been woken by the inability to close or ignore his left eye, and when he touched it there seemed to be glass protecting it from his fingers. It hurt him, and Kanda had only heard him speaking to it when he had been able to truly find his voice against the agony that was slowly taking over his senses. But if he told Kanda that, and let him see the strange contraption that his eye had become, what would he think? Worry would be the best course and disgust would be the worst, neither of which seemed like they would be the best start to a morning.

Kanda sat up and took Allen around the waste to pull him close, painfully aware that he was as stiff as a board against him. His chest pressed on the smaller boy's clothed back and his right arm circled around him until there was no where for him to go. His lover did not fight the embrace; instead he held his eye and stared straight onward, afraid that over compensating for the sudden contact would let the Japanese man see.

"I'm not stupid, Moyashi-kun." He said in Allen's right ear, shifting so that he was sitting more or less with the boy on his lap. "You were talking to your eye, weren't you?"

There was a moment of silence as Allen debated the consequences of lying. "Yes." He did not turn to the man behind him; he simply let the fingers of his right hand fall to the forearm that was reaching across his chest. "It…hurts sometimes…a lot like my arm does. It's been too long since I killed an akuma." His head fell slowly down as Kanda's hand took hold of his and gradually turned him around to face him.

"Let me see."

"No, you don't want to."

"Che, if it's actually hurt you are just going to sit there and let it get worse. You need me to be sure it's alright." Kanda said logically. It amazed Allen how sometimes Kanda could be so…nice. He didn't even seem bothered by any of it – he let his finger rest delicately on the red, almost scaly flesh of Allen's hand without even bating an elegant eyelash, so maybe he would be able to handle this as well.

When the hand was pulled away it hurt more for some reason, though Allen honestly couldn't say why.

Kanda's face did not change when the gear inscribed orb came into view, nor did he pull away when it rolled chaotically in its oversized socket, never focusing for more than a moment. Internally he was half concerned and half curious about this new development. Concerned because this was Allen and curious because of his own curse. But, despite both of those feelings, there was the overbearing desire to let his lover know that all was fine.

And as if to prove that he needed that reassurance, Allen's right eye refused to meet his gaze.

"Hm," Kanda said deep in his throat, and the sound of his voice made him look up ever so slightly. He had one eyebrow raised, the opposing eye squinted, and his lips pulled sideways in a very odd expression of thought – an expression that Lavi might have made if not for the eye patch.

"What?"

The older boy shrugged as he leaned closer, taking his hand from Allen's right arm to reach across and brush the hair out of his left eye. "It seems healthy enough." There was no mistaking the playful nature in his voice, "Though it looks at the back of your skull a bit much for my liking."

"It's looking through my skull not at it."

Another small shrug as he leaned forward as if to study it more closely, but instead his head went clear over Allen's shoulder and his arms encased him in an unexpected hug.

"Love?" Allen asked, unbelieving. Was this the worry he had expected?

"Baka, Moyashi," Kanda said into his hair, his throat vibrating against his shoulder. "You should tell me about these things so we can fix them."

"Fix them? How?"

He did not pull away to look at his face, he simply spoke to his neck. "By hunting."

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When morning came Tyki found himself in perhaps the most wonderful mood of his life. The night previous he had discarded his coat and shoes and simply slept with the apprentice Bookman between his arms, unsatisfied and yet completely content to be so. His mind insisted that none of this was a good idea and that he would be skinned alive for even smelling like Lavi, but he would not listen to that part of himself. Instead he traced the line of the boy's face with a two fingers, traveling over his eyebrows and down his cheek, across his lips and up the other side. He wanted to remember it forever, keep it in his mind even when the darkness inside him threatened.

And he knew that it would threaten.

"Hmm… that tickles…" Lavi sighed without looking. In answer Tyki rolled up on his side and kissed him lingeringly, closing his eyes as a hand came up to run along the back of his neck and up into his hair. When he pulled away the young man that was half beneath him smiled in the most carefree way imaginable, blinking up tiredly. "Good morning to you too, Ty-chan."

"Good morning," He tried to sound light but only managed to sound sure. "How does your head feel today, Lavi-san?"

The redhead tilted his chin up slightly so he could kiss Tyki again – he felt like a small child when he did that, though why that was he honestly could not say. "Better, I think, but we won't know until I try to walk somewhere." He pulled his right hand out of Tyki's hair so that he could press it against his forehead in feigned horror. "How awful it would be to be bedridden today! The day Lenalee and I are supposed to go looking for Innocence! What a tragedy!"

Tyki did not even blink at the mention of Innocence; he just took the hand from Lavi's forehead and kissed the fingers gently, held them against his mouth as he spoke softly. "Then I hope you cannot walk today, so I can spend the day in here with you."

"That's a twisted wish."

"I am still sadistic, even if I am not—"

"_Lavi!_" It was a girl's voice, directly outside of the door, and a hard knock followed the sound almost at once. He blanched at the sound, realizing with suddenness that he was indeed supposed to be hunting for Innocence and there was no way around it and here he was, with Tyki Mikk in his room, in his bed, kissing his fingers. That realization was almost enough to turn his blood to ice in his veins.

And Tyki just looked at him with a confused expression on his handsome face, stuck between sliding out the wall and clinging to his Exorcist for protection.

"Stay here," He said quietly, as he scooted his was to the edge of the bed and gently lowering his feet to the ground. It felt normal, which was good… and bad. "Sorry Lenalee! I locked it out of habit, I'll be right there." With that he wound his fingers around the bedpost and stood, trying to determine if crossing the furniture-free span of room between the bed and door was going to be a good idea or not. He would have to do it either way, head swimming or no.

When he took his first step the room threatened momentarily to turn upside down around him, but he managed to ignore that message and take another one, and another, and another until he was a mere two steps from the door. On the last one, just before his fingers could touch the knob, he fell, dizziness and gravity defeating determination. He had made it much farther than he would have been able to the day previous, he allowed that to lift his spirits, but it was hard to smile when his knees were plummeting unstoppably toward the ground. A short sound of surprise escaped him when an arm caught him before he hit, lifted him up and turned him enough to lean him against the door. He felt a flurry of desire run through him when the pair of hands moved to his shoulders and held him in place against the wooden frame.

'_You shouldn't have caught me_,' He mouthed the words at Tyki, who grinned down at him for a whole second before leaning down and gracing his lips across Lavi's neck, the urge to do so irrepressible. A tiny moan broke free of Lavi's lips and his head went back into the door with a soft thump.

"Are you alright?" It sounded like she was right behind him but she wasn't, there was a good two inches of wood minimum and then some air. He did not want to imagine what she was thinking about his sudden noises though.

"Fine! Fine…" He answered, taking Tyki by the wrists and pushing him back with a glare. He couldn't imagine the man's thought process to do something so dangerous now. "I…" He spoke as his hand was twisted away and his own wrists captured, pressed back beside his head again. "Just tripped is…all…" He couldn't speak normally with teeth and tongue exploring every inch of his throat, lips careening into his in what was quickly becoming an uncontrollable manner. He didn't even care that Tyki was holding his hands at bay. Didn't care that if Lenalee turned the knob at that moment, she would find two very friendly enemies in a compromising position.

Because it wasn't actually locked. _Shit_.

"Do you need help? Can you stand? Is it your head?" He could hear her asking questions but he couldn't open his mouth for fear of calling out in yearning. And with his hands held fast there was no way to simply reach down and lock the door to avoid her coming. It was impossible. If she reached, if he spoke, if Tyki did not stop caressing his skin with his mouth…

He could hear the knob turning; the unlocked mechanism making minute clinking sounds as it performed its function. He leaned as much as he could against the door, praying that maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to stop her.

Not that she could kick the door into pieces if she wanted.

Lenalee pushed at the door as she would any other, but found it impossible to move. After a moment she threw her shoulder into it, worry blossoming in her mind like a fresh spring flower, spreading until it was the only thing on her mind. Why wouldn't it open? It wasn't as if there was something holding it closed either, the door itself seemed too big for the frame.

"Lavi, the door is jammed."

He growled loud enough he was sure Lenalee and everyone else in the inn heard it. Tyki smiled and redoubled his efforts at the sound, amazed at how Lavi could fight him and accept him at once, almost as if he too were two sided. The boy had enough strength to push him away if he put his weight on the door, and yet he did not even try, and his friend was on the other side of that same portal, there if he wanted to call for help.

"I'll… be fine… Lenalee…" He gasped out, returning Tyki's kisses between words. "Just not… today…"

There was a sound like a stomp and a murmur of something like a curse before Lenalee spoke again. By then Tyki had dropped one of his hands, the wrong one for locking the door, and was touching the side of Lavi's face as his tongue tasted the inside of his mouth, Lavi's hand reached out and pulled the loose tie from the place at the other man's neck.

"Will you be alright in there until I get back? I can find someone to get the door moving on my way back from asking about the Innocence." And, despite the stomp and the cursing, her voice was calm.

"Yes!" Lavi's voice called back. Lenalee didn't have the slightest idea that Tyki had just hooked his left hand around the back of his thigh and pulled his leg up, and was now caressing the side of his neck with his opposing hand. The younger man swung his leg upward and Tyki stepped into him, effectively lifting him off of the floor, his shoulders against the door. After a half second that way his other foot came up and his legs locked behind Tyki's back.

Tyki could not stop himself from grinding his pelvis forward anymore than he could stop the breath in his lungs. He had only meant it to be that one, sweet, innocent kiss on the neck, that was it, all he wanted to give, but Lavi had to go and make that adorable noise like he was almost going to cry. A beautiful noise, a sound that he wanted to hear again and again. He was rewarded instead by a low, hungry sound of his own.

"I'll… be back later!" Lenalee called, smashing her fist on the door to be sure he heard. "If you yell loud enough someone is bound to hear you if something happens!"

"Bound… to hear… go it!" Lavi had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from making anymore verbalized sound. His head was tilting back against the door as he shivered like a leaf, the hand on his thigh sliding up to hold his bottom more firmly.

And, despite his distraction, he still heard the soft sound of her boots retreating down the hall.

_He must be really tired,_ She thought as she turned the corner into the main lobby. _Otherwise he would have at least bothered with complete sentences._

"Ty-chan," Lavi breathed when the older man slammed against him again and a hot mouth pressed against his neck. "Bed, Ty-chan?"

Tyki shook his head but took a short step back to let Lavi's legs come back to the floor. "Pointless, we will not be doing _that_."

"Oh?" Lavi asked looping his finger's in the man's belt loops. "Why not?"

The other man kissed him deeply, touching the side of his face with one hand, touching his chest and stomach with the other. Lavi's fingers curled in his clothes at the feeling. "Because right now, with you, I will lose myself." He said the words with his lips less than a hair's breadth from Lavi's, his dark eyes focused solely on that one, large emerald that stared at him as if it had never seen a person before. As he watched it tiny tears gathered in the corner, diamond dust that he wiped gently away with his finger. "What is wrong, Lavi-san?"

The redhead blinked repeatedly, his hands clenched yet harder on the man in them. He did not have the right words to say what he meant. "I don't know," He said honestly. His gaze flicked from Tyki's left eye to his right eye and back again, seeming to search for something he could not find. "It's like… part of me hurts because you are afraid to hurt me."

"What?"

"I'm not worth it. I'm supposed to be a Bookman. I'm supposed to be heartless. I'm supposed to see the world as ink on paper. And yet…" He was trembling, the tears flowing faster than Tyki could catch them. "When you say that, when you look at me with your eyes so concerned, I know I'm not talking myself into feeling. I don't know _what_ I'm feeling, but it's not a lie." His head went downward and his hands moved up under Tyki's arms to rest on his back and shoulders. "And it…hurts…"

Tyki's eyes half closed themselves as his hand came up into the boy's hair, his face turning slightly sideways as it lay across it as well. "I am sorry," He said quietly. "Even when I try not to cause you pain, I still do." The ribs against his right hand shuddered as Lavi sobbed into him. _I would take it on myself if I could._

"It doesn't make any sense. You don't want to hurt me, so I feel this…burning pain in me. And it's just so much feeling that it's like pain…" The boy against him made a sick sound that was half a laugh and half something else. "But I'll be fine," He sniffed. "I'm a masochist, remember?"

The corners of Tyki's mouth turned up at the edges, but he did not try to end the embrace. "_Baka_."

"Though…" Lavi said softly, slowly winning against the tears that racked him. "I've utterly destroyed the moment haven't I?"

"That is correct," The arm at his back pulled him close and he let his eye close, Tyki's scent, his essence permeating through him like an intoxicating perfume. "There will always be another moment, Lavi-san. Until the last."

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"You want to _what_?" It seemed like every time Kanda and Allen came to see Komui, their requests were getting odder. It was starting to become disturbing. This time though Allen was waiting out in the hall, refusing to come in, while Kanda stood before Komui and plead (yelled, screamed, and demanded) his case. "You just want to go wander the world looking for akuma?"

Kanda's already narrowed eyes narrowed once more; his hand gripped the word at his side as if he wished it were Komui's neck. "Che, we're not stupid. Allen—" He actually said his name when he wasn't in the room—"Believes that there are akuma east of her. We simply wish to have leave to go in that direction in search of them."

"Because Walker has a feeling?"

"Yes."

The head of the science department had a little trouble comprehending what exactly was going on, but Kanda looked worried. Kanda Yuu, worried. And he was worried enough for Komui to notice. Knowing himself to be less-than-observant at this sort of thing was what made him wonder if maybe, just maybe, letting them go would be a good idea.

"I have the sinking feeling that if I try to keep you two here I will fail."

Kanda graced him with a sad, twisted smirk. "Che, it's not that bad yet, but if he collapses again you won't be able to stop me."

That was blunter than Komui had expected. He let his face fall, his glasses slid to the edge of his nose and hung there for a moment, completely ignored for the sake of looking at the now fuzzy-blob that was Kanda. "In that case I give you leave. But you are to call every two days to let me hear of your progress. I shall mark this as an experiment into the… nature of Allen's curse. Seems like a good enough excuse, right?"

Without thinking about it Kanda nodded. "Just so long as we get to go it is fine."

"Well then," Komui sighed, pushed his glasses back up on his nose. "You may go whenever you are ready. Oh, and one more thing," He called when the Japanese man was nearly to the door. "Take Sable with you."

Without a word of argument, Kanda turned again and left.

_Good,_ Kanda thought when he was out in the hall, and the tired, slumping, pale, eye-patch wearing Moyashi came into view. _Now we can go get him better and get rid of that damn eye-patch he's wearing. It makes him look far too much like a stupid rabbit-brat I know for me to feel comfortable molesting him._

_Molesting him?_ His mind questioned the wording. _Damn it Yuu, trying to be a good boyfriend… husband… and all you can think about is molestation. I am a horrible person._

"Love? Why do you look so glum?" Allen asked when he was close enough. "Can we go?"

He nodded as he placed his arm across his lover's shoulders. "Che, I'm not glum, I'm…" _Not going to finish that sentence_.

"Making that face like you've noticed that you haven't been… _semeish_ in more than a week."

"Yes." _Crap._ He narrowed his eyes at the pale boy under his arm, who just blushed like an innocent, clueless virgin. "If you keep blushing at me like that I'm going to break my good record."

Allen chuckled at him; let himself lean a little more heavily. "Hmm… maybe we should go pack before we get Sable. Maybe shower too. Perhaps do a little something to cheer you up."

"For the sake of your health I am going to pretend I didn't hear that."

"Kaaandaaa…"

"Nor will I listen if you whine at me."

Allen gave up on being subtle. Yes, he was hurting, yes, he was feeling gross, but that was _not_ a good reason to avoid intimate relations with the man he loved. So his right hand, which had found its way around Kanda's back, sank lower and lower and lower on his body until the samurai was looking at him as if he were insane. Then, while Kanda was looking completely dumbfounded, he let his hand slowly slide into his back pocket and give a tiny, teasing squeeze.

"You're so going to get it when we get back to our room."

"I'm so worried."

"Che, you remember Christmas? It was just the tip of the iceberg."

Allen grinned out of the side of his mouth even as he feigned fear. "Oh, I already feel sore just thinking about it…" He squeezed again. Kanda started walking faster.

_Oh Love,_ Allen thought but would never say allowed. _If I weren't the seme, we'd never get each other done._

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**And the morning is over! I hope you liked it (don't I always hope you like it?)! Thanks to everyone who reads! And everyone who reviews! They make me feel much more satisfied than I would be without them **

**And now an odd, nooblet question: Why is it called Lucky? No matter how I think of it, the closest you can get to Lucky is Raki or Laki, which could be re-Anglicanismed into Lucky by someone with an amazing accent. Is that what happened? Does anyone know? Why isn't it Tyvi – because it sounds like TV? Please let me know your theory!**


	38. If

**Good afternoon! Part of me says that this is the wrong time to be posting this, just because it isn't 2:30 AM on a Monday. Doesn't that seem odd? Hmm… I wonder if other people write all of their fics in the wee hours of the morn.**

**Anyhoo! Here ya go Yullen fans! I must once again apologize for what I believe to be epic failure. I am sorry.**

**Disclaimer of D-failure: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the Biblical references would be slightly more obvious. Because as they are, you can seriously overanalyze yourself into stitches before you know **_**why**_** they did it.**

**WARNING: YAOI! More man-on-man! If the thought of two men kissing makes you sick, you SERIOUSLY do NOT want READ this FIC. Why you're on chapter 38 and haven't figured this out yet though is BEYOND me.**

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If

When they were back in their room he gave time for them to discard their boots before he followed through on his promise, grinning from ear to ear when his younger lover seemed enthusiastic and even healthy. To start he simply pulled at Allen's shirt, sliding it out of his pants as he leaned down to kiss him, brutally aware that the right hand in his pants pocket was not joined by a left. Instead it snaked its way out of that tight place and traveled the distance to his coat buttons, which it picked at in an attempt to undo them.

Kanda had other plans though, which seemed to be how things were when he was leading. He kissed Allen deeply, pulling him closer, standing before the bed but not falling into it. He held them together like that until the fingers on his jacket fell slowly to his belt instead, the buttons there already unfastened.

He took Allen's temporary eye-patch between his teeth and pulled it off in a swift motion. The gear was gone for the time being, by there was no guarantee it would not be back. Honestly he would rather have watch it rolling around chaotically than been thinking of his other eye-patch wearing friend.

"Love…" Allen breathed when the Japanese man's left hand was pulling his hips forward and his right was skillfully gliding through his shirt buttons like they weren't even there. The desire running through him was like a painkiller, dulling the agony in his arm and eye, but hyper sensitizing him to the fingers on his chest, the lips kissing the side of his mouth. He felt himself teetering back and forth on a foot that should have been steady, overcompensated and collapsed into Kanda, shaking uncontrollably.

"Are you alright?" Kanda asked as he held him up. Allen was breathing hard, sweat already covering his forehead. To Kanda it looked as if the boy were on the verge of fainting.

Swallowing hard, Allen nodded. What was wrong with him he could not say, but he could guess it had something to do with a lack of sleep and senses that were looking for incongruities. It was as if a touch he did not expect was felt beyond feeling, analyzed for akuma essence, and then forgotten. The results were dizzying. "Sorry, I'm just a little tired." He leaned the short distance between them to kiss Kanda softly on the lips, more to reassure him than anything else. "I'll be fine."

His lover kissed him back with equal tenderness, slowly moved his lips to the sensitive place beneath Allen's ear. A tiny nibble and he was falling again. "If it's too much for you," He said gently before running his tongue over the skin of his neck. "I don't mind waiting." Kanda knew that he was half-lying to both of them. He could wait, but he minded. He minded lots. More than he would have liked to have minded. He was keenly aware that if Allen was not against it and deemed himself healthy enough to go through with everything Kanda wanted, he would undoubtedly keep him from sleeping the rest of the day, which seemed like a horrible idea under the circumstances.

"I'll be fine." Allen repeated, allowing himself to fall in his lover's general direction. "You don't have to wait."

_Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea_… The logical, not lust crazed portion of Kanda's mind chanted over and over. It was a very small portion though, and it was easily brushed aside with a touch of Allen's hand. So, taking that to be as close to a proper '_yes, have at it'_ as he was going to get, he turned sideways, patting Allen's hands away so he could pick him up easily, bridal-style, and lay him on the covers of the bed like a delicate, breakable treasure. The pair of wide silver eyes that stared up at him blinked as if they had not expected that, and the hand that touched the side of his face lingered there with an uncertainty that made him want to ask again if Allen was well enough for this. He didn't though, knowing that the answer would be the same.

"I'm not made of glass, Love." He said, drawing himself up to once again kiss the terrified looking Japanese man above him. "My arm is going to hurt if we do this or not, so let's."

Kanda laughed at him, bent down so that his weight was on his right hand and his left in Allen's hair. "I've been very stupid, haven't I?"

"A true _bakayarou._" Allen nodded. Kanda narrowed his eyes at him.

"Che, that's rude of you."

"As rude as nibbling your ear, licking your neck, putting you on a bed, and then taking the time to call myself stupid?" As he spoke he managed to get the last button of Kanda's jacket free with his protesting left hand. He pushed the material back with his right, sliding it slowly off of the bare shoulder underneath. Without speaking he mulled over the fact that Kanda didn't have a shirt under it, almost as if he had indeed expected this to happen today. _Maybe I'm not as much of a seducer as I think I am…_

Kanda smiled wickedly from the corner of his mouth, took a hold of Allen's open shirt and moved it down his arm, nearly off. "Yes," He lowered his lips to a newly exposed nipple. "Much ruder."

He did not fight the urge to let his hands wander through Kanda's hair and down his back, completely removing his garment when his lover moved his arms to allow him. There was something different this time about having Kanda on top of him, letting him touch what he wanted without telling him to move his hands. There was a freedom to it that reminded him of the time in Sweden when he had leaned over the older boy and kissed him, thinking that the action would be his last on Earth.

"I love you, Kanda Yuu." He said unthinkingly. The memory of it and the soft caress of hair against his face made the words as easily said as breathing.

Kanda pulled away long enough to look down at his eyes, run a finger down the side of his face. "I love you also, Allen Walker."

Allen giggled.

He spent a long time trying to ignore the sensations Kanda was causing on his neck and chest, the burning of his ears when teeth closed gently around the top of one. Instead he tried to count Kanda's ribs, taste the difference between his shoulder and his neck, and find the place that would render his lover incapable of thinking him frail. It was hard work, with yearning growing tight in his pants, but he managed to count six on each side before Kanda let out a snorting laugh that ruined his kiss. Allen pressed the rib again and the man above him reproduced the sound exactly, attempted to push himself away.

"Does that tickle, Kanda?" He asked in a jesting voice.

"If you make this into a war, I'll kill you, tickle you until you can't breath, and rape you." He was smirking though, if that said anything about his seriousness.

"In that order?"

"Che, shut up." He covered Allen's lips with his own, pressing him back into the pillows as his hand at last slid to his lover's pants. _If I weren't the seme,_ He thought with an internal grin, _we'd never get each other done._

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"Gray? Gray isn't a color!" Lavi said surely.

"It is too a color. It is the shade made with equal amounts of black and white."

He shook his head. "That's like saying your favorite food is salt – it can't be your favorite because it isn't really a food."

Tyki shrugged, folded his arms almost like an annoyed child. "If I had to pick a different color I would say dark, Tyrian purple. Does that qualify in your world were gray is nothing but a shade?"

He smiled and nodded, making a serious mental note of this new bit of knowledge. Since he had stopped crying his inborn curiosity had taken over, and it refused to be slackened no matter how much he learned about the twenty-six-year-old man commonly known as Tyki Mikk. He felt that until he understood his thoughts, his reasons, his philosophy on life, his understanding of emotions, and his favorite things, he wouldn't truly be able to understand what this new emotion was.

It was still there, in the pit of his stomach and the middle of his chest bone, carving out his insides like a knife, making him feel it. There was no physical pain really, but if there had been he would have said that those were the places it hurt him, not that _hurt_ described the sensation either. He longed for something, something he had never known, and the knowledge that he would feel incomplete without it made him thirst for something to fill it with. So he sought to learn all he could from the man that made him feel so empty and yet so full, even if every question and ever answer made him realize how futile the effort was. He wouldn't give up though. He wouldn't just decide that the burning emptiness was going to stay. If knowledge wasn't the answer to his problem something else having to do with Tyki was.

A hand came down on top of his head and gave a little pat, breaking his reverie. The older man smiled down at him toothlessly, making his eyes into half-hooded smiles of their own.

Lavi shifted on the bed. The two were sitting next to each other, Tyki leaning against the wall, Lavi by his knee hunched forward. Neither of them even thought to question how comfortable it was to be that way.

"What?" He asked at the hand on his head.

"Nothing," Tyki answered as his fingers slid through Lavi's hair ever so slowly. "I just felt like touching you."

He couldn't help but let out a small laugh. He sat up straighter so he could lean on the older man's chest and ignore the surprised sound that came from his lips. When his bare skin was touching the half-open dress shirt of the Noah, he almost felt more full than empty. Almost. "If you feel like touching something other than my hair, feel free to." He was grinning up at the man, his hands splayed out across his shoulders as he brought himself up to sit on his left leg. He was moderately surprised when a strong arm wrapped around his hips and the hand on his head fell to his shoulder.

"If I did not know better I would think that you are trying to make me touch you," Tyki observed, leaning very close to the young man in his arms. "Why is that?"

"Because I like it when you touch me." He answered without pause.

"I told you that I will lose myself, Lavi-san." He brushed the hair from the boy's eye, kissed him shortly. "Neither of us wants that to happen."

Lavi sighed and incline into him more, glad to have the pair of arms wrapping around his back like protective barriers. "I know but… Is it… silly of me…to feel that I want to give you pleasure and make you smile and hear you…" He stopped, unwilling to finish the sentence because he was blushing. "Never mind, I know it's silly."

Tyki scoffed at him, lowered his face so that he was speaking to Lavi's eyes. "Hear me call out your name, Lavi-san?" He finished. The head against his chest attempted to bore a hole through him and hide in the folds of his shirt.

"Yes." His voice was small and embarrassed. It made Tyki grin.

"No it isn't silly. But maybe," He leaned down a little more, drew his lips over the apprentice Bookman's until he felt a tiny, shy response. "We can try something different…"

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Allen found that once again, pants were the root of all evil. In an attempt to kick his off he had managed to tangle his ankles terribly, which made paying attention to his and Kanda's movements more difficult. All he wanted to do was kick them off his feet and be done with it, but a rather annoyingly placed Kanda knee was stopping him. After a while he gave up on them altogether and just tried to pretend they weren't cutting off the circulation to his toes.

Which, to his surprise, was easier than he had imagined.

Kanda was kissing his lips, his chin, his neck and his chest, moving in a progressive line down the center of his body as he touched the sides of his face with his hands. He could ignore them fine with Kanda's tongue sliding into his navel and around it before traveling yet lower.

He heard himself moan at the light kisses, shake at the fingers that wrapped strongly around his hips and slid him up on the bed a little. His fingers twined in his lover's hair when a pair of gentle lips closed on the top of his erection, moving down as a hand moved to join it. Kanda had never done this to him, and vaguely Allen wondered if he knew how to flick his tongue and move his hand because he had learned from experience or because some all-knowing redhead had told him. He decided not to wonder. It would ruin the moment.

Allen was making all sorts of little whimpers that filled Kanda with satisfaction, Allen's back arched away from the mattress and his fingers twisted almost painfully in Kanda's hair. It was made only more pleasant by the realization that these were Allen's own techniques being used on him – like the rhythmical hand, the sudden appearance of a palm beneath him, a light suction that would not be enough to give him release unless he bucked his hips to make it so. It was enough to make him whisper his lover's name repeatedly as his body took up the movement of its own accord.

And for some reason, even though Kanda knew that going further and then stopping would be like agony for his lover, but he couldn't stop until he was moving to release himself, his mouth open and his eyes closed, as if he were silently praying to heaven.

There was a fumbling moment when he reached out to get the nearly empty bottle of oil from the nightstand. He aimed to remove his mouth from its work only when he took his lover fully, so he focused on multitasking as he pulled the cork out of the bottle and poured what remained of its contents into his palm and then onto himself. He had to swirl his finger in the neck of the bottom to coat it enough before at last moving his mouth away from its place and sliding his finger suddenly into Allen. The British boy made a loud gasping sound as his fingers clamped down on the back of Kanda's neck, pulling his face up into a noisy kiss. Allen's experiences in such things might have been few, but he knew that the amount of enjoyment he was getting was no common experience. He did not feel the urge to tell Kanda what he wanted nor did he want to reach down and give himself the pleasure he hoped for. There was nothing but the sudden realization that maybe it was this good because it was always meant to be.

Always. Even when they had hated each other.

Kanda waited until Allen was arching into his palm again before he withdrew his finger in favor of a more sensitive member. He made a low moaning sound when Allen moved into his touch, swallowing him in a dark passion that filled him to brimming, drove his hips forward in a motion that made his slighter lover gasp his approval. The hands that had been on his neck moved one to his head and the other to his back, acted as anchors to lift Allen's small body to him with every thrust. He could see the ecstasy on Allen's face, the pure acceptance, and the expression drove him to unleash all of desires in a single ardent act. He captured Allen's mouth with his, trying to remember how it was that he had kissed the younger boy that day in Sweden that had made him drop his suitcase – but even as he recalled how it was done Allen reached the panicle of pleasure and plummet over the edge, his mouth opening to allow Kanda's tongue entrance.

Two more sift motions and he came as well, collapsed onto his lover as their lips parted. He looked to Allen's face to see his reaction and found his silver eyes shining with afterglow, his pale cheeks pink like cherry blossoms. A tiny drop of spittle shined at the corner of his lips, perhaps the only thing to make his face imperfect.

"Kanda," He said with a slow blink at the dark haired man leaning on his chest.

"Hm?"

He lifted his hand put it softly on his lover's head. "Next time I tell you I'm too tired or I don't want to or I'm sore or I give you some obviously lame excuse for not letting you do this to me, remind me of this time. And do it anyway." He said each word seriously, without even thinking about the repercussions, before giving a tiny little smile that might have been perfectly innocent.

"As tempting as it is to take up that instruction," Kanda smiled lopsidedly from behind his vale of hair. "I think I like you more rested, fed, and bathed."

"Huh?"

Kanda laughed and the vibration moved through Allen's chest also. "Che, never mind. All you need to know is that your husband is a dirty pervert."

"Husband, heehee…" Allen giggled, his blush deepening. "I'm the only man alive who can get away with calling you hubby, eh?"

Kanda scowled at him – making him giggle harder – before he pushed himself up, dragging his hair across Allen's face purposely. "Sure, you can call me that so I can call you wifey."

"Ha!" Allen feigned. "I think I'll stick with calling you Love."

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Lavi glowered at his cards, fully aware that he was going to lose, again. There was no avoiding it. Not even a pair. And Tyki was just grinning like a madman, cigarette dangling from his tan lips, dress shirt still half undone, legs folded up with his knees parted. He had already played Lavi out of his jacket, shirt, shoes, socks, headband, and gloves. He now sat in nothing but his pants, fully aware that he did not ware underwear beneath them.

_I should start_, He thought with an eyebrow twitch. _Otherwise…otherwise…well, I guess I'll like it._

"Give me four." He said with a hard swallow. Tyki smiled at him easily and gave him the number he asked for, which improved his standing to a pair of threes.

"Nothing left but for me to call," Tyki shrugged.

"Hey! I could raise if I wanted to!"

He scoffed. "No you can't, you only have one garment. You can't bet two."

Lavi's face fell, his head sinking behind his card. "Oh… right." He put his cards down so that his pathetic hand showed face up. "A very sad, depressed pair of threes."

Tyki laughed at him and laid down his cards. "Four of a kind. Off with them."

"This is hardly fair. You started half dressed and now I'm going to be naked." Lavi pouted, placing his hands on the clasp of his pants as if to hold it closed. He was blushing, which was ridiculous considering everything the two of them had been through. The older man smiled at him from across the bed, pushed his cards ever so slowly to the side as his gaze fell first to the comforter and then to Lavi's hands.

"Should I take this to mean you are flatly refusing to take off those pants, Lavi-san?" He asked gently, trying to look casual as he extinguished his cigarette.

For a moment Lavi blinked at him, trying to guess what his reaction would be to say a positive. "Yes?"

In an instant Tyki launched himself at the younger man, sailing across the bed and behind him faster than he could even follow with his eyes. It took less than a second for him to have his right hand under Lavi's right arm, his fingers at his neck, his other hand placed delicately on the five fingers that his motion had not ripped from his pants. For a moment Lavi was motionless in his grasp, seeming to shake as if he feared being broken beneath Tyki's touch.

"Is something wrong, Lavi-san?" He asked in a soft whisper. He could feel the pulse of Lavi's heart against his right hand, pounding at an astoundingly fast pace, began to stroke the skin there. "Have a frightened you?"

The apprentice Bookman took a moment to relax into his touch, move his right hand to Tyki's. He took another moment to turn just enough for him too look up and back at the man that held him, his eye caught the sly and yet friendly smile on Tyki's face, the gleam in his eyes. Like that he could forget the stigmata on his forehead, forget what they had started as, forget that only a half second prior his mind had threatened to mark this man as an enemy once more. He was just Tyki like that, Ty-chan, and Lavi felt that he could trust him absolutely.

He leaned back yet farther, and gently lifted his chin to kiss him. The contact was gentle, reminding him vaguely of the touch of a flower petal, yet it still incited the burning in his heart, a slight trembling in his fingers. Unnoticed, the first button of his pants came undone. He broke off and stared at the man above him and the satisfied smile he wore.

"You cheated, didn't you?" He accused quietly.

"Of course I did." Tyki said as if this was a well known fact. "I can't expect you to control yourself if I'm sitting across from you in my skivvies."

Lavi made a short sound of dissatisfaction before leaning in again, this time more strongly. "You're stupid to…" He said before returning to kissing. "Think…I can control…myself if you're… fully clothed."

The older man dominated the kiss while his left hand continued playfully unfastening buttons; his right hand was captured in a smaller, thinner grasp. Even if he did not yet trust himself to partake of the pleasure, he could very well give the young man in his arms something to dream about aside from horror. A tiny, annoying part of him wanted to just forget his dark side entirely and just see what happened, but he knew such thoughts would lead to all sorts of problems – like if it worked and the Millennium Earl discovered his knew obsession. There would be only one thing to do if that happened. One thing that was almost as likely to kill him as the Earl was.

But none of it mattered. At that moment, there were no more buttons but his own.

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**Ah Tyki, if you make this two smutty chapters in a row, I'll kick you.**

**If you are wondering about the title, it's because in both of these situation there's a lot of 'if' thinking, so it's not really anything big, just me making note of a theme. I could call it 'Seme thoughts number two' but that seemed ridiculous.**

**Thank you everyone! Readers, reviewers, people who shared with me your thoughts on the name 'Lucky'! You all make me smile :)**


	39. Arrangements

**Ooh, it's later this time! Though still not the usual wee hours of the day.**

**I must warn you, I won't be updating quite as often from here on out, being classes start again tomorrow. I'm taking 18 units, so my time will be very short. I will write though, even if I have to scribble it out on my psych notes and then write it in the library between classes – I WILL WRITE!**

**Ehem. I am sorry that this chapter lacks smut/interest/serious plot movement/ fluff. It's just a chapter. I am sorry.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I think there would be fewer action scenes. Or maybe just a different kind of action, ne? ;)**

**WARNING: Slight yaoi. Might even just call it Boys' Love. You don't like a man and a man together, LEAVE.**

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Arrangements

"Someone please remind me why we are _walking_ across Europe when there is a _train line_ less than a half mile to our left!" Sable was glaring at the two of them as they walked, her hair done in two braids for a change, a rather thick swath of bandage over her forehead. She had been indigent since the three of them left, though her outbursts of frustration had only become more common in the past few minutes. They had been traveling for perhaps an hour – not even long enough to completely get them out of London.

"If we're on the train and I see an akuma there is very little I can do about it," Allen tried to smile at her despite her glare. "And walking shouldn't hurt, you know."

"Yeah, you only say that because you're riding Kanda."

The innuendo was not lost on him. The samurai had him hefted up on his back, somehow holding both suitcases and Allen without making him do more than a little with his arms. He _was_ riding Kanda. Not that he road Kanda almost every other night it seemed. But that was a different kind of riding. And just thinking about it made coming back with a witty snip at Sable practically impossible, so instead he lowered his head into his lover's hair and closed his eyes.

"Che, don't fall asleep, Moyashi." Kanda jiggled him.

"I won't."

Ten minutes later a light snore lilted from the white haired boy, which only made Sable giggle. The face Kanda made was half-murderous and half-grateful, his thoughts where very far away from doing anything unpleasant, though she could pick up something about a belt and honey and a serious lack of massage oil. She was stuck between smiling at it and feeling glum, but elected to smile. They were happy for the most part – seriously horny, but still happy – and she could have pride in having something to do with that. Even if it hurt a little.

Kanda was not one to say anything about that smile, or notice that her pace was little more enthusiastic, but he would silently take note of them and pretend not to see. In some ways, like her silence, Sable reminded him of Lenalee, though with a far more sarcastic nature and fewer tearful emotional responses. She was that type that if there was something she wanted to talk about she would out and say it.

But she didn't. Instead she turned back to the cobblestone way, as if meditating on her abnormally small feet.

Perhaps two minutes later Allen's arms had stopped holding on entirely so that only his dead weight kept him from falling. Kanda figured that he was exhausted. First trying to ignore his rebelling arm, then his rebelling eye, and then the work of satisfying his lover, and then walking a good half hour before he gave him to be carried – it would make nearly anyone sleepy. Kanda thought to himself that they would need to feed him extra on the trip, to be sure that nothing bad happened like on the _Lady Eloquence_. Upon reflection that wasn't the best wording. _Feeding_ made it sound far less important.

"He occupies a lot of your thoughts, huh?" Sable asked without looking at him. Her two braids poked like long strings from beneath her black hat. In Kanda's opinion there was no reason to wear it with the sun shining coldly overhead, but she seemed content with it regardless.

"Che, most of them." He answered, returning his eyes to the path.

"It seems kind of unfair doesn't it? That even though you think about him that much and spend every waking moment by his side there is still someone out there would who tear you apart without a second thought." As she spoke her eyes move progressively into the distance, seeming to see something in the snow colored landscape that he missed. "I mean, in the long run it kind of strikes me as pointless. Love, hate, desire, family – none of it matters if one person decides to kill someone."

"It will matter when I'm there to protect him."

She gave a small, sad smile, the kind that reminded him of his younger years before he had become as cold as he was now. "But if you're not there, your love isn't going to make a magical barrier and protect him from the evils of the world. Doesn't that seem wrong? It seems wrong to me," As she spoke she kicked at a discarded, dirty snowball and sent it spraying into the wind. It seemed to amuse her. "Some poetic part of me wants to think that it's something that can bring the dead back to life and turn the evil good and stop blades before they can cut people."

He was quiet, very quiet, trying to understand what she meant.

"I want to believe that thoughts are things like that." She turned to him then, walking backward, her emerald eyes curious like a young girls. She seemed a lot like Lavi with that expression. And the scarf around her neck did not help the image. "Do you know what I mean?"

Slowly he nodded. "Anyone who has loved another person would." His words made her visibly brighten.

"So that's what it is…" She away again, closing her eyes because she knew where her feet were going. _He's feeling love._

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"Ah, Ty-chan…" The name was like a broken wind on his lips, and for once he knew that he was saying it because he honestly wanted to. And he wanted to say it again a thousand times over so long as the man that held him never let go. The hand that had unfastened the buttons of his pants had sense slid down to hold him firmly with none of the prior teasing. He felt at once that he wanted it there, that he was willing, that if Tyki would have him he always would be. The not-pain in his chest was even more intense than normal, and he felt that with every moment that passed the sensation was growing stronger. He had his left hand on Tyki's face, his pants forgotten, as he pulled himself up into a slow and yet hungry kiss. _I really am a masochist,_ He thought when he felt himself shiver under Tyki's touch, _Because I like the pain from feeling this._

"Your eye is tearing again, Lavi-san." Tyki whispered gently.

The apprentice laughed. "I'm fine, I just…"

"Hurt?"

"Well, no." He didn't take his eye from Tyki's when he spoke. "I just feel…warm and happy. And I want to touch you. Even though I want to cry at the feeling, I still want to be with you. So, if you can just ignore my tears that would be great!" When he said the last part a wide, childish grin spread across his face, but it was betrayed by the line of silver running down his cheek. "Pretend I'm a leaky faucet or something."

Tyki smiled at him softly. "If you are a faucet the plumbing in the basement needs reworking."

"What?" Before Lavi had time to look confused he bent down and caressed the delicate skin of his neck with his lips, moved his hand to remind him of his presence. The air in Lavi's windpipe caught suddenly at the touch, yet he did not pull away nor did he ask for it to be stopped. The hand on Tyki's face instead traveled the distance to the back of his head; proceeded to pull him closer. "Are you going to tease me this time?" Lavi mumbled when he thought he had breath. The fingers against him played up and down, encouraging the hardness that had grown there at a pace that actually wasn't driving him insane. The lips on the side of his neck were interrupted by the sudden appearance of tongue on the shell of his ear, tracing a smooth line around the curve of it.

"No, Lavi-san," He said so that his mouth was pressed against the place he had just licked. "I will stop if you ask me to."

The boy moaned as his back arched into the still polite touch against him, "N-no. Please, don't stop."

_When you say it like that,_ Tyki thought as his right hand slid down to meet his left. _It almost hurts me_.

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"Moyashi."

There was something warm against his face, something else holding the side of his shoulder.

"Moyashi!"

But it was dark. Why was it dark? It had been day only a moment ago.

"Open your damn eyes, Moyahi!" Kanda gave him a little shake that brought his tired pair of silver eyes open, his lips parted ever so slightly with the motion. The Japanese man's face washed with relief as he leaned down and took the British boy in his arms, pulling him into an unexpected embrace. "_Baka moyashi, _what the hell were you thinking?! Why on Earth would you do something like that?! Trying to give me a fucking heart attack?!" He demanded it all with his right arm around the back of Allen's neck, crushing his face on his shoulder. The surprised boy in his arms made an odd choking sound until he was freed again. Allen slowly realized that he was lying on a bench on the outskirts of the city, his head pillowed on Kanda's jacket. Sable wasn't in sight.

"What happened?"

"What happened?! You had a Goddamn suicide wish, that's what happened!" Kanda stood up from where he had been kneeling on the cobblestones, his voice lifted well beyond a polite level. He mumbled something foul in Japanese, turned away, turned back, turned away again, and at last came back to Allen, his face flushed. "You _cannot_ do things like that in the shape you're in. You're body can't take it. You might want to and that thing on your face might want to, but you just _can't._"

_He's angry and… really worried._ Allen realized. He didn't remember anything. The last he knew Kanda had told him not to fall asleep, after that everything was black and few snippets of dream-Kanda and a bottle of honey. He searched his mind, looking for something dangerous, trying to remember what it was that he didn't have a memory of, but he had nothing, not even an inkling, of what had transpired.

"Love…" His voice still sounded tired.

"What?" And his still sounded angry.

"I… honestly don't know what happened. The last I remember was you telling me not to fall asleep." He pushed himself up on the bench into a sitting position and he was amazed when his left arm didn't hate him for it. "I'm sorry about whatever it was, so can you tell me?"

His lover was shaking all over. "How can you not remember?" But his voice was eerily calm. "You killed twelve akuma, nearly got shot in the shoulder, and ran away from me when I caught up."

"Caught up?"

"Che! Yes! You pushed yourself off of me and headed off to kill things. After your eye woke you up."

"Woke me up?"

Kanda stopped. "You didn't wake up?"

Allen blinked at him. "I was sleeping?"

Kanda had never felt so astoundingly husband-like in all his life. He had just yelled at Allen for getting in harms way, hugged him while he yelled, and now he was ready to just hold him close and keep him safe forever. He did not pause to give in to that desire, even if they were two men on a less-than-busy street and the passersby would think he was a woman. It was worth it if he could apologize to the boy he loved more than anything in the world.

"You're looking at me like I kicked a puppy." Allen observed. And it was true; Kanda was looking at him with the expression he meant to direct at himself.

"I'm…sorry." He said softly. "For yelling."

Allen yawned at him hugely, swung his legs down and patted the bench beside him. "It's ok; I would have done the same in your place."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. I like yelling at you, not that you didn't know that from the first year of our… knowing the other existed."

Kanda laughed. "You seem more yourself now." He lowered himself to the bench on Allen's right side, just close enough for him to feel Allen's presence there. "Which is good, so long as you don't go running off like that again," As he spoke the older boy inclined toward the younger, reached up and took the blue ribbon around his neck in his hand. "Might have to get you a leash if you do."

Allen tried not to blush, failed, and so gave up and gave Kanda a tiny, fleeting kiss. "Would I have to call you master?"

"Oh – my – dear – innocent – eyes!" Sable feigned, holding a brown paper sack up over her eyes before leaning almost at once around it too look at them. "I'm kidding; it's _hot_. I got the things you asked for a few extra." She smiled offering the bag to Kanda. He took it by the top and pulled it into his lap, fished inside with his hand. After a moment his hand came out with a wrapped pastry and a bottle of water, both of which he handed to Allen.

"There's a bakery down the way and a couple other shops in there area. Kanda-san figured you'd hungry when you came around, so I went back to get you something." Sable explained. "There should be a few more in there… I only ate four coming back." And that, somehow, made her smile.

"Oh yay!" Allen enthused, unwrapping his pastry and proceeding to inhale it. Between killing akuma, having Kanda carry him, and now having a small, head-sized, snack, he was having and wonderful day. Kanda watched him with a look of half-disgust and half-amazement at he chewed. Allen knew that he tasted the not-too-sweet flavor and that he took time to appreciate the flakey, soft texture. It just seemed that no one else did. When it was gone he was very happy to have the water, but his actions came to a shrieking halt when he cracked the seal, a distinctly not-watery scent permeating the air around them. Allen blinked at the bottle of clear liquid before blinking at Kanda, then slowly, _very_ slowly, turning to Sable. She blinked back at them as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"What? You both had lube—"

"Che!"

"We should go!" Allen recapped the bottle as if it contained a microscopic virus that would kill them all before he shoved it back into the bag.

She sighed, bringer her palm up to her forehead. "My God you two! You were both thinking about it in the backs of your minds, okay? If you don't want me to know just… think about molesting each other or… something!" She moved her hands at them feebly, miming the groping of certain body parts, before she turned away to scoop up her suitcase. "Stupid boys…"

Allen shrugged at Kanda before picking up his own things in his right hand, leaving Kanda to get the sack and his luggage. _Well…_ He thought as he grinned wickedly. _I guess I should take good advice when it's offered…_

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It was an internal debate and that was bad. He wanted to just lay back and let Tyki do as he wished, but that aching part of him said that that was horribly uneven; he should at least _try_ to make his… no-longer-tormenter feel the same. Eventually, when he felt himself losing the ability to think logically, he decided that it was now or never – and he picked now.

Tyki was mildly surprised when the young man turned in his hands until he couldn't reach his erection anymore, nor could he continue with the nuzzling at his neck. That didn't seem to be important to Lavi though, because he smashed his lips on the Tyki's, threw his legs to either side of the larger man's hips, and titled his whole body forward, effectively pinning him against the wall. The apprentice Bookman was like a ravenous animal, his hands slid forcefully into Tyki's shirt as his mouth met with the Noah's, his tongue tasting of his lips before he was pushed away with enough force to slid him down on Tyki's lap a little.

"What?" He was incredulous. The hands on his shoulders were perhaps the most annoying thing in the world to him because they kept him from that tan, warm skin that made his insides burn and his head dizzy.

"We should not—"

"Yeah, well, we're doing a lotta things we _shouldn't_ be doing. Now stop acting like you don't want this and let me kiss you." Lavi leaned forward again but the hands held firm. "Please?"

It took all of Tyki's will not to give in. "I _do_ want this. That I cannot deny. But I do not want this to start as something good and end as a nightmare. I am the embodiment of Noah's Pleasures, Lavi. If I let you do this, if I give myself up to this, the twisted thing that I was might come back. It's hard to understand, but please, you must realize that it's too soon. There is no doubt in my mind that it is a precarious balance I must maintain, so until I understand it better, I will not do that." When he was finished the boy on his lap just sighed, no longer caring that he was indeed more than half naked.

"Fine, I get it." He reached out with one of his hands and touched the curve of Tyki's jaw; more tears glimmered in his eyes. "But so long as that's the rule, I'm not going to either."

The stare he received for that was worth a paragraph of disbelieving dialogue.

"Don't look at me like that; I'm just saying the truth. It's not fair. Why should you watch me be contented at your touch when I don't get to touch you? It's unfair for either of us." As he spoke he leaned forward again to hug the stunned man he was sitting on. "So could you maybe just kiss me for a while and… call it a day?"

Tyki laughed at him before taking him in an embrace that made Lavi's chest sing with sweat agony as he was pulled down into a rough kiss. "If that's going to be the way of things," Tyki smiled at him. "You might want to do up your pants."

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The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea just to smile. She had been thinking of her friend, the friend she really liked, trying to decide if she was going to be happy for this new development in his life or hate it with a passion. After her little chat with Kanda it became evident that being angry wasn't the answer – he did not need that what with his confused emotions – but she could not really be gleeful either. Instead she decided just to smile for him, being he'd be the type of guy to cry.

And yet, knowing that he'd cry made her _want_ to smile.

That was Uri, traversing the path of darkness. After the morning he had spent at Lloyd's establishment he had gone off east, traveling in front of them like an unhealthy fog, his purpose unknown to her, his powers in use almost every night. Whatever he was looking for, he was looking for it desperately. She wished he would just stop so she could find him, but that didn't seem likely.

"How far are we going, by the way?" Allen asked when he was out of pastries. If he wasn't thinking about Kanda he was thinking about food, and when he wasn't thinking about either of them his mind was on akuma and how he couldn't see any. He wasn't aware that his thoughts were more or less always on those three things, but Sable was.

Kanda shrugged at him, which lifted the sack to his chin. "Are there still akuma east of here?"

Allen nodded. "I don't know why but… I sense them."

Sable hummed as if she understood. "You know, if we walk this way long enough, we might eventually walk ourselves to Japan."

"Che, if you feel like walking over oceans."

She turned her odd smile to him. "No, if _Allen_ feels like walking over them. I don't know about you but I'm not quite talented enough to tell you where we're going."

Kanda just che'd again.

"Actually, when you say that," Allen said quietly. "It sounds like that's where I should be."

The other two paused on the road and looked at him, his pale face had gained back some of its color, but his hair was still as white as the snow around them. He noticed their stillness and stopped himself, taking in the image of Kanda, who was always stoic, and Sable, who was un-surprise-able, looking at him as if he had something that was both horrible and great.

"Japan?" Sable said again, to be sure.

"Yeah…" He nodded. "Which means I might get to meet Okaasan and your brother sooner than I thought Kanda!" Allen's face broke into a sparkling, happy, bright, nearly angelic smile that made the circumstances seem less than light. His grin was not quite enough to make Kanda forget that that meant there were akuma in Japan, where his family was, most likely hunting people. Instead he turned sharply back in the way they had come, taking a hurried step.

"If that's the case we should go back and take a train. We might get to Nihon before you start hurting again." He nodded to Allen's left arm before he met his eyes.

"And!" Sable chimed. She liked the idea of a train ride _far_ more than walking. "We can stop every so often and just _walk_ to the places you see akuma. Sound good? Good. Let's go!"

Sometimes, when she was being enthusiastic, Sable forgot that Uri even existed.

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_Sable Adair. My sister, Sable Adair._

_She was the reason I wanted to stop being a Noah. Part of the reason. But I didn't remember the rest. She's just family, nothing more; all we have in common is blood. That alone would not make me betray Millennium._

As he thought it he looked at the notebook he had brought with him, specifically at the finished picture of Kanda Yuu. He remembered the man's fears, dreams, hopes, thoughts, but not much else about him – like why he had wanted that man to end his life. Those ideas were old and forgotten; his new plan seemed far better for everyone in the end, including the poor white haired _moyashi_ Kanda Yuu had been thinking of.

"Oh well," He sighed, turning the page back to the book he was outlining. "I guess I'll know more when I find and ask him." Under his breath a quiet, airy chuckle took hold.

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**I'm kind of tired after that, for some reason. Nothing tiring about it… I didn't even write the action scene. QQ**

**Well! I hope you liked it! I'll be getting started on the part that's actually worth reading ASAP! Don't go too hard on me – I know this was pretty craptastic. Love for you all!!**


	40. The Will of the Righteous

**Niamh is LAAAAAATE! But she is updating.**

**I must apologize for a mildly OOC Lenalee. She's really hard for me to write and understand, so I'm sorry about that. It's not toooooo horrid, but her mind befuddles me, and coming up with reasons for her to act how she does is like trying to come up with reasons NOT to kill cockroaches. Not fun to think about and even less fun to practice.**

**So this is slightly more plot movement than before, not just transitioning. I'm planning on only one more chapter before I magically manipulate time to my will again, so it's not going to be **_**too**_** long before they get to Nihon. I really want to write that part! It's looking really fun!**

**Thankyoureadersandreviews!! I //heart\\ you all!!**

**Disclaimer of D-whendidIgetbacktodoingtheDthing: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lenalee would be less weepy.**

**WARNING: Boy's kissing. As in one boy kissing another boy and the second kissing back. YOU ARE WARNED! Oh, and cussing in Japanese.**

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The Will of the Righteous

The semi-dark room had become something of a sanctuary for him, a place that contained nothing of the horror outside. It was nothing like what he lived in at the mansion, but it was more beautiful in that right. There was only the fireplace to keep it warm and that was only so large, the glass in the single window was worn thin, very old, with yellow frost clinging to the wood that held it in. The spider's web at the top of the window and beneath the curtain was not empty; its spindly inhabitant stared down into the room with six paired eyes, seeing nothing of it. It did not know of the mansion, the yellow frost, the fireplace. The thought in its small gray mind was simple: here I can live.

_Maybe you have the right idea, Spider-chan,_ Tyki thought as he took a long, soothing pull from his cigarette. _Stay where you can survive, ne? I'll have to put some thought into that. For his sake._

He was still on the bed though it was nearing sundown. Eerie orange light seeped in and dyed the white blankets red, spilled golden across Lavi's hair so that it turned the color of bronzed gold, crimson and yellow. The boy was sleeping with his head in Tyki's lap, one eye closed, his lips gently parted. The image made Tyki smile from the corner of his mouth even though it pained him. Some romantic part of him wanted to think that Lavi could change him. That his tears could turn the evil in him into something good and heal the five cross shaped scars on his forehead; that his own feelings could save him from all the pain and terror the Earl could cause.

But the world did not work that way.

Exorcists fell like wheat before a scythe regardless of their comrades. What would make Tyki's feelings any less pointless?

It was all useless.

Lavi stirred gently at the caress of a hand in his hair, but he didn't wake. He gently whispered _Ty-chan_ before settling down again, his breathing no less rhythmic.

_Poor young man,_ He thought without even the slightest twinge of pleasure. _I kept you up almost all night and with that injury no less. How foolish of me,_ His fingers brushed gently down the younger man's face and he smiled in response.

He knew he had to leave. There was no avoiding it. Before too long the other Exorcist would come back empty handed – because there was no Innocence here – and she would have the door wrenched free and their little situation would be ruined. The girl would undoubtedly try to kill him – which would turn out badly, and then Lavi would get mad, someone would die, and it all would have been for naught.

"Ty-chan," His voice was very soft and creaking with sleep.

"Yes, Lavi-san?"

"I'm starving." His perfectly smooth face seemed to compress when he frowned, his eyebrows pushing together. "No breakfast or lunch and I think it's about time for dinner…"

Tyki patted his head lightly so that his fingers turned a darker shade of gold in the sunlight. "If you allow me to take my leg back I will get you something."

"How? The doors jammed." Lavi responded curtly, rolling away. His stomach gave a loud growl as he moved and he curled his arms around his stomach as if to protect it. He looked very pitiful that way, but Tyki wasn't about to tell him that.

"I can walk through doors, remember?"

Lavi blinked at him for a moment, every part of him that was dedicated to an immaculate memory wanting to kick itself. "Oh. Right."

Giving Lavi's hair one last pat Tyki pushed himself off of the bed, his motion bringing a slight, disgruntled groan from the younger boy's lips. Oddly enough he felt very relaxed now, even though he hadn't slept much, very…different. In the back of his mind he thought about how all of it had happened and it still didn't make any sense, nor did thinking about it help him to understand his current situation. All he knew was that he wanted to be with the young Exorcist. Protect him. He never wanted to see him hurt or killed. Yet, when he thought about how he did not want to see those things happen, a sad, pessimistic part of him knew that those feelings would mean nothing if another of the Noah clan stumbled upon him – or even an akuma. His desire to protect would mean nothing if he wasn't there to act on it.

He didn't want to go back to the mansion if it meant leaving Lavi behind.

His feet made hollow sounds on the wooden floor as he went across the room, gave his treasure one last reassuring word and stepped out the door. He did not see the people he passed as he walked, did not think of them, because his eyes were turned internally. It was not until he had wandered out into the snow that he realized he hadn't bothered grabbing shoes.

_I truly am an idiot,_ He thought, bringing his hand to his forehead and turning toward the open market. _But I don't think I care anymore._

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Lenalee was almost lost in thought when she walked directly passed a shoeless, pensive looking man with his face on his hand. She almost stopped to ask if he needed help, but he turned and walked away even before she could open her mouth to ask. She hadn't seen his face. If she had, the evening might have been ruined.

She had never been one for complaining, but she figured she could get away with telling Lavi how futile her search had been without sounding too pathetic. She was looking forward to it, really. There was something very calming about telling the apprentice Bookman everything that was on her mind, perhaps because he was such a good listener, and she enjoyed it when he interrupted her in order to interject something that made her smile. It wasn't like meditating with Kanda, who would sit in stoic silence and offer something logical and emotionless at the end of her rant, or like saying things to Allen, who would try to make her feel better simply by smiling, or like telling Sable, who did what she could to draw a parallelism from her own life and explain how she would deal with it. Lavi would just listen and crack a joke. That's what she needed. A horrible Innocence pun or joke to brighten her evening.

Not that she would get one without kicking the door in first.

The inn was almost empty in the front room but for the maids, who smiled and gave little curtsies as she passed. She smiled back at them, inclined her head, tried to be friendly. It was hard to when she felt like such a complete and utter failure of an Exorcist.

She was very, very happy when she spotted Lavi's door, though it was still closed. _Oh well,_ She thought with a sigh. _If worse comes to worst I'll just have to break the hinges._

She hit the door with her hand and cringed at the yelp that the bang produced. She hadn't meant it to be quite that noisy.

"You don't have to knock, just come in." A rather annoyed Lavi voice said tiredly in response. She blinked for a moment before shrugging. If that was the case she would indeed just come in. She huffed for a moment, trying to guess the correct angle and height to kick at, estimating the amount of force that would not impale the knob into the wall when it opened. It took a few minutes, but she eventually came up with a plan.

In the short span of time it took for her to back up to get a good, half-running start at the door, Tyki came in from the outside wall directly into Lavi's room, his arms weighted down with food. He was blissfully ignorant of the young woman preparing to bash in the portal, but the completely bewildered expression on Lavi's face warned him that something was wrong. For a moment he stood there, bread and cheese and warm bowl of soup in his hands, blinking at that confused expression that blinked back at him. He only had a half second to wonder what was wrong before the door blasted in toward them.

The hinges of the old, warped door did not break, but the lump of old wood that had somehow wedged itself between the door and the floor went bouncing away violently, gouging a large rut in the not-quite pristine floor. The Chinese girl who had kicked it in might have looked livid but really she was just happy to be inside – until her eyes fell upon the Portuguese man holding an armful of food.

"Hello." Tyki said lamely.

"Oh, fuck…" Lavi cursed fearfully.

"What?" Lenalee asked confusedly.

For a moment the three remained like that, just looking at each other, wondering what would happen next. Lenalee could not imagine why a Noah, a Noah who had hurt Lavi and then winked at her, would be standing in her friend's locked room with a bowl of soup, a crust of bread, and a hunk of cheese. She also could not imagine why the desk chair was scooted away from its home, a length of rope secured to its legs. Furthermore, she could not even begin to comprehend why Lavi was sitting up on the bed shirtless, acting as if he had seen a ghost. His mouth flapped for a moment, eye wide, and he began to shake all over. The four seconds it took for him to decide there was no way to lie his way out of this passed in less than comfortable silence.

"Well," Tyki smiled, "This is awkward."

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"…And then he said, 'That's about as far as I got too before _I_ threw up!'" Sable finished with a wide, ridiculous grin. She had been attempting to keep the other two amused since they had boarded the train, but it seemed more and more likely that they would simply fall asleep on each other and leave her with her thoughts. She decided to let them. Otherwise she'd have to be awake when they started making her feel lonely again.

In fact, they're response to her joke was so slight she figured Kanda was already sleeping with his eyes open.

"Okay, I'll be quiet now," She sighed. _God knows you're tired from what you did before we left…_

She reached into her bag and withdrew a small, picture based volume, a sly smile crawling determinedly across her lips. _Uri's been pretty evil recently… I wonder if a little boy's love will soothe the restless beast._

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_What the hell is he thinking?! He cannot possibly just have said that this is 'awkward'! This is NOT awkward! This is BAD. This is…this is…_

"Ooh…" Lavi groaned suddenly, breaking the tension. His head lulled backward and Tyki moved immediately to his side, depositing the soup and whatnot on the desk beside him. Lenalee thought about attacking him at that moment, seriously contemplated just kicking him through the head, but there was something about the look on his face that stopped her. Something… concerned.

"You should not hold your breath that long, Lavi-san." Tyki said softly, reaching out to touch him gently on the shoulders. She felt as if her boots were nailed to the ground, incapable of coming up again as she watched those killing hands gently lift her friend up, caress his hair, and check the temperature of his face. And Lavi smiled at the caress of those murderous appendages, a look that did not reassure her.

Slowly she breathed in and out again. Though she did not know what action was right, in her mind any action was better than inaction.

"La-Lavi," She could not control the shaking of her voice, worry, fear, hate, concern, hope – it all tumbled out as something close to tears. "Wha-what is going on?"

Tyki looked up at her and then down at Lavi, who tried to speak but was silenced with a slight shake of the Noah's head. He seemed very sure, very determined, but he did not seem prepared for a fight to the death.

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Exorcist-san," As he spoke he stood up, turning to face her, but his stern face did not crack into a mocking smile and his hands fell to his sides, uselessly. "I would like to know something simple, something that even I should already know the answer to." He ignored the light gasp that Lavi made, as well as the widening of the Chinese girl's eyes. "I do not know what the repercussions of such an act would be, so please tell me, what would happen if I were to turn myself over to the justice of the Black Order and repent for the sins I have committed."

"Ty-chan!" Lavi sat up far enough to take hold of the older man's sleeve, his green eye shining. "You can't do that! They'll kill you!"

He chuckled, an ironic, mirthless sound. "As if the Earl will not?"

"No! I won't let you kill yourself just to be with me!"

"Traitors are executed, Lavi-san. The Fourteenth was killed for it the same as I will be if I go back now. I would rather take my chance in the hands of the Order than take you back with me to be tortured and murdered." He was serious. Dead serious. The hand Lavi held in his shook with uncertainty, yet his voice did not waver. "Until that part of me dies, I am a threat to you. That is unacceptable to me."

Lenalee watched as Lavi – the apprentice Bookman and the lover of words – do nothing but cry in stunned silence. With a force that surprised both she and Tyki, Lavi pulled him down to his knees again, and wrapped his arms around him, squeezing as if he would never let go. "You stupid, stupid man," He said quietly. "That doesn't solve anything. Death doesn't solve anything. Turning yourself in doesn't solve anything. If you're dead I'll have to become a necrophiliac."

_Even now, when faced with this horror, I have to say something stupid like that._

Tyki fought the urge to let his arms pull the young man closer but he couldn't. So his arms went out and took hold of him until the two were so close he could feel Lavi's heartbeat in his own chest. "What other way is there?" Tyki said into his hair. "Even if we do not think so, we are both criminals."

"What?" Lavi's voice was disbelieving. The strong arms around him relaxed enough for him to fall back a little, but they stayed firmly around his waste as he looked at the man that held him.

Tyki turned away from him though, looking toward the still half-aghast girl in the doorway. "It is true, is it not? That we are both traitors."

She looked at either of them, a thousand half-formed questions forming in her mind but never making it to her lips. It was Lavi, her friend, sitting peacefully in the arms of the enemy. But that enemy had conveyed his will to no longer be an enemy. To trust him though, would put more lives at risk that she cared to count. Her whole world would be placed in the Noah's hands if she brought him with her to headquarters, her very existence, and that was not something she would risk lightly. Furthermore, though the two seemed sincere in their… desire to be together, she could see that there was something withdrawn about both of them, something held back; whatever it was made them both appear as cold, empty shells to her eyes.

"No," She said finally. "You aren't."

"Lenalee…" Lavi's voice cracked.

"You aren't." She spoke it all matter-of-factly, yet her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

"Lenalee…" Lavi said again, wiping his eye. "Why?"

She smiled at him and the look was a travesty of the expression. "It doesn't matter who or what or how this happened; what you appear to feel for each other cannot be a sin or a betrayal."

He blinked at her in confusion. What did they appear to feel?

"I should kill that man where he sits for the pain he has caused us. I should demand that you both come in with me as heretics. But I'm not like them, so I won't." She turned sideways away from them and let her head fall into her hand, her back pressed against the doorframe. _What am I doing?_ She thought with a quiet sob. _Can I not do what should be done because I know it will hurt Lavi? Am I… that weak?_ "Whatever is going on here is not something I am involved in. Just tell me this," She looked at them then – both of them, but she did not really see them for what they were, she saw them as the epitome of the lawbreakers she had at one time hoped to become. "What do you want from him?"

It did not take a Bookman to know that the question was directed at Tyki.

"More than anything," He spoke surely. "I want to keep him safe."

She nodded, turned her back on them. "I am not going to preach to you. Just know that… at the end of it all, this was your choice, Lavi."

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Sable had turned around in her seat so that her back was across the bottom of it, her feet by the window, while her head hung off the edge backward toward the floor. The more she read the more tired she became, which suggested that Uri was coming up with plot ideas as she went. Her book was only mildly inspiring to her, because the two main characters had more drama that any pair of lovers had a right too, so there was a chance that her brother had nothing to do with it and it was simply her own mind growing bored of all the tears.

Across the compartment Allen made a tiny groaning sound, leaned a little toward Kanda and the window. Without opening his eyes or stirring more than an inch, his lover lifted his arm and placed it gently across Allen's shoulders, from which his hand fell after a moment. The smaller boy snuggled closer and the hand that had come to rest on his chest dragged him the short distance to the samurai's shoulder. Sable watched them cuddle closer, neither opening his eyes to the slowly dimming compartment around them.

"Love?"

"Shut up, Moyashi."

_I could make this into the most adorable doujin Lenalee has ever read… too bad I can't draw._

"Mm… cold…"

"Che," The Japanese Exorcist leaned sideways despite his sword to bring his lips to his lover's, the contact lasted for nearly a minute before he broke away to catch his breath, but he returned shortly after. After a few moments Allen began to blush at him with half-opened eyes, his fingers twined themselves in the sleeve on the arm that held him.

Silently, Sable lifted her book over her nose and watched, afraid that if she made a sound, they would remember her presence. It was rather difficult to watch that upside down with all of the blood in her body running to her face without having a nosebleed all over her manga. She could manage though. So long as they were touching each other she would find a way to keep her mouth and her nostrils pristine.

"Kanda…mmf…jacket…didn't mean but…" Allen might have been protesting but he wasn't doing a very good job of it, not with his hands slowly creeping up Kanda's shoulders as he leaned into him. "O...okay…"

_Hmm… I wonder if I should make my presence known…_ Sable wedged the side of her book between her teeth, trying not to make a whooping sound of glee. It was very difficult, what with Kanda's hair and Allen's blush, very, _very_ difficult considering these were not two-dimensional images and they were making all sorts of light sucking and moaning sounds, but with her precious possession placed just so, any sound that actually escaped her was muffled and lost in the pages. _Is watching something like this when you've been forgotten an intrusion of privacy? Or are they insulting me with their display?_

_No… they aren't insulting me. Indeed, I am quite flattered,_ As she thought that she wiggled silently a little toward the window, effectively placing her face directly across from the necking pair. _Well, or maybe I'm just fine with being insulted._

While she thought about it Allen turned under Kanda's arm until he was facing him, drew his knees up so he could kneel on the seat, facing his lover. He did not glance sideways, did not let his eyes wander, only took Kanda by the collar and yanked him forcibly down into a kiss. As a result, Mugen, which had been balanced precariously on the fabric of the seat between Kanda's knees while he slept on it, went half-sailing and half-falling toward the opposite side of the compartment, handle first. It did not register in Sable's mind that perhaps the katana coming at her face was going to be painful or going to make her howl in earnest; it only fleetingly passed her mind that the black sheath was going to block part of her view.

And then it smacked her book, drove the pages into her mouth, slid into her nose, bounced of her forehead, and clattered noisily to the floor. She made a blithering sound of displeasure that made Kanda and Allen whip around to face her, shocked as if she had snuck in while they were sleeping. Their broken kiss filled the small space with a resounding _smooch_. Luckily, Sable had a hand over most of her face in a matter of moments, and the drool-covered reading material went swiftly against her shirt to be dried. For all the two boys' knew she had fallen asleep with the thing on her face, completely oblivious to their affections.

"That's a nice way to wake up from a dream," She said bitingly. "What's wrong with you, Kanda? Can't keep a hold of your sword?"

He glared at her. A true death glare that would have made anyone who had _not_ seen him kissing Allen Walker whither and beg for forgiveness. "Che, if you were sitting like a human being it wouldn't have it you."

She laughed and pushed herself up, yawning. "Not _that_ sword, idiot. If you'd given him your jacket, Mugen wouldn't have fallen. Such a man," She stretched hugely, ignoring the even _more_ intense, damning, hateful, murderous glare she was getting from Kanda. Allen was scratching the side of his head, trying to imagine what other sword Kanda possessed.

"_Baka onna._"

"Takes one to know one."

"_Kisama…_"

"_Issunboshi.__"_

_"__Jakamashi!_"

"_Doshite?__Shine bakayaro._"

"_Yariman!__Bukkoroshite yaru zo!__"_

_"Both of you! Stop it!" _Allen broke in, taking Kanda by the arm when he reached for Mugen. Kanda looked at him as if he was going to argue but stopped when he saw the whirling gear over the boy's left eye and the slight twinge of pain in his brow. Sable also went from arguing to looking at him, her expression suddenly serious.

"Where are they, Moyashi?" Kanda's hand was on his in an instant, stilling the shaking that the akuma incited.

"They're here," His eye turned completely around in its socket, rolling insanely. _"Everywhere_."

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

**Mmm… scratches head… looking back I feel kind of lame about that…**

**But! A moment to tell you about the title: The Will of the Righteous. When I finished this chapter it made sense to me to call it that, but looking back I have no idea why. Funny how that works…**

**Thank you, Sailorlight22, for catching 'Exocrist-san' and having me change it to 'Exorcist-san' the way it should be. Dyslexia for the loss…**

**Lastly, all of those horrible Japanese words and phrases are taken from my dear Sensei, who has a very thick accent that makes it hard to spell things properly. Sorry for spelling cuss words wrong if I did!**

**Love for readers and reviewers! I will update ASAP! Which maybe be sooner than expected, being I'm waitlisted for one of my classes and so have that time free to write :D**


	41. The First Line

**Niamh would have been done a whole 5 minutes faster if there hadn't been an earthquake.**

**AH!!! I AM SO LATE!!! But it's HERE! And I am SO SORRY that it took so long!! Between kanji practice and a serious lack of sleep, I have and VERY little time to write. I also had friends kidnap me and take me to go see Cloverfield last night, so that didn't help much either.**

**Disclaimer of Did: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…there would be an awesome DMG fighting game that would remind me of the sweetness that is Mortal Combat. And it would be cooler than my bad action description.**

**WARNING: Erm… crappy mild violence and men kissing.**

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The First Line

Lenalee stared at the shower wall, letting the steaming water run over skin that she did not actually feel. The more she looked at the tile the more she came to question what she had done and why she had done it, if leaving Lavi in a room with a man she knew to be a Noah was something that made _her_ into a traitor.

_I don't care,_ She thought as she took the shower knob in her hand. _I don't care because even if he has betrayed the Vatican he has not betrayed us. He's still an Exorcist. He's still alive._

_It is a fine line we Exorcists walk, balanced between sinner and saint, friend and outcast, heretic and savoir. Allen and Kanda have found their place in that line, as have I, but what about you, Lavi? Do you even belong here anymore?_

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"They're here? On this train?" Sable blinked at him for a long moment, disbelieving. The white haired boy nodded at her slowly as his right eye glazed and lost focus. She suddenly had the feeling that there was no farthest thought from his mind, that there was no Kanda or humanity or good or evil in his mind; there was simply the will to end the demons' suffering. It made her sick to think his world could be so small. It made her weak just knowing that the last thought on his mind was also the first. She could almost feel the slowly building wrath within him.

"I…must…" His face turned up toward the roof of the train in a manner that suggested the movement was against his will. As he looked, the sunlight caught the edge of the window and refracted in a broken prism across his face, making his eyes shine gold. The illusion faded when Kanda pulled him close, attempted to still the shaking that coursed through the smaller boy's body so suddenly.

"Moyashi, what's wrong with you?" He asked when Allen refused to meet his gaze. The harder he held on the more Allen quivered against him; his right hand took a painful hold of Kanda's shoulder.

"We can't sit here. They're above. I…must…" His fingers dug even further into Kanda's flesh and the Japanese man shook his lover, forcing the British boy to meet his gaze. "Save them."

There was something very pained about the look Allen wore that made Kanda wish nothing more than to tell him no and hug him. No akuma was worth seeing that look on his lover's face. But he knew that was not an option. Not only did Allen want to kill them, he needed to, and the convulsions of his arm wishing to activate were only proof of that. Kanda came to realize something then, something that had not mattered before that moment; he hated the things that made Allen like this. He hated the akuma.

Gunfire blasted through the momentary stillness that had settled over them, bullets ripped through the thin metal roof and blasted into the plush seats, the wooden floors. Splinters filled the air around them and drove at their skin like bees; Sable smashed herself into the corner of the seat, throwing her hands over her face as defense, Kanda unthinkingly threw himself over Allen, pinning the boy's anti-akuma weapon between them. Allen tried to push him away so he could save them both, but the arms around him were too strong. Even when he heard Sable call out and Kanda screamed, there was nothing he could do about it.

His arm gave a painful twist, enough to make his throat clench on the sound that tried to escape him. Shortly after Kanda pushed himself up with only his right arm, his left temporary slack in its sleeve. The bullets ceased their increscent rain while the demons above them searched for their fallen prey, ripped what little remained of the roof off of their compartment. Sable was the fasted to react, a battle cry roaring past her lips as a stream of fire erupted from her palms. The heat took out the nearest two machines before the fire subsided; she huffed afterward, attempting to catch her breath after releasing what must have been the largest burst of power in her life.

"You two alright?" She asked in a voice that seemed quiet after the explosion. She could see that Kanda was holding himself over Allen with one arm, his face oddly pallid, and the boy beneath him was clinging desperately to the fabric of his coat, shaking. She had never seen either of them quite so scared looking, but that did not last long; Allen caught sight of blood on the back of Kanda's jacket.

"Love, what were you thinking!? You're hit!" As he spoke he attempted to push the fabric from his lover's shoulders and see that damage that was wrought there.

"Che, it's nothing, and we don't have time. Let's go, Moyashi!" His left arm, which had been useless from a wound, came up and touched the side of Allen's face, lingered there as the Japanese man graced him with a gentle smile. He watched Allen's face go from worried to understanding in a matter of seconds until he smiled back, nodded, and attempted to stand.

"Shall we?" Sable said with a sweep of her hand that brushed splinters and dust from her sleeves.

Allen grinned before the three scurried for the roof of their still moving train.

It did not take long for him to fall back into his old habit of killing one and moving on to the next, nor did it take him more than five minutes to do it while smiling. Every time his fingers cut through the metallic skin of an akuma he would feel a small, almost insane little giggle start at the back of his throat. He let it out sometimes, when he didn't think anyone could hear him, let the rush of happiness that filled him when he saw a freed soul pour out with his voice. He felt accomplished, purposeful, and he felt a wave of warmth of the twisted creatures that made him feel that way.

He dodged a rather well placed blow by one of the smarter demons, parried and slashed, grinned from ear to ear when the soul before him sailed off to heaven. His arm didn't hurt as much anymore. He was starting to understand how to control the new thing his eye was doing – which allowed him to enjoy his work without becoming motion sick. Overall, he realized suddenly, he was liking this, even if it was odd and creepy and not normal; he would have been content to kill the machines well into the night so long as they took a break for dinner.

Kanda was having less fun with his work. He watched from the corner of his eye as Allen fought, always aware of him, never letting himself forget where his sword and his lover were. It was natural, almost, to divide his attention between them. He had done it many, many times when he went on missions with Lavi, he would keep one eye on his opponent and one on his best friend because sometimes the apprentice Bookman wasn't the smartest of fighters. But that was different in a number of ways, and he didn't like that. For one there were far more akuma here than he had ever once seen in a single place, for another Allen knew what he was doing – and he was doing it with a smile on his face.

Sable was tired, but she wasn't about to sit back and let the boys have all the fun. She said the word for fire quietly each time she made some in her hands, electing to throw it physically rather than letting it propel itself the way she had allowed in the train car. She used less energy that way, killed a little slower, but not slowly enough to be a nuisance. After every explosion she would turn to check her companions – both of whom seemed to be handling their situations well – and would then turn to see if there were any sudden turns in route or tunnels fast approaching. Instead, at her third glance, she saw that there was a young girl sitting at the far front of the car, doll in hand, scratching her chin as if curious as to why this was happening. The swift wind whipped in her dark hair, ruffled her short skirt, and brought the scent of cherry flavored candy to Sable's nostrils.

Rhode.

The girl smiled. "Stop." She said softly, but the sound was loud enough to bring every demon to stillness, guns no longer firing. Kanda saw the change immediately and used it to his advantage. He raised his sword to the side and summoned the insects that obeyed him; with a sweep his arm he unleashed Hell's beasts into the helpless akuma, gouging holes and shredding wings instantaneously. When his feet came back in contact with the train a number of pointed candles shimmered into existence beside and above him, stopping him before he could leap toward the next group of stationary enemies. "I said stop." Rhode repeated, standing.

Kanda turned at the sound of her voice, brandishing Mugen. From the corner of his eye he saw that Allen had stopped the first time she had said it, his activated arm in the shape of a gun beside him. The white haired boy looked very alert and rather annoyed, his breath came in long gasps inward and outward, and his bangs stuck in the perspiration that had sprouted on the sides of his face. He appeared truly wrathful like that, in his long Exorcist's jacket, cursed eye focused, and his frown made almost evil by some bright emotion that danced at the corner of his lips.

"Gees you three are pesky," Rhode sighed, shaking her head. "I get bored with my game and come try to kill some people just for fun and you stupid Exorcists have to be on my train." She walked at them casually, dragging her slipper-clad feet as she went. She might have been floating across a ballroom for all the grace in her. "Thanks for ruining my day."

"Our pleasure." Sable chimed. Kanda noticed then that the young woman was also surrounded by those odd, self suspending candles, though Allen was not. Her little comment got her a childish smile from the Noah.

Rhode studied Sable for a long moment, seeing bits of Uri. They really were too much alike to be twins. The determined look on her face was the least of the similarities, but it added to it enough to make her angry.

"Oh, it's Sable-chan. You're almost as much trouble as your brother was." She smiled wider at the way Sable's green eyes widened.

"He still is trouble. Otherwise I wouldn't be bleeding." Sable snapped. Her hand took a hold of the headband across her forehead and she ripped it off with a glare, the three cross shaped marks were red with blood, just beginning to ooze again. "So I don't know what you mean by 'was'."

Rhode shrugged at her, twirled the lollipop between her teeth. "I broke his mind a while ago, so he doesn't trouble _us_ anymore. Anyway, I've had enough of you. All you do is argue. That's not fun."

"It is when you don't lose."

She didn't answer her. "But now that I'm here, I'd like to play a game with _you_, Allen Walker."

Allen, who had been amazed by Sable's willingness to stand within the clutches of the enemy and verbally insult them, shifted so that his weapon was pointed at Rhode, careful to sight her down the length of his arm.

"Don't even kid yourself, Allen. You would never shoot another human."

"_If you hurt him_." Kanda broke in, tearing both Allen's and Rhode's eyes away from each other. _"I will kill you._" He looked at the Noah with his head tilted down, his eyes shadowed by his dark bangs, his sword held point down in his white knuckled hand. Allen had never seen him quite so scary looking before, never seen him actually reach out to stop something bad from happening to someone else either. Rhode blinked at him for a moment in the stillness that followed his threat.

"You're awfully defensive of him, aren't ya?" The corner of her mouth lifted at that, an idea flickering behind her eyes. "Then maybe… I'll just hurt you."

"Kanda!" Allen cried at the words, worried that the Noah was about to attack the Japanese man with the candles. His feet moved faster than his mind did though, because Rhode's weapons were not flying at his lover to impale him, nor were they pulling away to gain more force. Instead, they were heading toward Allen.

There was no time to stop running.

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"Nothing, not even a rumor. There are a lot of stories going around, but nothing solid, definitely nothing that would account for so many Finders saying there was something here." She spoke into the receiver as she watched Lavi roll a noodle around on his plate thoughtfully, wiggling it into a smiley face before presenting it merrily to the man sitting across from him. The Noah – she could not stop thinking of him as such – just sat with his head on his hand, his expression one of sheer affection. The man had left the hour prior, supposedly to be sure no one found out about him, and returned, showered, shaved, and smiling. No matter how she looked at him she kept seeing someone she would not mind knowing, someone human – and she did not like that in the least.

"I would like you to stay there a few more days, just to ensure that there really is no Innocence." Her brother's voice was soothing, like always, and she could tell he was suffering from the effects of Reever's coffee – too strong, too bitter, too good at keeping him awake to work – because he wasn't smiling. Even if she gave him unhappy news he tried to smile for her to hear it in his voice, but not this time.

"Alright. I'll see you by the end of the week then?" She tried to sound bright as she said it, even though her fingers were twirling the phone's wire as if the act could pull her closer to him. She hated to admit it, but sometimes she really did want her overprotective nii-san to hug her and call her his little Lenalee. Times like when there was a Noah flirting openly with one of her best friends and seeming not to care that she was staring.

Komui coughed lightly, breaking her reverie. "Yes. Has anything seemed out of order? Or have there been any signs of the Noah?"

Her heart stopped for a moment before she could speak without feeling too horrid. "Nothing. Not even a footprint." She was painfully aware that her voice sounded like she was lying.

"Good. I'll see you soon then." Komui didn't hear it. "Goodbye."

"…goodbye."

_I've never lied to him before._

Tyki could not explain what was happening to him. He should have _stayed_ when he had gone back to the mansion, should have at least attempted to kill whoever was on his list before he came back, should have at least gone to bed and woke to have breakfast with the Earl in the morning – but he couldn't make himself. He hard hardly been able to speak to David in the hall when they'd run into each other. It was creepy. It was as if a large part of him wanted nothing to do with that house and those people.

It wanted to be here. Sleepless, with Lavi.

When he had returned from his adventures in the Noah house he came back to find all of the food he had supplied his young friend with gone. Eaten. And the boy responsible for its disappearance was still hungry. So he had helped him to stand and together they had wobbled their way to Lenalee's room and asked her to come join them for something of a second dinner. Tyki had offered the hand of friendship and she had reluctantly taken it in her own. He knew that her eyes were always on him, waiting for him to show some sign of evil or hatred or maliciousness, but he didn't care. If she was there watching she would be there to stop him when he did do something bad. Because, in the end, he knew he would.

"I like mine more," He smiled mischievously, lifting his plate for the younger man to see. Lavi's eye went wide at the phallic noodle-artwork before him and he picked up his fork to destroy it – the older man laughed at his expression and pulled the plate down by his chest, so that Lavi had to lean across the table to reach it.

When he did unthinkingly, the Noah captured his lips with his own, taking his scarf in his free hand so the younger man could not pull away. Lavi's eye went yet wider at the sudden action, and his vision flicked immediately to Lenalee – who did not know the extent of their relationship – but he was forced to look away when a questing tongue played gently on his lips. He couldn't concentrate on anything when Tyki did that, nor could he remember why he had leaned forward with his fork pointed at the older man's chest. Slowly, his weapon of noodle destruction lowered onto the tabletop, his lips parted and his eye closed.

_Public displays of affection… I guess I don't have a problem with them._

When the kiss broke Lavi quickly scrambled the penis that Tyki had made on his plate before he attempted to sit again, but the Noah did not immediately let go of his garment. Instead he grinned lopsidedly as he spoke, "That was a rather painful thing to do with a kitchen utensil."

The apprentice Bookman matched his expression with a raised eyebrow. "If you'd let me, I'd use my mouth instead."

"Ehem!" Lenalee's sudden intrusion did not prompt Tyki to let go, but her glare encouraged him plenty. His fingers uncurled from the orange scarf and Lavi sank down into his chair as if he were suddenly composed of lead; he wondered if she had heard all of that or only a smidgen, or if she could assume what was meant without knowing what was on the plate before he had demolished it. "We're staying for two more days. Just to be sure there is nothing here."

Tyki regarded her respectfully, trying to sound and look as sincere as he could without coming off as a liar. "There is no Innocence here. The reports you received were all my doing." He lowered his head when she made as if to argue. "It was the only way I knew that would allow me to find Lavi on the train again. I road it every day until I did." He knew she was gaping at him without even looking, yet he could not stop himself from glancing at her. "Forgive me."

"You…" She said distantly, thinking aloud. _It's as if Lavi is the center of his world now. That doesn't make sense at all. Shouldn't the center of his world be the Earl?_ "You really are…different than you were before." He looked at her incredulously, his brown hair fell back from his tan face when his head tilted at that angle, just far enough so that the scars were visible, just far enough for her to know that he was still the same man he was even if he had changed. "You're the same but…at the same time you're more...human."

"Lenalee!" Lavi sounded defensive.

"No, she is right." Tyki stopped him, "I am not currently the dark man I was nor am I the miner I was before that. I am someone new. I am now more civilized than either of them."

"Civilized?" Lavi scratched his head. Tyki was just asking for a horrible joking when he used a word like that. "You're not civilized. If you were civilized you wouldn't be playing with your food."

The Noah smiled. "Oh, but you like it when I tease you."

"Huh?"

"Ugh, I give up. I'm going to bed." Lenalee shook her head at both of them, frowning. "Don't tell me that it's not even after sundown and don't tell me that I didn't eat enough. I need to think about this." She sighed, letting her head fall into her hand. "Nii-san asked if there were any Noah here."

"What did you say!?" The apprentice demanded.

She tried to give him a little smile. "I said that there were none. Now I need to think. I've never lied to brother before."

"Oh…okay…" Lavi said quietly. "I… understand."

She nodded at him and turned to leave.

"Lenalee-san," Tyki stood suddenly, the sound of his voice coupled with his moving chair making her turn to face him. He felt his hands go cold at the almost expectant expression on her soft features. "May I… touch you for a moment?"

She stood there in the middle of the small dining room for what seemed like a small eterinity, just looking at him. They were the only people there but for the waitress, which was not reassuring. But what could she lose by letting him get that close? He had had ample time to kill Lavi and her, but he hadn't, so what would happen if she let him? To say no would wound him. Hurt Lavi. But to say yes would potentially kill her. It took perhaps a quarter of a minute for it to all go through her head before she realized one thing that seemed very important: he had asked.

It was enough to make her nod.

Awkwardly he reached out with both hands and laid his palms gently on her shoulders, fingers shaking, inexplicable fear running through him at the strangeness of it all. He leaned forward slowly, without holding on too tight, so that she could pull away if it was too much for her. It might have been a hug if Lenalee were not as stiff as a board against him. "Thank you." He said quietly, closing his eyes to the blank stare he was getting. "For not killing me on sight."

Despite it all Lenalee felt herself give in a little to the part of her that wanted to trust him. Not a lot; only enough to let her hand come up and rest on his. "You're welcome."

"And… for lying for me. I know that it will be hard to gain your trust but I hope to nonetheless. What you have done for me thus far means the world to me."

'_Means the world to me…'_

"You're welcome…Ty-chan." She ventured with a small pat. "I… don't think I would have done it if not to see him happy." Her voice was very, very soft, almost cracking, and Lavi could not hear what she said from his place at the table.

Tyki pulled away a little so he could smile at her properly, gave her shoulders a little squeeze that he hoped was not threatening to her. "I guess that is something we have in common."

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"Moyashi!" His blade was to slow to stop them all and he knew it, so Kanda focused instead on stopping the ones that were headed for important things. In a single motion he cut the tips from seven of them – one for each eye, another for his heart, four aimed vital arteries. Allen threw up his arm to defend himself at the last moment, but he was still caught in the thigh, the shoulder, and the back of his right hand. The rest stuck in his metallic arm more or less harmlessly; the would hurt and impair his fighting ability if too many hit, but he would be safer with them there than in his chest cavity. When the bombardment was finished he swayed for a moment, trying to find a place that would not pain his right leg until Kanda's arm around him let him lean careful into him without fear of teetering over completely. "Moyashi…"

"I'm fine," He lied. His right hand was immoveable with the pointed candle sticking through his palm. It hurt more than anything else did, but it was not enough to distract him too long from the girl who had hurt him so. "What do you want Rhode? I am not going to play your games nor am I going to stand aside and watch you torment my friends. Attack me again, hurt someone, do anything that makes you a threat to us…" He raised his gun again and sighted her down its length. His silver eyes were drawn nearly closed they were so narrowed, and when he spoke his voice was laced with danger. "I will shoot you because you are too fond of killing to be human."

She laughed. She threw back her small, childlike head and cackled into the clear blue sky. "Like I care. It doesn't matter. I'm not a fan of fighting and there's nothing for me here if you're not going to play with me." She harrumphed at them, crossing her arms in disappointment. "But that's fine. I'll just get Uncle Tyki. He'll kill you if I ask him nicely."

Sable laughed this time, though there was little mirth in it. "Don't assume thing like that about a man with a heart."

Rhode might have wanted to kill Sable at that moment, but she knew better. Besides, it wasn't her style to kill out of anger. With one last glare at them all his turned away, already wondering what would happen next time she found the three of them, but not caring enough to ask. Wordlessly she left them, yet unwilling to argue the state of her uncles heart.

Though her exit was awkward, Allen was more than happy to see her go. The akuma that remained went with her, and the three Exorcists were left standing alone atop the train, all of them somehow worse for wear. With a great sigh the British boy leaned into his lover, resting his tired head on his shoulder as his demon-sensing eye at last turned back to normal. He felt very tired and very sore, the pain in his hand was relentless and the strong arm around his waist kept him from sinking down to his knees and having a quiet moment.

"Come on," Kanda gave him a little tug that might have been a loose hug. "Let's go get you cleaned up."

"Ugh, why is it always me…?"

"Che, you're Allen Walker," He said with an encouraging smirk. "Even our enemies are attracted to you."

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**I know, I know, bad, bad, bad. I wanted to go on, but that would delay what is technically supposed to be a chapter of itself. Yay!! I updated! I'll try to update again on Monday or Tuesday, but that may or may not happen… depends.**

**Thanks for reading again! And reviews are very nice to have//hint, hint\\**

**I must apologize for the bad action scenes. The good thing is… next chapter is… KANDA'S MOMMA! I think. XD**


	42. Mother in Law

**I cannot bring myself to give this chapter an introduction.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man…if I did Hiroko would make a camio and Allen would climb a tree.**

**WARNING: Male/Male relations. Man-on-man. You don't like, you no read.**

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Mother-in-Law

It had been more than a month.

Hiroko sighed into her tea, watched the liquid ripple with her breath, almost as if she had dropped an invisible pebble into her cup. _Sake would be better._ She thought seriously. It seemed that rice wine was one way to guarantee that her mind didn't go wandering off to her son and his _wife_.

After a few days she had started making what had to be the most elaborate kimono she had ever attempted – but the measurements of it were curious. How many women had less than five centimeters difference between their waist and their hips? And how often was it that a girl had breasts the size of walnuts? Not very often, unless her oldest son was a cradle robber, which seemed unlikely. When she thought about the kind of girl that would fit into the dress she imagined a young woman of slight stature with long, flowing dark hair and deep eyes, her slight frame perhaps caused by some kind of terminal, horrible illness.

That would fit Yuu. He always denied his like for weak people, but he really did enjoy playing the hero.

She cursed lightly and sipped her tea at the horizon, blinking at the orange light of dawn that seeped into the clouds overhead and died them the color of mandarins. Looking at the almost clear sky reminded her that soon the snow would be melting and the rains would start again. She didn't want it to rain before Yuu got home.

"Hurry up," She said softly. "My other bastard is going to get married and introduce me to _his_ wife before you even get here."

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"Ah! It's creepy! It's like you have a psychic connection to your mother!"

"Che, if that were true I'd psychically tell her to stop talking about me, _baka._"

"It's not like you can call that creepy, Sable. Look at you and your brother."

"That's different. If I'm walking down the street toward him I don't start sneezing myself into an asthmatic fit. Not that you have, Kanda, just that you're headed in that direction any minute now."

The samurai sneezed again.

It had been one month, one week, five days, and a few hours since they had left headquarters. Or something like that. Sable had stopped counting after they actually entered Edo, because she was just too excited to be there. The houses, the streets, the old fashion carriages, the food – all of it was just too much for her. The three of them stuck out like sore thumbs in their jackets, but she didn't care. Allen and she would have stuck out if they were wearing traditional yukata they were so European.

"Are you sure that you're not coming down with a cold or something?" Allen chimed brightly. Since his wounds had healed he had been in bouncing, enthusiastic mood that caused him to worry far too much for others and think very little about himself. Or at least that was how he tried to make it seem. In reality he was worried about the newest problem with his arm and so tried to think about it and other people as much as he could – that way Sable wouldn't figure out what was wrong and Kanda wouldn't notice he was worried. The last time they had stopped at an inn he had discovered that the skin on his wrist was flaking off, and the place his arm stopped being arm and started being anti-akuma weapon looked as if it were slowly but surely falling apart. It made a horrible sound every time he activated it. But he couldn't let Kanda know about those things; the samurai became even more defensive, clingy, and just generally protective whenever Allen was suffering from some ailment.

He had learned that with the candle incident. Allen hadn't let himself be healed, so Kanda had hung around like a mother hen instead.

"Che, I don't get colds."

"Of course he doesn't get colds; he is the ever invincible Kanda Yuu."

"Right. Silly me. I should never assume that my husband is weak enough to be affected by something smaller than my index finger."

"Your index finger?" Sable asked with a raised eyebrow. When the white haired boy turned to explain she lifted her hands and waved them about to silence him. "Never mind, I have an imagination, I will use it."

"Sable that's not what I—"

"No, no, too late now, my mind is filling with images. Oh no, oh no. Hot, sweaty Yullen, all over my brain. Oh gosh. I'm either going to vomit or—"

"If you talk like that in front of my mother, I'll kill you." Kanda said darkly. He hadn't exactly _told_ Allen that his mother didn't know that he had 'married' a man, nor had he imagined that the two would meet each other with Sable there to see it. Between a serious lack of foreknowledge and a woman with a mind as dirty and twisted as a man's, there was going to be little for him to do besides be sure only said two died by his mother's hand. His warning did get him a swift, half-sarcastic apology though, which would be good later.

"How much farther?"

"Just the next street."

Allen had the sudden sensation that his blood had turned to lead in his veins. They were almost there. After so long of walking, train riding, and sailing, there were almost there. Kanda Hiroko and Kanda Hitori were there, in that house, in the distance, waiting for their relative to come home with his wife. Allen doubted that Sable was going to be a problem – being Kanda had said that he would only come by for work – being she was a colleague. The one thing Allen was not sure about was his heritage. Would it matter that he wasn't Japanese? Would Hiroko care? Would she shrug it off when she realized that it was love that bound them, heart and soul?

"Moyashi," Kanda said, though his eyes never strayed from the estate that he could just make out beyond the nearest building. "Keep your hood up until I tell you to put it down."

"What? Why?"

"Che, don't argue. It's for your own good."

Allen did as he was told, quietly pulling his hood over his head so that it shaded his eyes. No one would know who he was like that. Hell, if he hunched his shoulders enough, no one would even know he was a boy.

Sable extended her hand toward the end of the walk were a walled estate stood, blue tiled roofs glistening with half-melted snow, soft green weeds sprouting around the edges of the large, wooden door. "Is that the place?"

Kanda only nodded.

Allen swallowed hard and walked on; determined to meet the woman who had made Kanda into the man he loved.

The gate was unlocked and they went in uninvited. Kanda's feet carried him toward the little house that his mother had, memories long forgotten awakened at the sight of a familiar stone in the path, a specifically bent tree, or a roof that was bent in the corner from a misaimed rock Hito had thrown in play. He had tried to forget those times of happiness and peace, those times that he had been close to people and people had been close to him. Back then, if he had died many people could have attempted to make him into and akuma and would have been hurt by his loss. It had taken him three years to be sure no one would suffer from his death, and Allen Walker had undone it all in the course of a month.

_At least if they reject us…_ He thought as his feet stopped in front of the door. _It will be equally good than if they don't._

Hiroko almost dropped her tea when she heard someone knock on the door. She knew immediately that it was Yuu, though how she knew it was Yuu she could not even venture a guess. She put down her teacup and moved through the house with as much speed as she could without looking like she cared who was a the door. Hitori almost crashed into her coming out of the bathroom and she did not bother apologizing for that – instead she blasted ahead, her bare feet making gentle slapping sounds on the matted floor.

The door opened.

Kanda was not sure what to expect when the door came open, but the stunned, disbelieving silence that greeted him seemed like the farthest thing from his mind. His mother, Kanda Hiroko, stood at his mid chest, looking up through her bangs at the boy she had not spoken to in person in more than three years. For a moment the two gapped at one another, she taking in the things about him that had not changed and marking the bags under his eyes; he allowed himself to smile at her still beautiful features.

"_Yuuuuuuu-niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!_" It was the only warning the four people gathered wordlessly at the door had before a body flew over the top of Hiroko's head and slammed headlong into Kanda's chest; the arms of the body wrapped instantaneously around Kanda's shoulders as the two went sliding backward. They moved perhaps ten feet before they somehow came to a halt on the path.

"Hito?" The older brother looked down at the head of black, silky hair that was smashing itself merrily against his left shoulder. After a moment a pale, elegant face looked up at him, a pair a shimmer gray eyes met with his sapphire gaze.

"Holy shit you're tall."

"Hito!" Kanda growled, maneuvering his free arm to bash his younger brother on the head. Sable and Allen gapped at the boy who was dangling off of their serious samurai friend in the style of a boy-crazed teenager, ignoring the repeated contact of a soft fist against his head. "Che! Get off of me and stop cursing!"

"Wha?! Why didn't you say 'It's been so long, Hito-nii!' or 'I missed you too, Hito-nii!' or just _anything_ followed by 'Hito-nii'?" As he said it the smaller of the Kanda brothers leaned up to glare at the larger, a glare that was no more menacing than the stare of a tiny mouse. "Damn, where's the love?"

Kanda sighed, managing to look _very_ annoyed. "Get off of me, Hito-to."

"Hito-to! You know I hate that!"

"Che, get off of me or I'll call you Hito-to for the rest of the day."

He let go with a sad pout, frowning in a childish way that Kanda never would. "You will anyways, just to irk me. Shit, I'll have to call you Yuu-nii-corn or something to get back at you…"

"_Teme…_" Hiroko thought that she was going to have to interrupt to stop what always became a bloody fist fight between her sons, but Kanda did something then that surprised her. Not only did he smile at his junior, he also slung an arm over his shoulders and laughed lightly – Hitori was so surprised that his eyes went as wide as dinner plates at the sudden friendliness between them. "I _did_ miss you, Hito-to."

It was almost cute enough make her forget that she wanted to attack him for being gone so long. Almost.

"Yuu, you stupid, ugly, womanish, horrible person," She said with narrowed eyes and arms crossed. Allen blinked at her from beneath his hood, shocked at the words she would direct at her offspring. "Get your ass over here and introduce me to this ugly young woman you married." As she said it she tilted her head toward Sable, her expression as blank and cold as Kanda's ever could have been. "And I think you underestimated the size of her breasts when you gave me her measurements…"

For a moment Sable felt all of the blood in her body turn to ice. She raised her hands in front of her scarf covered face and took a slow step backward, a cackle breaking through her hidden lips. "Hahaha! You think I'd _marry_ that douche bag? Haha! Sorry, but I'm just here for work." She waved her arms back and forth before directing Hiroko's attention toward Allen – who wished more than anything at that moment to remain invisible. "_That_ – is the wife you are looking for."

"Er… uh… eh…" Allen stumbled, glancing over his shoulder at a suddenly very pale Kanda. "_D-dozo yoroshiku…_" He mumbled with a low, low, shaking bow. He prayed that he had said it right. Prayed that he didn't have his hood up for some stupid reason like her not knowing that he was a man. He hadn't lifted his voice or anything, being Kanda hadn't told him to. Just thinking about it made him start sweating.

_Her voice… is very…low…_ Hiroko thought with a tilt of her head. "Say, _Baka-Yuu_, what did you say you're wife's name was?"

Allen could feel his heart beating in his chest. Thump. Like a creature trying to get out. Thump. Like it was unhappy sitting in his body. Thump.

"I didn't."

Thump.

"Che."

Thump.

Why did he want to melt into the ground when she looked at him with those cold gray eyes?

"Well, let's hear, it. And take off that ugly hood so I can see you in all your horribleness." She crossed her arms and tapped her foot expectantly, her eyebrows cocked, her hips displaced, her feet unconsciously in a fighting stance.

Thump. There wasn't enough oxygen in his blood. Thump. His heart was going to explode.

And yet he took the fabric of his hood and pushed it back slowly, swallowing hard and throwing himself into a second bow (even lower than the first), shaking. "M-my name is Allen Walker. N-nice to meet you."

Hiroko froze.

Thump. Thump, thump. Thump.

_He's…a man…_ Her brain slowly registered. _A white haired boy. Bowing to me. Telling me his name. Allen, was it? And he's… he's… he's… Yuu's… he's... him and Yuu… and… oh… they… The FAMILY LINE! Oh, but Hitori… and there's nothing… ew… ah…but that's nice… Stop it Hiroko, you're not supposed to think those things about your son!!_

"Okaasan?" Allen asked at the expression Hiroko was making. Her face was a tumult of warring emotions, and it seemed to Allen that not a one was going to win. And then he had spoken. His voice brought out a strange, half-happy half-murderous expression that reminded him far more of Komui than any face Kanda ever made could. It scared him. "Er…"

"Well then," She said with a horrible, fake smile. "Do tell me… Allen-chan," Her eyes twinkled with suppressed intentions and her hand dropped to the blade at her side. "If you're my _dear, sweet Yuu-kun's wife_…" She was lumbering over him now, somehow, even though she was shorter than him, her sparkling eyes making her face appear dark in comparison. "_Who's the seme?_"

Kanda was at his side in a moment, which somehow managed to shrink his mother back down to a more manageable size. Allen knew what Kanda's answer would be, because he was too stubborn to admit that it was _him_. But at the same time, he knew that he _was_ the seme, being he initiated his fair share of bedroom adventures. But did that really make him the leader? Or was it Kanda because he usually found a way to dominate the actions? Was it supposed to be that hard to figure it out? He didn't think so. So he would just go with his gut and hope Kanda's gut was with him.

It was not.

"I am." They said together. Kanda was about to turn at him with a curse and a demand to know what the hell he was thinking but Hiroko beat him to it.

Her sword was out and slicing even before Allen even registered that he was in danger. It was Mugen that kept his head connected to his neck in that moment, and shortly after he was backing away, questions falling out of his mouth faster than his feet could carry him away.

"Wait! What? Why?—AH!"

Hiroko glared at her son and pushed his sword aside, disinterested in his meager attempts to stop her. "_Bakayarou! _Wife? Che! As if I'd let a _boy_ who's done _that_ to _my_ son into _my_ house and into _my_ family?! Ha! Right." She slashed again, harder, chasing Allen step for step down the walkway. "And a foreigner on top of it all, eh? Bull shit. I'm going cut off every part of you that has ever violated my Yuu-kun!"

Kanda recovered from the blow that had pushed him away from Allen and placed himself once again between the two. Hitori and Sable stood to the sides of the battle, the first aghast, the second taking notes so she could recite the details of the meeting to Lenalee later. Neither seemed to care though, that Allen was running for his life.

"Okaasan, _tomare!_"

"Che! Get out of my way. I'm kind of busy killing your wife to fight you."

"No! Stop trying to kill him!"

She narrowed her eyes and stepped closer, sidestepped and slid around him to hack at a very confused, very wide eyed Allen who was standing behind him. Allen gave up on standing his ground at that point and headed for the tree a few yards away. Kanda caught a glance of him shimming up the cherry tree and into the higher reaching, smaller branches, before he had himself placed once again between wakizashi and lover, blocking and glaring at the seething woman before him.

"I'm sorry!" Allen called down from the branches, swaying back and forth precariously. "It's not my fault that he doesn't know everything there is to lovemaking!"

Kanda turned a shade of red so dark he might have been camouflaged as a strawberry. "Che, _baka Moyashi,_ don't say things like that in front of my mother."

"But you said you'd be willing to—"

The clashing of swords drowned out the rest of his sentence. "If you say anything else I'll _help_ her cut down this tree and kill you."

"I'm sorry!"

Sable scratched her head and sighed, leaned against the house. Hitori gave her a little look from the corner of his eye, now looking at the scene before him in a half-interested way. He really did look like a smaller, slimmer Kanda, but that his bangs hung down over his eyes and the color of his irises was off. He also wasn't glaring all the time. Instead he looked thoughtful, more scholarly, like an old man in the body of a boy. She couldn't tell what was on him mind though, which wasn't unusual for someone she didn't know that well.

"Somehow," She said distantly. "This entertains me."

Hitori made a little snorting sound that might have been a very cute, very awkward laugh. "Actually, it does me too." He looked back at her again, and she made another note about the differences between Hitori and Yuu; Hitori was wearing his hair down and he didn't seem awkward about it. "I'm Kanda Hitori, by the way."

"Sable Adair."

"So you work with my brother?"

"Heh. No one works with your brother. We all just work with his aura."

"What?"

"Nothing." She nodded toward the still ongoing fight in front of the house and made a surprised face. "Oooh, it's getting really violent now."

Mugen rattled in Kanda's hand his mother was pushing so hard. Above them Allen continued to call down apologies, which were slowly becoming more and more vulgar and sexually based than he _ever_ wanted to hear. He would have to put a stop to it soon, and none of his words were working on his frenzied mother.

She stepped around him again and brought the hilt of her sword into the side of his face without the slightest care that it would hurt him, he stumbled away as the earth began to rotate under his feet sickly and the side of his head throbbed. He swung feebly with his sword one handedly and she kicked him in the back savagely, sprawling him in the gravel face down. She ignored him after that, instead turning her attention to the boy in the tree that had violated her poor, innocent, darling son.

It was only when she stuck her short sword up into the lower branches of the tree that Allen seriously began to worry about himself. He was watching Kanda recover from his wounds even while he worried. "_Kio, neko, neko, neko…_" She said softly. "Hito-baka! Get my _yumi!_"

"I refuse to aid in the death of my brother's lover."

"Aw, when you say it that way it sounds almost poetic." Sable smiled.

Kanda, who had shaken his head a number of times to clear it, charged Hiroko with enough force to knock her off her feet, but she did not fall, diverting his blow to the tree trunk instead. He screamed profanities at his mother, knowing that it had to stop. If it didn't, Allen, his Allen, was going to be maimed or beaten or killed.

But really, didn't have to stop anything. Gravity stopped it for him.

His lover's motion finally dislodged Allen from the branches of the cherry tree and he started to fall. He reached for a twig on the way down, but it snapped in his hand, turning him sideways so that his back was the first thing to make contact with the gravel. The air evacuated his lungs as if there were a fire inside of him. He attempted to gasp but found his muscles disliked moving so soon after being hit with the force of gravity, so he settled for a mild intake of breath that hurt more than any sword wound ever would have; his eyes began to tear even as he fought it.

"Moyashi!" Kanda was beside him, concern on his smooth face, crinkling his eyebrows together as if they took comfort in each other's company. There were strong hands on his shoulders, holding him still while Kanda's deep sapphire eyes tried to assess whatever damage had occurred from the fall. He had completely forgotten about the woman who was chasing Allen. He even dropped his sword unthought-of. "Are you alright?"

Allen coughed, which didn't help with the watery eyes. "F-fine." He wheezed again, swallowed. He had had the wind knocked out of him before, so he knew it was no big deal. He tried to smile at the man above him. "Just… need a second to breathe."

Kanda gave him a little, sideways smile. He really was overreacting. With gentle hands he helped Allen to his feet, letting the British boy lean on him as he coughed repeatedly. "Okaasan," Kanda said seriously. Hiroko was leaning against the tree with her sword sheathed, picking her nails with a small knife she had kept somewhere in her light blue and gray yukata. "Don't try to kill my wife anymore. Please."

She glared at him in a matter that made Allen want shrivel up and die out of fear of her. "And why shouldn't I?"

Allen watched a horrible, evil expression crawl across Kanda's face and make its home there, narrowing and darkening his eyes, drawing his lips up in a wicked, twisted grin. "Because I love him. Don't I, _Moyashi-kun_?"

The white haired boy's head sank to his chest in defeat. _So I'm going to kiss him in front of his mother after all…_ "Yeah… and I love you too…" He sighed and turned to his lover. His heart was thumping again. His fingers were cold. What would she do if they kissed each other? Well, he was about to find out.

When it happened, Hiroko secretly wished that she had a camera.

"Ugh… I think I'm gonna vomit…" Hitori said quietly.

Sable gave him a pat on the back, chuckling. "That's what everyone says until they see the light."

"Damn it. Let's just go in the fucking house you pansies. I hope you can make tea, you pale assed slut." As she spoke she stepped toward her little cottage, sighing, strong shoulders slumping. It took Allen a good seven seconds to realize that the 'pale assed slut' was him. "Oh," When she came to do the door and Sable who was standing beside it, she gave a little bow and smiled sweetly. "And you are welcome in my house as well my dear. And I might add that your hair is quite striking."

"Why thank you Hiroko-san," Sable said with dignified grace. "It is a great honor to enter the house of the woman who birthed the ego—I mean—the _amazing man_ Kanda Yuu."

Kanda sighed at his lover, giving him a small peck on the cheek. "That wasn't so bad was it?"

"She called me a slut!"

Kanda grinned at him and let the hand that he still had on Allen's shoulder fall to his hips. He gently tugged him closer and Allen's hands found their way to his upper arms "Which is fine so long as you are only whoring for me." He glanced momentarily away from his lover's blush and at the house to see that their three companions had gone inside before he kissed Allen deeply, drawing him closer as the hands on his arms moved first to his shoulders and then up behind his head. They had been terribly careful about being discovered after what had happened on the train with Sable, so standing outside in the cold breeze kissing was like something from a distant, splendid dream. Of course, those dreams usually involved Kanda having his way with Allen right there in the grass, but that wasn't going to happen. Not with gravel and neighbors.

"Love," Allen said between kisses, breathing hard. He took a step into Kanda, became aware that their actions were becoming swiftly more intimate. "If we keep this up… you're mother is going to kill us b—"

"Che," Kanda brought his lips down firmly, felt Allen shiver. "I'll just have to show you my old room. For an hour. And then the bath. And then maybe my room again. I'm sure that she'll understand." He leaned down to drag his tongue down the front of his lover's throat, pausing when he felt the fingers that had found his ponytail pull the ribbon out of his hair. Allen made a little whimpering sound that really did make him wish they didn't have gravel and a stone path and people that would be able to see them.

"If you're sure she won't kill us…"

"Come on," Kanda pulled away to pick up his sword, sheathed it. "If she tries we'll just find a comfy tree, _neko-chan._"

"I have those ears in my suitcase."

Kanda's eyes went wide. "Che! Then _come on_!" He took Allen's hand firmly in his and pulled him hurriedly into the house. _Before the notice that we're not behind them_.

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**Oh Kanda, you little horn-dog. Thoughts? Reviews? Is Hiroko mightily insane? I think she is… but I think Kanda is nutser for wanting to do something like that with her in the house. Crazy teenage boy… oi vej…**

**Love for you readers! I am glad that you waited this long to 'meet' the family 'in person':D //hearts\\**


	43. Persuasion

**Third longest chapter. Late. Will update again soon. Sorry for the unhappy-rant at the end. Took someone's advice and made the Yullen one big thing… I don't really like it. Makes it too long, lol.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lavi would have a last name.**

**WARNING: YAOI! Man on man! Shounen-ai! You don't like it, don't read it:D**

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Persuasion

It had been more than a month.

Lavi and Lenalee had left Tyki at that same inn where he had found them, though the goodbyes were much more pleasant in nature than their hellos had been. He had shook Lenalee's hand. He had kissed Lavi is a way that promised that one day, someday, he wouldn't stop their escapades before they reached fruition. Lavi had not wanted to leave him there, had not wanted to see him return to the people he had betrayed, but there were few options at the time. Then, one month, one week, and two days later, he was about ready to go demand a mission so he could hope to see him.

But Komui was a mind reader. So Lavi had been placed on a mission the day before. With Crowley _and_ Lenalee. Because that wasn't going to be a problem or anything.

When they came to the inn Lavi had requested his own room, which Crowley was hurt by only until Lavi explained that he didn't want to make _both_ of their rooms into a disaster. After that the two had gone their separate ways without much trouble, which made the apprentice very happy.

All that was left was to wait.

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After entering and removing their shoes, Kanda had dragged him through the living room and down a hallway, through a garden, into another hallway, and at last into a dark room. It wasn't a cottage after all; it was just made to look that way from the front. The place was all one floor, but it was still huge. Allen did not really have time to take in the paper doors and the matted floors or the rafters or much of anything, because Kanda kissed him as soon as they were in the room that used to be his.

And he didn't really want to argue with his hurriedness, either.

"Will she find us here?" He asked to the glimmering eyes above him. They had not turned on a light so Kanda's face was cast in shadow, nothing but the wetness of his eyes and the occasional glimmer of teeth visible in the darkness. But Allen could still feel him. He could feel the warmth of his body only inches away; feel the soft touch of a hand on the back of his neck, the caress of fingers on his chest. He wanted to feel more, too. Desperately.

"Not if we leave it dark like this."

"Your room has no windows?"

Kanda's lip twitched a little at the small, unconscious hand running down the side of his ribs. "I was never one to like the light."

Allen leaned up and laid his lips carefully across his lovers, trying to be quiet. "Love, that sounds... almost sad when you say it so quietly." The fingers he had let wander the side of Kanda's jacket came to a slow halt at his hip, played there momentarily while he kissed him again. "Besides, you're pretty bright compared to your mother."

Kanda laughed and pulled the silky blue ribbon from Allen's hair, smiled when his silver tresses fell loosely down around his shoulders. "Do we have to talk about her?"

"No. We don't have to talk at all." His fingers were working the buttons of Kanda's jacket, flipping them out of their holes in an unhurried fashion. "Might not be discovered if we're quiet…"

"Che, as if you can be quiet…"

"Shut up."

Hitori sighed at the door he knew is brother and…_thing_ in law to be behind, knowing that he should open it, yell at them, and then storm away. But he couldn't make himself. So he stood there, listening to the two of them speak to each other in hushed voices in what was now _his_ room, swinging abandoned suitcases in either hand. Okaasan was borderline murderous being the two had disappeared together so soon after showing up and she blamed it all on that 'white haired harlot' and none of it on her 'sweet, womanish Yuu' – which Hito thought was _so _unfair. It was Yuu that had led them away and now they were in the room that used to be Yuu's. That wasn't Allen's fault. But they wouldn't do anything, would they? Not once they realized that things had been rearranged? And they would notice, right? He sat down a suitcase and sighed again.

"Wait Love, I heard something."

"Che, it was your imagination."

"Eep! Don't pick me up! I can walk to the bed myself!"

"Be quiet. You don't know where the futon is."

"I'm sure I can find it without you carrying me."

"Find it, trip on it, break your neck, and leave me to grieve you forever."

"Love, don't be ridiculous—_Ah! Don't drop me either!_"

Kanda had him just how he liked him; looking up with those lusty, half-amused silver eyes that shown like stars in the semi-darkness. He could not make out much else but for those eyes and his hair, perhaps the outline of the silver on his coat, if he really looked. He kissed his lover fervently then, shrugged out of his jacket when the buttons were undone. There were fingers twining through his wild hair that he could not see, and the sudden presence of a hot, wet tongue on his Adam's apple brought a shaking moan to his lips. Just has he drew his knees to either side of Allen's hips and helped pull the boy's shirt over his head, the sliding door came open.

_Why does this remind me of something?_ Allen's mind asked stupidly. Hito dropped the other suitcase and covered his face with his hands, allowing himself to peer through the cracks in his fingers.

"It's fine! I almost didn't see anything!"

"Hito—" Kanda would have rolled off of Allen if the British boy hadn't been hanging on to him as if for dear life. "Let go."

"If I do, he'll be blinded…"

"Che."

Hitori took two steps back into the hallway and the one forward, glancing both left and right before seeming to recover a little of his composure. He quickly bent to pick up their suitcases before he stepped into the room and slid the door closed again with a very well aimed, very practiced right foot.

And the three were alone in the dark together.

"Love, he's not like your mother is he?" The whisper hardly even made it to Kanda's ears.

"What are you doing, Hito?"

A half second later a match was struck and a dim lantern was lit; Hitori's wide gray eyes flickered in the firelight, his expression ghoulish. "This,_Yuu-nii-corn_, is _my_ room." He said it with a finality that could not be argued – his glare was much scarier when he was half cast in seething, chaotic shadows. "So before you do anything 'Kaasan would impale you for, how about you get off of _my_ futon."

For a long moment, Kanda did not move, he simply blinked. "She moved my room?"

"No, she made my room into a guest room and put all of your stuff in the first basement of the main house. Sorry, it's what happens when you disappear for a while, ya know?"

"Then where's the guest room?" Allen asked in the most polite way he could while being straddled by his lover.

"Next to 'Kaasan's."

Kanda said a word so foul it made Hito blush. "Hito."

"Hm?"

"Leave now."

"This is my room."

"And I'm borrowing it."

"You can't just_borrow it_, that's stealing."

"Che. Your loss then."

"Lost what?"

"Purity."

"Ah!"

The last exclamation was Allen's. The man atop him rocked forward sharply, bearing down on his neck with caresses and touches that the white haired boy had not been expecting at all. There were suddenly touches everywhere, gracing the places that aroused him fastest, tickling the locations that always made him cry out in yearning. It was all very fast. Too fast for him to silence his sounds completely. He had grown used to slow, patient Kanda – having him rub a nipple, lick an earlobe, and place weight against his slowly growing desire was almost enough to make him forget that Hitori was even there.

"L-love, your brother—"

"Is either going to leave or watch."

"That's horri—" He was pushing back on Kanda's shoulders but it was pointless; Kanda simply smashed their lips together, tilted his weight at a more constricting angle. "Sorr—Hito—can't—stop…"

There was a great sigh from the sixteen year old by the door, so deep it might have filled the room with air twice over. Allen tried to look at him as best he could from the corner of his eye.

"Fine. Have my room. Just… clean the place and get out as fast as you can. Ugh…" _I'm going to catch their gay germs…_

"Excellent choice…" Kanda sank his teeth into Allen's collarbone and received a very loud exclamation in answer. "I'll see you at dinner, Hito-to."

"Like I'm going to eat all week."

When he opened the door and closed it again Kanda continued with his relentless assault in the new darkness, only this time Allen was enthusiastic with him. Hito stood still for a moment on the opposite side of the door, breathing deeply, blinking slowly, trying as hard as humanly possible to get what little he had seen the dimness out of his mind forever. All it took was one loud whimper of pleasure to spur him down the all, futon be damned and soiled.

_Three years…_ He thought with a glower. _And this is his hello._

Back in his room, Kanda was laying soft kisses down Allen's throat when the boy rolled unceremoniously sideways, forcing him onto his side and then onto his back so that the two switched positions.

"What are you doing,_baka_." It wasn't a question, but the swift touch of wet, hot lips on his chest was an answer.

"It's my turn."

"Che." Kanda attempted to argue but found he didn't really want to. Not when his senses were being swallowed by his lover's gentleness, his caring. After being attacked by his mother, thinking Allen had surely killed himself falling out a tree, and what felt like four weeks without a good, fearless lay, he figured he needed something soft and unhurried. Something he could lose himself in without looking over his shoulder at the door. Not that his mother would be in the back of his mind, drawing his attention away from the heat Allen was causing by dragging his fingers down his chest as he kissed him.

_Screw it_. He thought as he let his lips part under Allen's guidance and his hand snuck beneath the fabric of his lover's pants. _If she finds us like this, she'll just have to deal with it. Just like Hito._

"Love, stop thinking."

"Heh."

Allen shifted his hips down until he was laying across Kanda, their chests pressed together, electricity dancing through him at the contact. If the Japanese man didn't want to think about what they were doing that was fine, he would just compete with ever skill he possessed to distract him. His tongue played against a sensitive nipple while his hand traversed the distance from chest bone to belt buckle, trailing back and forth between the two as he closed his teeth softly before moving on. The man beneath him hooked his hands on the back of Allen's legs and pulled him downward, grinding their hips together and pulling a strangled sound from Allen's lips. That wasn't what he wanted. It was his turn to do what he wanted; he wasn't going to let Kanda run things from below.

It was not until Allen had his belt undone and was pushing Kanda's arms back next to his face that the Japanese man even began to pay attention to what was going on. For a moment he couldn't imagine why his right wrist had pressure on it, but a small tug and the rattle of a buckle informed him. That wasn't what he had in mind. Not at all. He wanted something soft and gentle and lingering, not something…belty.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting your attention and making sure you cooperate."

Kanda laughed at him before pushing back against the hands that held his wrists. "You don't want that and neither do I. Let's just… do things out of order for once, alright?" He kissed what he thought was Allen's lips in the dark and discovered that it was really his right eye. "Because I want to make love to you," His lips did not stray from Allen's cheek as he spoke; he felt the warmth of a blush against them, "More than anything else in the world right now." He felt the resistance of the white haired boy give away and he sat up, letting his arms curl around the thin torso of his lover. He thought he might melt from the heat between them. "Will you let me do that?"

For a moment Allen was silent, thinking. "Nope."

"Moyashi!"

"It's my turn, dammit! Now lay down!"

In any other situation he might have laughed at his smaller lover and done what he wanted, but Allen was just being so… _cute_ he couldn't bring himself to. So instead he let himself be pressed back onto the futon by those small, strong hands, let himself sigh into the silver hair that tickled his face when Allen kissed the hollow of his throat. He didn't think about his mother anymore. He didn't think about Hitori. He thought about running his hands over his lover's skin, experiencing every inch of him. At the times when he was like this, when he could feel Allen's weight against him, could smell his own soap in Allen's hair, couldn't see but could imagine the determined look on his lover's face, he thought that he would just melt away in happiness.

Which felt very odd. He was Kanda Yuu. Happy wasn't a word that belonged in his mental vocabulary.

He didn't argue when his pants came unfastened, nor did he reach for Allen's. He was too busy being intrigued by how glad he was just to feel hands against neck and lips against his. He was too in the moment. And, oddly the mouth against his was smiling.

Mentally Allen was laughing. _He's naked and I'm not…_

Kanda made a low moaning sound when a hand brushed teasingly over his erection, the vibration of his exclamation was smothered in Allen's lips. He deepened their kiss, working in tandem with rhythm that was slowly being built between them. A hand guided his fingers to Allen's trousers and he followed the unspoken command, slowly pulled each silver button from its place until the line was done and his lover was exposed to him. He didn't touch anything though, he just let his hands be guided to either hip where he could take hold and slide Allen out of his pants.

_And now we're both naked…but I'm still have my socks on… why didn't I take those off?_

"Now look who's thinking," Kanda panted, drawing himself up to lick his lover's throat – he missed and tickled the edge of an eyebrow.

Allen laughed. "Don't… lick me…" He giggled, positioned himself so that he his weight was on his lover's upper thighs; he leaned forward, letting muscle memory tell him where Kanda's mouth was. He found it easily enough, though it might have better if he hadn't. He was soon snickering into their kiss just imagining what it might have looked like to have Kanda first kiss his eye and then lick his eyebrow. All while still in his socks.

_I bet that's someone's strange fetish… No. Don't think about it. Don't think about Kanda's mother. Don't think about socks. Don't think about your arm. Think about this._

He slid himself down on his lover, tracing the line of his body with kisses, before he came to the section of sensitive skin just bellow where he usually wore his belt. He spent more time there, draw his lips across it daintily, relishing in the goosebumps his touches produced. The beautiful ivory skin beneath his lips was intoxicating; he only hoped to share that intoxication with the man that produced it. He sank lower.

Kanda felt the warm, moist air from Allen's mouth against him and gave an involuntary shiver. In the darkness he could not see what his lover was doing, could not guess what was to come next, so when a pair of gentle lips closed around him it was more than half a surprise. The air stopped suddenly in his throat and his fingers bit into the flesh of Allen's shoulders, hot enjoyment speeding his heart in his chest. After a long moment of shock he heard himself sigh – his lover took it as a sign to work more fervently. The tongue that swirled against him only served to increase his desires ten fold, sending electric waves of pleasure through him with every twitch and caress. The contact left him when he accidentally threw his hips forward without regard for the boy pleasuring him.

Allen grumbled something under his breath as he half scamper-crawled to the suitcases by the door. Hurriedly he pulled the first one to him, ripped the latches open and fumbled through the clothes within. After perhaps a half minute of sifting through garments he had never seen before and that smelled like neither him nor Kanda, he turned to the second suitcase. He immediately located the bottle he was looking for – which was still rather full from their travels. He came back to the futon hurriedly, skidded his knees sharply against the cover of it and half falling into his lover. His lack of grace did not matter though, not when Kanda touched the side of his face with a sweat slicked palm and pulled him into a deep, passionate, kiss. If the time it had taken him to find the bottle of rose scented 'massage oil' had been long enough for any of his yearning to diminish it was no long so; that kiss brought him right back to where he was a moment before.

And he felt that Kanda was right there with him.

He could smell the flowers almost as soon as Allen had himself positioned between his knees. He felt a thrill run through him when their lips parted and a hand found the inside of his right thigh. He turned his attention to what he could reach of his lover, ran his fingers over a nipple and leaned down to repeat their kiss from moments before, his free hand hovered momentarily around his lover's navel until he felt a wet finger press against him, then he let it sink lower.

Allen made a short gasping sound and accidentally let his finger slip deeper; Kanda moaned as he pulled them both closer, his mouth fell to Allen's bare shoulder. He felt astoundingly vulnerable when Allen withdrew his hand, even more so when soft dry fingers, pulled his hand away from his lover's length. He fell backward until he was flat on his back, Allen above him, slowly pressing into him. It was utter bliss to have his lover's weight against him, his fingers on his flesh, and no light to distinguish between them. Without light he could feel so much more it seemed. The ridges on the ear that graced his lips. A slight difference in length between Allen's arms. A pounding heat just outside of his body, begging to be allowed entrance.

"Love…"

"Don't stop now."

"What if someone walks in?"

"We'll wave."

The British boy needed no more encouragement. He pressed inward, the man beneath him growing tense; Kanda pulled him down sharply, suppressing a cry of surprise at the full presence within him. He breathed deeply as Allen kissed the underside of his chin with a feather-light touch, almost tickling. He shivered, running his hands in slow, encouraging circles over his lover's shoulders. He didn't like it when Allen was apprehensive. Sometimes, even though he wasn't aware of it, Allen would pause between moments of intimacy to be sure that Kanda was with him, unfazed, prepared. Kanda did not specifically care if he was prepared for everything the Moyashi threw at him so long as they both survived it – most small wounds would heal even before they had time to hurt. So he arched into his lover, pulling with his palms, reaching with his lips, willing him to understand that he need not worry himself overmuch.

Allen got the message.

He moaned beautifully as he pulled back and pressed forward again, meeting Kanda halfway. His fingers clamped on the Japanese man's shoulders, biting fiercely, as uncontrollable heat washed through him. He had never lost himself quite like this before. Even though he wanted to think of nothing but the glorious expression Kanda always made he couldn't, he could only feel the tight muscle around him, the ragged breath at his neck, and the pulse of his heartbeat in his face. He had never really felt Kanda tremble before, but he could like that in the dark.

Kanda was keenly aware that he was not being quiet at all. He didn't care. His body shivered with every thrust as he neared climax, his breath coming in short gasps against Allen's skin. When the hand on his left shoulder abandoned his flesh to take hold of him it was nearly over, and he plummeted over the edge of oblivion with Allen behind shortly, his voice raised in pleasure as well. Afterward the British boy collapsed atop him, breathless, cold sweat clinging to his chest and arms. He lay there for a long moment in the dimness, regaining the air to speak.

"Are you alright, Moyashi?"

He was quiet.

"Moyashi?" Kanda pushed him gently from his chest and rolled him so he was lying on the futon beside him, face up. He ran a gentle hand over his face; a frown turned down his lips. _He wasn't that warm a second ago, was he?_ "Moyashi-kun?"

He groaned. "I'm sorry…it's been a long day."

"Che, you should have stopped me if you had a fever."

"I don't… do I?"

"Yes you do. Stay here. I'll get Okaasan."

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When at last he came to it the inn was nothing to be amazed about. It still made him happy though. The roof was cheap thatch, the windows were made of the thinnest glass, it only had a single floor, and the door was hollow, warped oak. But its contents made it the most beautiful inn in the world, if not the most wonderful building ever constructed. It made him smile. Even if the Order was cheap and ridiculous for housing its people here, he didn't care. He just cared that one of them was there.

Lavi.

With a confidant smile he secured his top hat down on his hair and set his shoulders. He was happy. Just completely content to know that he would soon be stumbling upon his favorite, adorable redhead.

He passed through the inn door and into the lobby with the air of a man who belonged there, which was betrayed by his long black coat, his hat, the expensive shoes he wore. If the woman at the desk hadn't seen him smiling she might have though he was there to buy the place out or demand it be destroyed. He graciously asked if a Mr. Lavi was in, which made her even more comfortable, and by the time he was walking down the hall she was almost swooning of the counter, a grin plastered on her features. Guests like that made her very, very glad she had taken over the family business.

Lavi was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to organize his belongings as best he could. The last thing he wanted was for Lenalee to come in and find that rope again – because she might get it the second time around and that would be embarrassing. Secondly, even though Tyki had discovered how very uncaring he was about his room he didn't want to make the man live like that if he showed up; he was used to being in a pristine mansion after all.

A light knock on the door alerted him that he had company. He wanted to be hopeful but figured it was Crowley again, having probably lost their Finder or killed a spider or done some other completely unforgivable thing that he needed to be reassured about. Lavi did like the guy though, for all of his moments, and the thought of being asked to say yet another eulogy for a bug made him smile, if only a little.

When he opened the door a dark figure leaned in and he was swept away in an unexpected, eye widening kiss. He didn't close his eyes to it. He didn't back away in surprise. He simply stood, incapable of understanding why someone was molesting his lips with their own.

Tyki broke off at the lack of a response and pulled back, the better to look the apprentice Bookman in the eye. "Was I supposed to say hello first?"

Comprehension washed over Lavi's face like a wave and his blank expression broke into a warm, listless smile. "Not if you don't want to, Ty-chan." He reached out and took the older man by the tie, pulled him down into a longer, more impassioned kiss, backing up slowly until they were both in the room together. He released his tie then, closing the door and locking it behind them. He knew that he should ask how the other man had been, but he couldn't bring himself to. Instead he hugged him shamelessly, sighing at the clean and yet dusty scent of him, like an unused book from the darkest part of the library. And expensive cologne. The smell made him smile.

Tyki let his arms encircle the younger man and he rested his cheek on the top of Lavi's hair, a great sigh shaking him. "I missed you."

"Hmm…" Lavi breathed, closing his eyes. "I…" He wanted to say that he had missed him also, and many other things, but the searing heat in his heart stole the words away. So instead he leaned closer, the pain intensified with every passing breath but he didn't care. He cared only that he was holding the most important man in the world in his arms.

"You are crying again."

"I don't care."

"You are going to get tears on my lapels."

"Do you have a better place for me to put them?"

Tyki took a gentle hold of his shoulders, leaned him back so he could look into his eye with all of the warmth and joy that he felt. The tears came faster, streaking down his face in long lines of silver. Tyki shrugged off his coat and threw it over the bed, and extended his arms once more. "How about on my crisp white shirt?"

Lavi smirked at him before taking up his offer. "You're a real jerk-face, you know that?"

Tyki laughed at the vibration made Lavi feel very small and weak against him. "But you still like me."

"Yep. Lots."

After a long moment of just standing so, the older of the two ran his hand slowly down the boy's back, trying to soothe him. It was because of that hand that he was able to hold on to the source of his pain and outlast the tears that plagued him; yet when they stopped the pain did not subside. If anything it cut deeper into him, tearing at him like a knife that he loved.

"Lavi?" Tyki's voice pulled his thoughts away and made him release a breath he did not know he was holding. "Are you alright?"

The young man leaning against him turned his face up slowly, a sad smile on his lips. "I'm fine," He pulled himself up to kiss Tyki on the lips. "As long as you are." _Because… because I…_

He couldn't complete the thought. So he trusted his hands to do it for him. They traveled slowly up Tyki's chest until they caught each other at the back of his neck, he pulled down and Tyki let himself be guided until Lavi laid his lips gently on his forehead, at the place where the middle cross marred his face. It was a simple touch, something a child might have done, and the Noah was completely stilled by it.

A hand slipped the knot from his tie and pulled it off; the apprentice Bookman pushed himself up and softly reaching for the newly exposed flesh. Tyki's hands came up and took a hold of his wrists, pulling him away forcefully, his dark eyes warm in their coldness. He had to fight not to see the confusion on Lavi's face, the pain. It hurt him, but he knew that it was too much.

"Ty-chan?"

He shook his head; his hands did not release the wrists he held. "I can't."

"You can't what?"

**Do it.**  
_No._  
**Do it. Take it. Make him plead.**  
_No!_

"Today is not a good day to touch me, Lavi-san." He licked his lips, swallowed hard. In the moment Lavi's lips had graced his forehead the voice had come back again. His other self that was still him. He wanted him to clench the wrist in his hand and twist it, to leaned down again and kiss Lavi like true lover and then tie him up like the first time, but finish it differently. Finish it with a painful death and a wicked grin. His jaw tensed as his fingers closed painfully around the wrist against his right palm. "I…might hurt you."

"You just kissed me like that at the door and _now_ it's a bad day to touch you? C'mon Ty-chan, it can't be any worse than it was before, can it?"

"Lavi, it isn't like that. I—"

"I'm not a child and I'm not something you can just keep in a little box and touch when you think you're ready. Crowley and Lenalee are asking around about Innocence and I'm here, alone, with you – what else do you want? Do I have to throw _you_ down and make you touch me?" He pulled away sharply; his wrists came out of the Noah's hands as he took two short steps backward.

"You don't get it. Back home at Headquarters, I don't like getting up in the mornings. I can hardly talk myself into looking like happy-go-lucky-Lavi with the fact that I _might _get a mission and I _might _be able to see you. And you know what's worse? When you're near me and I can't kiss you. When I can't reach out and have you hold me, Ty-chan. Yeah, sometimes I get leaky eyes when you're around, but that's not something either of us should be afraid of. It's my normal.

"So stop worrying about how it's going to hurt me if you do something regrettable and start worrying about how much pain I am in _now_, two steps away from you. Because right now, you can do something about it."

For a moment Lavi wondered if maybe he had gone too far. Tyki stared at him with dark eyes gone glazed, he swayed on his feet gently, back and forth, as if with the motion were something he could not resist. He counted seven heartbeats before Tyki moved forward, his left arm snaked behind Lavi's back and his right hand came to rest on the side of his face, titled his head upward so that their lips met; Lavi opened his mouth to the questing tongue that sought the warmth his lips contained. He let the fire pour out of him and into Tyki, into the Noah. Into the man he loved.

Tyki didn't open his eyes or move away when the kiss broke. "If that is what you want, Lavi-san," He leaned into the callused hand came up to wipe away his tears. "Then we'll see if I can."

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**Ok. Bad ending. Kind of moodswingy Lavi, but I think he deserves a good mood swing. No one ends up with a Noah without one, right?**

**Thank you EVERYONE who reads//hearts\\**


	44. Tradition

**So I said to myself 'Yay! You updated! Now you can sit down and do kanji!' Right. Like that will happen. I was so totally stoked about this that I couldn't stop myself from writing. And I know the same thing will happen tomorrow. It's horrible. I haven't even answered all of the reviews yet and still, here I am, posting a chapter. Does this count as an oops?**

**I will answer them though. As soon as I'm done with this volume of The Wallflower :D**

**Disclaimer of Default: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… there would be an episode dedicated solely to fan-service.**

**WARNING: Man-on-Man. Nothing too bad. CUSSING. Hiroko has no sense of womanish language.**

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Tradition

The yutaka was much too big for Allen – the sleeves hung well past his hands and the hem would have been trampled if he stood – but Kanda liked to see him in it all the same. Though his things had been moved to the basement of the main house, they still had a chest of clothes for him under Hitori's bed, which included the mauve garment he had helped his lover into and is own was a softer, lighter red colored yutaka, which still fit surprisingly well.

Hurriedly he straightened what they had displaced and cleaned what he thought needed it. He then turned to the disaster that became of the two suitcases by the door. The first had been Sable's – which meant she had his – and he had an amusing time trying to fit all of the things Allen had ripped out of it without touching too much. He wasn't afraid of girl germs; he just didn't like the idea of rifling someone else's things without their knowledge. When at last he had the thing crammed shut he did the same to Allen's, only he wasn't quite so careful. Lastly, when all of that was finished, he went to find his mother.

Hiroko was sitting at the table in the front room with Sable, who was smiling as she swirled her tea in her cup. The blonde looked at him when he came in and didn't even pretend to be nice. "Wow, Kanda-chan, that color is interesting on you. What do you call it? Fairy pink? Or is it more like rose petal pink? Maybe frolicking pink? I've always been bad with colors…"

His mother let out a cackle that might reminded him eerily of Komui, tilting her head back and lowering her teacup to the tabletop. "You know, Yuu, it's too bad you think of your self as a married man. This girl is almost bitchy enough to rival your bastard-hood."

"Che." He glared at them both, angered that they could be so carefree when Allen was back in Hotori's room, feverish, dying of something smaller than Kanda's index finger. "Okaasan, would you mind if Allen borrowed the guest room?"

"You're not having sex in it. You're too loud."

Sable snorted. "Naw, they won't be doing that until at least tomorrow. They take breaks."

Kanda lifted his hands to his face and pressed his eyes with his palms. He did not want to be here. Not with his mother and Sable mocking his love life. Not with Hitori coming in from the kitchen with an expression like death. He sighed and turned, narrowed his eyes at the black haired woman before him. "He's sick. I need a place for him to rest until he gets better."

"Sick? A cold? Che! What a weakling." Hiroko looked disappointed. "Yeah, he can have that bedroom while you're here. I don't use it. And there are some towels in the closet at the end of the hall if he has a fever. Oh, and Sable-chan made tea." The last part she smiled at, which worried Kanda immensely. The last thing he wanted was for Sable and his mother to get along – the two of them would be plotting death and doujins before sundown. "You should have some."

He shook his head. "Not now." He did not bother thanking them; instead he just spun on heel as if to walk away.

"Yuu-nii," Hito stopped him. His voice seemed worried, even if his face was still less than convincing. "Does it have to do with… whatever is wrong with his arm?" He didn't expect to have Sable and Hiroko and his brother look at him as if he was completely insane, but it still happened. He stood still for a moment as the three looked at him as if they wanted him to explain what he was talking about. "The left one. It's all scaly and red and his nails are black. I don't want to pry or anything but that sure as hell isn't normal."

Sable's expression went from worry to amusement in the span of his explanation. "That's just how is arm always is. His Innocence is in his hand, so it makes his arm look funny." She shrugged and pushed her bangs up off of her forehead so he could see the marks on her forehead. "The little line on the side is where mine is. I don't know why my face isn't all creepy looking like his arm is though."

"It's not creepy." Kanda said before he could think. "It's just different."

"Oh." Hitori stepped closer and leaned down to peer at the little glimmer of green above her eyebrow. "How fascinating…" His left hand crept up slowly, finger extend, his face completely curious.

"Hito-baka." Hiroko growled from her place across from Sable. He froze, gray eyes wide with surprise. "Don't poke our guests."

His hand fell and he stepped back, looking stricken. That was a face Kanda never made. Sable couldn't help but smile when he bowed apologetically, never once realizing that she didn't care. "I'm sorry. My curiosity will be the death of me."

"It's okay," She reached out and gave his hand a little pat. "I don't mind if you touch it."

Kanda was stuck. What could he do when faced with a Moyashi that needed him and a brother that was undoubtedly going to touch a woman who could read his mind? She would most likely get the infinite details that he was thinking of only in the back of his mind, and then she'd spend hours giving them to Lenalee or Komui. And then Kanda would get to hear them recited the next he called the Order. So how could he choose? He couldn't. He stood half in the hallway, half in the living room, perfectly still. Slowly, as if time had slowed to a crawl, Hitori's fingers wandered back to Sable's forehead and gently, softly brushed against her skin.

Kanda made to leap and break the contact, but his mother did it for him.

"You goddamn bloody man-whore!" She cursed, swinging her sheathed sword down across the back of his hand. Hitori yelped and stepped back, glaring daggers at his mother. "What the Hell are you thinking!? No touching! _Ever_!"

Hitori blinked at her as he stuck two of his fingers in his mouth to soothe them. "I was jus' curious what it felt like! I'm not seducing her!"

Sable stifled a giggle.

"Right. That's what they all say. Next thing you know, you'll have a baby."

"'Kaasan please, I'm not like that. It was just for scientific interest!"

"Uh huh. I wouldn't believe you if you were dressed as a monk! Yuu! Explain to your brother the importance of _not_ touching women you don't know." She turned back toward the hallway, looking for the pink clad samurai for assistance, but he wasn't there. It was as if a vacuum had formed in the place he had been and she hadn't noticed it until he was gone. She seethed at the empty wall, glared at it with enough force to make anything not already dead wish it were so. "That – little – shit head. I'm going to rip him limb from limp and serve his intestines for dinner."

"Uh oh." Hitori backed away, moving to the wall farthest from his mother fast enough to make his hair wave out behind him like a streamer.

"What?" Sable asked quietly. She was still beside the enraged Japanese woman, trying to organize her rumpled bangs.

"'Kaasan's mad. It's best to move aside and remain silent."

"Oh."

In a flurry of pale blue cloth she was off down the hallway, leaving Hitori and a very stunned Sable alone together in the living room. The second sighed to herself, collapsed against the table tiredly. It was hard work keeping that woman calm even when Kanda wasn't in the room. With him there it was hopeless. She yawned. Hito couldn't help but smile a little at the exhausted expression on her face.

"Is something wrong?"

_I'm hungry…_ "No. I'm sorry; I shouldn't lie on your furniture. Does you're mother always switch targets like that? And what's with the man-whore thing?"

He made a little sound of amusement and nodded. "Yeah, if she wants you to be there and you're not, it's like betraying her in her mind. The man-whore thing is just because she's afraid I'm going to run off with someone like our sister did."

"You have a sister?"

"Yumeko."

"Wow. Kanda has a big family."

"Why do you always call him Kanda? We're all Kanda."

She laughed, pushed herself up to look at him more directly. "Like I said, everyone just works with your brother's aura; the only two people close enough to call him by his given name are Allen and Lavi, and I don't think Allen ever will because he's too set in the ways of English." She shrugged. "If his ego were smaller, it'd be different."

For a moment Hito watched her, perplexed. Sable really was an odd individual, being she knew a descent amount of Japanese, how to make tea, and at least a little about what made his brother who he was. He felt it was safe to be curious around her, just because she seemed curious too. "By the way… would you… like to grab dinner?"

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Kanda heaved Allen into his arms despite his quiet protests. He didn't care if Allen thought he could make it to the guest bedroom, he wasn't going to try. Not while Kanda was there to carry him at least.

"Kanda," Allen said softly into his chest. His cheeks were red and his eyes half-lidded, but he still thought himself capable of walking on his own.

"What is it, Moyashi?"

"Will you promise me something?"

That was an odd question. "Anything that doesn't involve letting you walk, Moyashi."

"Don't leave me alone with your mother."

Kanda laughed as they passed through the first doorway and into the hall, and he was very careful not to bump any part of Allen on the doorframe. "If I have to leave you in the house for some reason, I'll be sure that Sable or Hito stays with you, if you're that worried." He smiled down at his lover, that glimmering, ridiculous grin that made Allen blush. "You shouldn't be though, she's really a caring person on the inside."

"Right. I bet she's as loving as Cross."

"Che, what's that supposed to mean?"

Allen pressed his face against Kanda's chest, the fingers of his left hand – which was not smashed against him – unconsciously curled in the fabric of Kanda's yutaka. "Nothing."

"Right. How do you feel?"

"Fine. Tired but fine."

"Great, you must be really sick. I've never heard you lie this much."

"I'm not lying!" Allen squirmed in his arms, trying to get down. "I would walk if you'd put—_oh_… don't swivel like that." The British boy closed his eyes and leaned in to him, suddenly feeling very weak.

"I'm just walking, Moyashi." He pulled Allen's torso up higher with his left hand so he could feel his temperature with his lips. "Che, and you're hotter than you were five minutes ago."

"But Kanda we just did that… but if you really want to…"

"_Baka!_ You know that's not what I meant."

Allen giggled. The fingers of his left hand pulled Kanda's clothing aside and he laid them gently against his pale, soft flesh, opened his eyes a little. "Are you sure I have a fever? You might just be cold."

"Then why are _you_ shivering?"

"Uh…" Allen stammered. "My body feels sympathy for yours."

"Che."

The sound of footsteps brought his feet to a halt suddenly; Allen made a little sound of discomfort at the sudden change of pace. Kanda glanced at him momentarily, just to be sure that he was alright, his sapphire eyes were diverted for that split second away from the now loud sound of pounding feet on floor. It was all the time Hiroko needed to draw her sword from its sheath. With a roar of pure bloodlust she swung down at the now surprised and watching Yuu; her aim was perfect, her blade precise, and she was looking forward to watching the blood spill when she had hacked most of the skin from his face.

Kanda didn't even think about his options, he simply moved to protect the sick boy in his arms.

Hiroko saw Allen at the last available moment but didn't stop. It was Yuu's loss if she hit him accidentally.

"Love!" Allen cried, pushing his lover off of himself and throwing him off balance. He wiggled enough to make Kanda lose his grip and tumble away into the wall, which put him directly in line with the on coming sword. Ignoring the horrible sound his arm made when it happened, he activated his arm and turned it palm out to catch the blade before it hit anything important, hauling himself into a standing position.

When they collided Allen swayed on his feet a little, his breath coming in short gasps. He blinked over his fingers at the surprised woman who had attacked him, suddenly feeling very light headed. Hiroko saw over the top of that demonic looking claw that his skin was pale, but his cheeks were flushed, and his eyes did not seem to want to draw her completely into focus. "Okaa…san…" He sank to his knees as his arm returned to its normal appearance. Hiroko caught him around the shoulders with one arm before he could fall the rest of the way to the ground.

Her murderous plan was forgotten.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me he was this bad?" She roared at Kanda. He was at Allen's side only a split second after she was, worry and anger fighting for dominance on his face. "Che! Fever, weak, shaking, and I bet he hasn't eaten since breakfast. _Bakayarou!_ You should have said something." Allen was amazed by how _motherly_ she was being about it all, how she was careful to have the entire conversation holding him against her arm and not drop him. That close he could see that though the color was different, her eyes were shaped the same as Kanda's.

"Che. You weren't exactly the most welcoming this morning. I was worried that you'd help him along with dying if I brought him to you." Kanda put his arm beside hers and she let him support Allen, stood to sheath her sword before she knelt down again.

"I'm cold; not heartless." She corrected. Gently she assessed the British boy, speaking as she worked. "He may not be the ideal that I had when you told me that you were married but ideals are always perfect. I'm not going to kill him while he's sick just because he's a man anymore than I'd kill you for having my temper; they are both things you cannot truly change. If you are happy with him and he is happy with you, what can I do? I no longer matter. So I will leave you be."

Allen pulled his eyes open just a little more and smiled a tad. "Thank you, Okaasan."

"Che! What for?"

"Your blessing."

Kanda watched an all too familiar look of surprise cover his mother's face like a cloud. She had meant to give her blessing, but she actually hadn't. And now she was floundering in the space between thanking him for noticing and yelling at him for not letting her get away with being nice. She settled at last on cupping the side of his face in her hand and flashing a sparkling, warm, motherly smile. "Aw, you're a stupid retard."

Allen grinned back at her so that his eyes nearly closed.

"Let's go, Moyashi." Kanda mumbled, lifting him from the floor. He turned to his mother with a questioning expression on his face. "What do you think he has?"

She walked beside him as they made their way toward the guest room. "Most likely just a common fever coupled with stress, if my mother-senses are functioning properly."

"Stress?" Kanda blinked at her. "What could he be stressed about?"

"Don't ask me… I'm not here." Allen said from his arms. The comment made Kanda smile. When he had spoken to Lloyd while Allen was hurt he had learned that he despised being talked about as if he weren't present and here he was, doing it again.

"Coming all the way to Nihon for work and then meeting me?" She asked. "He's a fool if I don't scare the shit out of him. Which can be stressing." She smiled from ear to ear with that, seemingly proud of the fear that she instilled in others.

"Whatever it is, get over it Moyashi." He said sternly as they at last came into the guest bedroom. He leaned very close to whisper in his lover's ear, trying to be sure that his mother could not understand him. "So I can pin you down and have my way with you. Right here. As loud as we want."

"I don't know what you said, but you should stop. His face is going to explode."

Allen grumbled as Kanda lowered him onto a thankfully western-style bed. His fingers closed on the pink fabric of the Japanese man's shirt and he pulled him downward slowly, until he could speak into his ear. "Stay with me until I fall asleep, please." He faintly heard the opening and closing of a cabinet before a blanket was spread across him, thick and warm.

Kanda took hold of the hand that held his clothing and squeezed it gently. Without thinking he bent until his lips met his lover's softly, but it only took a few seconds for him to swipe his tongue across Allen's lower lip and gain entrance to the hot space within. He did everything he knew the boy liked before he let them break apart.

"I'll stay with you all day if you'll keep me." He pushed the silver hair from Allen's forehead and he got a sideways, appreciative smile in return.

"_Wow!_" Hiroko exclaimed quietly. "Shit Yuu, I hate to be so blatant but hey, you're whipped." She laughed lightly at the horrified expression he made. "Be a good master, Aren-chan, Yuu's a feisty bitch if you don't treat him right."

"_Bakamono…_"

"Fuck you with a pitchfork if that's the best insult you can come up with. Stupid cockwhore."

_Heehee… cockwhore…_ Allen mentally cackled. _It's kind of odd that she just said 'cock' but still… it kind of fits… Or maybe asswhore – I shouldn't be thinking about this…_

"_Damare, yarimen!_"

"I called your wife that this morning, unoriginal bastard. I wonder why you can't come up with anything. Maybe it's because you're never thinking with your brain and instead you're only thinking with your head?"

"Yeah…" Allen interrupted. "I'm surprised I sleep at all… but sometimes, I think he thinks with his heart."

Hiroko giggled. The sound was like wind through brown dry leaves. "Well, I'll leave you frolicking saps to yourselves for now. When he's settled I have to rip you limb from limb for… something." She scratched her head thoughtfully, having forgotten why that was. "Get well soon, Moya-chan! So I can murder you according to tradition."

"Tradition?"

"Long story. Must be off. One never knows what one's youngest bastard will do with a foreign whore in the living room." And she was out the door like a swift breeze, her black braid whipping behind her she moved so fast. Kanda immediately pulled himself up on the mattress next to his lover and crawled around beside him. Allen turned to his side and sighed when Kanda's arm wrapped around his stomach and pulled him flush with his chest – if not for the blanket between them.

"She's crazy."

Kanda snorted.

"And thanks f—"

"No, you aren't allowed to thank me, remember?" Kanda said softly, kissing Allen's exposed ear before laying his head back on the pillow.

"Oh. Right." Allen said softly. "I love you, even though I've met your mother."

Kanda laughed and buried his face in the crook of Allen's neck. His skin was very warm, too warm, but it felt good against him. "Good. Because I love you too."

"Hee." Allen smiled. Even when he was hungry, cold, and sick, he could still manage to feel happy in Kanda's arms. The pounding of the heart on his back and the rhythmic sound of his lover's breathing slowly lulled him into a much needed, dark, and dreamless sleep.

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_I will not hurt him. I will not hurt him. Never. I will not hurt him._ **I want to**. _But I will not._ **I want to break him.** _But he is too precious to break._**I want to break him because he is precious.** _Yet I will not cause him harm. Because…__** I love him.**_

It was a silent exchange within him, one that he had no trouble understanding at all. When Lavi kissed him, when that pair of trembling hands caressed his face, his neck, his still clothed chest, it all made sense to him. Even though he wanted blood and death he still wanted peace and pleasure. So he would ignore the bloodlust, turn it away, and instead embrace the warmth he wanted to show the young Bookman.

But the more he thought about it the less this seemed like the time and place for showing his infinite affections. He didn't want it to be rushed or strained, and he didn't want to be interrupted. The truth of the matter was that he wanted to give Lavi what he deserved for waiting, what he should have given him a long time ago, and that required certain facilities that were not located in the younger man's half-disorganized room. Like a table and chairs.

Lavi was perfectly absorbed in stealthily undoing the buttons of Tyki's shirt while simultaneously practicing everything he had ever read about kissing someone on the lips. He had most of them undone by the time he had to stop for air, so he slid a hand across the smooth, tan skin of Tyki's chest as he leaned in again. So much contact was like repeatedly running himself through with a dull pike, but he didn't care. As much as it hurt he loved it. It made him laugh a little to know that he liked the pain and that Tyki was afraid of hurting him, because he'd most likely like that too. It was the perfect conundrum because the problem itself was the solution.

"Lavi," Tyki said lightly before bringing his lips down softly on the boy's neck. He felt him shiver and gasp at that tiny touch. "If…you would truly like for us to continue, I would ask that we not do this here."

The redhead pulled away to look at him pleadingly, his headband was slightly off-kilter, and the front of his hair seemed to have fallen down because of it. "What's wrong with here?"

Gently the Noah ran his fingers through those read locks, with just one hand, leaving the other to hold his back in a loose embrace. "There is nothing wrong with here. I would just like to do things in a more traditional order." Lavi raised an eyebrow that lifted his headband crookedly. Tyki half-grinned at him. "I would like first to take you to dinner. Then I would like to walk with you, hand-in-hand, in the moonlight. Lastly I would like to take you to someplace safe, where neither of us has to worry about being discovered, and slowly remove all of your clothing, piece by piece, until you're naked in the starlight. Then I would like to—"

"Stop, stop!" Lavi interjected, throwing himself forward and wrapping his arms around the older man, forcing him back two steps. "Don't say that sort of thing unless you're going to follow through. I start imagining things and then I start thinking about them and then it's just downhill from there." He was blushing madly, fighting to hide his face in Tyki's shoulder. "I'll get prepared for an adventure and then you'll demand that we do all of that romantic crap beforehand."

Tyki chuckled at him and placed a gentle palm on this side of face, tilted it up so he could see every detail of him, every dark eyelash on Lavi's sparkling green eye. "You do not want to hear where I want to put my tongue and where I want to place my fingers? You do not want to hear how I plan to memorize the feel of your skin against mine and the look on your face when I bring you pleasure?" The younger man was a splendid shade of crimson and as Tyki continued his color only reddened. "Because even if we don't speak of them I still want them."

**The same as I want you to beg me to kill you with my own hands.**

"Don't tell me about it," Lavi said quietly. "Just do it."

"I do not think I understand."

"All I ever get to hear is what people would like to do. Allen would like to save akuma even if he has to destroy them, Lenalee wants to keep her world safe, Crowley would like to gain back the respect of the woman-akuma that he loved and killed, and Panda is just a Bookman. All he wants is to be there when the war ends." He blinked up at Tyki for a moment, and his left hand glided up his chest, to his neck, and finally into his strands of curly dark hair. "So don't tell me what you want to do and just do it."

"Then sneak away this evening." He said huskily, "Come with me to a place where no one can find us."

"Forever?"

Tyki scoffed. "For the night."

"But what do I tell them?"

"It's sneaking, you do not tell them anything."

Lavi grinned so that his teeth flashed whitely; Tyki couldn't tell if he meant it or not. "When?"

Tyki thought about it. To go through with this he would have to miss a family dinner, which he would have to explain. But that didn't matter. Not if it meant that much to Lavi. "Sundown."

"Should we meet someplace? Like… oh… there was a bookstore two streets south of here, Stephen's Reads, I think." His face brightened as he spoke and he raised his fist in triumph. "That way, if I'm caught I can tell them that I'm going to a bookstore. See? It all works out."

Tyki sighed and ruffled Lavi's hair, which tangled his already displaced locks even more, making him frown. He ignored it when he spoke though. "But what are you doing until then?" The hand that still rested on the back of Tyki's head gave a slight jerk forward; his eyes went wide at the force the younger man used on him, as well as the sudden impact of lips against his. "How about a preview?"

Lavi knew it was hopeless when the hand in his hair fell to his shoulder and gave a tight, reassuring squeeze. "I shall have to go prepare the things that I have planned. Otherwise there is no point to any of it. It becomes a parody of romance."

"Ty-chan."

"Hm?"

"Can't we do all of that after…?" He was so sad looking, so very needy, that part of Tyki never wanted to see him smile again. He had to ignore that though, and instead he leaned down far enough to peck him hurriedly on the lips.

"No."

"Jerk-face."

He just grinned. "I should go then. I have reservations to make, after all." As he spoke he untwined his arms from the younger man and reached out for his discarded hat and coat. When the two were captured he donned them, Lavi watched with that same, sad expression that he had been wearing since the topic of romance had come up. "I shall see you tonight, Lavi-san." He came back across the sparsely decorated room to lay one last lingering kiss on the redhead's lips, this time allowing a fraction of the passion he felt creep into the action. It was dangerous to do that, very dangerous, and the darker corners of his mind willed him to bite the mouth he was kissing, but it was all the more pleasant because of the danger. He would not bite down, and he would not close his hand on the young man's throat, but the possibility was there. "Goodbye, Lavi."

"I'll see you…Ty-chan." Lavi said distantly. He waited until he was gone before he wiped the unseen tear from his smiling eye.

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**Yeah, Tyki and Lavi are kind of emo… and they never seem to get enough fic-space. So, even though it shall slow down the ever moving massive blob that is my plot, I shall have to dedicate a rather large section of the next chapter to them. Sorry Yullen fans, but yay! Lucky!**

**Hmm… I'm not sure which I like more…**

**Lastly: Sorry that a lot of my posts have been spacious and long, it's what happens when I don't have a lot of time on my hands. The good thing is that I'm slowly getting used to my new schedule, which means I'll stop sleeping 10 hours a day and start devoting some of that time to this and… other… things :D I love all of you readers! Thank you so much for your support at this busybusybusy time!**


	45. Uneven Balance

**Wah! Niamh found time to update before and after she went paint shopping!**

**And I am kind of sad about this chapter. I wanted it to go on continuously without the little break at the end, but that's not happening. If I had let it go, it would have been longer than the Rest of Christmas. And this is already a novel as it is; it doesn't need any more looooooong chapters like that. Does it?**

**I apologize for the seemingly psychotic way that Tyki thinks. He's kind of a paradox in my mind, sorry.**

**Disclaimer of Dents: I don't own D.Gray-man… If I did… episodes would have LAME ASS titles. Like this chapter.**

**WARNING: Um… man on man. If you don't like it, don't read it.**

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Uneven Balance

It didn't take Tyki long to realize that most of the restaurants in town weren't even worth the wood they were built with. So he spent the afternoon procuring a suitable table and chairs, a tablecloth, candles, plates, forks, spoons, and knives, and locating the perfect place to put them.

Two hours before sundown, all that was left was cooking.

Though he did not like to admit it he was a rather good cook according to most people's standards. He couldn't make three day old coffee grounds taste like anything but paper, but he could make a delectable lemon chicken. Not that he would make _that_ for such an important meal. So he set about preparing a dinner he thought would be fit for a king. It required much chopping and slicing, and a hurried request to borrow a small family's stove, but he thought it would work out splendidly regardless. He was finished with perhaps twenty minutes to spare, which was sufficient time to get back to the bookstore and dispose of his floral print apron.

He was feeling very proud of himself when he came into the bookstore looking longingly for the redhead he had planned to meet there. It wasn't a large store, though it was packed from wall to wall with shelves and stacks of books, the sections marked by dusty old signs that were mostly illegible. A number of gaslights ran the length of the walls, covered in old spider webs, and the dim lighting did not penetrate the thick shadows in the rafters. The more he looked at it the more it felt like a haunted house instead of a bookstore. The wrinkled, gray, hairless clerk added to the feeling. At the farthest end of the room was a splash of crimson in the dusty brown and melancholy. He knew at once that he was the young man he sought. He ducked around a number of shelves and a few book covered tables before he found himself in the same row as Lavi, who had his head lowered between the covers of a massive leather bound tome, his mouth slightly open, forming the words as he read. He was frowning, completely absorbed, and the fingers of his half-gloved right hand touched the pages gently, as if he were caressing the skin of lover. Even like that he didn't look like a Bookman to Tyki. He just looked beautiful.

Lavi tensed when a pair of strong arms wound around from behind him and pulled him back into a hard, warm chest. He lost where he was on the page and clapped the book shut loudly as a warm neck laid itself across his left shoulder, craning forward until he could just hardly see the side of the person's face.

"Did I frighten you?" At the sound of Tyki's voice he released all of his air, relaxed as he breathed in the scent of him. He smelled different though, a little like food. He felt himself smile.

"Scared the living crap out of me." The younger man said. Tyki smiled when he titled back trustingly on his heals and sighed, let the giant book he was holding fall slowly to a nearby shelf. He let Lavi turn his head to kiss him lingeringly, but he did not give in to any of the desires he had; like the desire to run his hands down to Lavi's thighs or the desire to break the kiss off and slam him against the bookshelf. Instead he let them break apart naturally, and he smiled at the lack of tears in Lavi's eyes. "But that's okay. I don't have to worry if it's you."

Tyki grinned lopsidedly, gave his waist a slight squeeze before stepping back and taking Lavi's hand in his. The apprentice made a little sound of surprise when Tyki twirled him forward, guiding him by the hand toward the door. He didn't know where they were going but he could see that the Noah had plans, and that he was grinning like a boy at Christmas. Lavi felt that maybe, just maybe, a little of the fire in his heart had indeed passed on to the dark haired man, and perhaps his feelings were returned as fully as he gave them. The thought almost made him cry again. He wouldn't though, not while Tyki was trying so hard to make him happy.

"So where did you make reservations?" Lavi asked when the older man dragged him past the bald man at the desk who frowned at them like a good natured conservative. Lavi tried to smile, but it was too hard with those sunken, black eyes glowering at him as if he were the bane of human existence. Instead he shivered.

Tyki kept going, having not seen the unpleasant frowner. "It will be a surprise."

"Oooh, should I be worried?"

The sound of their feet on the icy cobblestones was all that answered him for a long moment. The town was cast in shades of puce and orange, though the plumb colored clouds blocked out most of the blood and gold sunlight. The snow on the roves around them shimmered like shattered topaz, burned liked violent rubies farther in the west, and glimmered blue as the sun hung on the edge of the world as if by a thread. The moon floated on the opposite side of the sky, silver and pure despite the fetid colors beneath it.

Lavi wasn't sure if he had seen a more beautiful sunset in his life.

"No, Lavi." Tyki's hand squeezed his. "You should not."

The Noah was surprised when the younger man moved closer, close enough to hold his whole arm as they walked. He glanced over with a questioning expression and got a simple, bright smile in answer, as if that were enough to explain it all. Really it was. He knew what was meant because all of him, even the darker parts, felt the same way.

"Then will you hint as to where we're going?" Lavi asked when the turned down a street that lead out of town. The place was situated at the bottom of a great hill, which was the center of their investigation this time. Supposedly there were flowers at sang like angels in the snow, but the three Exorcists had not found anything to verify the rumors as true. When Tyki turned them up a steep hill Lavi figured that that was where they were going, not that he could imagine why.

And it was getting dark. Almost pitch beneath the trees that trespassed on the town's boarders. That wasn't reassuring.

"Any hint at all?"

"Close your eyes." His voice was soft, but his tone was smiling. "I'm not going to hint because we are here already. But I don't want to you to spoil it before I get the lights and…whatnot." As he spoke he leaned down and kissed Lavi lightly on the eyelid, tenderly enough to comfort him and his sudden anxieties. It worked perfectly. The apprentice sighed his defeat and let himself be guided onward, blind to the deepening night. Tyki helped him up two short steps that had the sound of old rotting pine before he heard a door open and he was ushered into a place that smelled like moist earth and leaves; the air was thicker, warmer by at least few degrees, and his boots made heavier sounds on what might have been tile.

"Can I look yet?"

"Patience is a virtue."

"I'm going to look. I'm going to. Here I—hey! Careful! You'll poke it out!" Lavi protested when a palm laid itself over his face, keeping him from opening his eye. The man who still held his right hand chuckled lightly and pulled him a few more steps into the dark before releasing his face and hand. Lavi stumbled a little before he looked out of fear of falling. A loud gasp caught in his throat. "Whoa…"

They were standing in a darkened greenhouse, glass roof above, blooming spring flowers all around them. And in front of him, at the center of the glass building, was a small table, covered with a soft linen cloth, a chair close to him and one at the other side of the table. There were glimmering plates, silverware that looked polished and new, upright champagne glasses and mugs turned upside down beside them. It was like something from a dream he had never had. The crystal shone white in the yellow flames, burned gold when his vision slowly but surely filled with tears.

_I'm so stupid,_ He thought catching the water on his coat sleeve. _I doubted for a moment that I wanted to follow him here, and he did this for me. I misjudged him. I lied in my heart._

_My heart._

"Are they happy tears, Lavi?" Tyki whispered, drawing him into an embrace that did little to help the redhead's eye trouble. "Or have I hurt you without meaning to?"

Lavi smiled at him, or tried to. It was impossible to describe how happy and horrible he felt. "I just… can't believe that you would do all of this for me." He shook his head, trying to find the words. "Even after all of this, I just had second thoughts walking in the door. I was worried that I shouldn't have trusted you. How stupid does that make me? You did all of this for a guy who can't even trust you enough to really close his eyes in your presence. And I doubted you. I doubted you who would do all of this for me." He knew he wasn't making sense but it didn't matter, he wanted to say it regardless. "I'm just feeling really inade— "

Tyki took my by the shoulders and pulled him up into a kiss, wrapping his arms around him, closing his eyes to the surprise on the younger man's face. He waited until Lavi's arms hooked around his waist until he pulled away to see his blush in the dimness. "Thank you," He said gently. "If you didn't doubt me, I would worry."

"Why?"

"Because you can't always trust me, Lavi, especially not tonight. If I lose my mind I do not want you to miss something and not know until it's too late." His fingers came up and brushed the tears away, and he let his face break into a smile. "Besides, if you think this is a lot, just wait until you see what I cooked."

"You cooked?"

"Of course I cooked! This town is far too small to have a place worth eating in. Now please," He waved his arm toward the table extravagantly, "Have a seat and I will retrieve the food."

"Wouldn't you rather I helped?"

"Romance, Lavi, please just sit and wait." He pecked him lightly on the cheek before disappearing around a rather large potted tree, where he hummed and made sounds that might have belonged to a hinge. The truth was that just on the other side of the plant was the furnace that kept the greenhouse green, and he had placed his finished meal on top of, around, behind, and generally in the vicinity of it. It was true that he had wanted the food to cool, but pasta always cooled too fast and oysters became chewy when chilled, so he figured it would be better to be safe than sorry.

So he came back with a hot bowl held between his sleeves, being he had forgotten the hot pads that still sat between the candles. Lavi watch him put the white and blue dish down before returned for more.

No one had ever done anything like this for him. He crossed the space between him and the table and lowered himself into the heavy wooden seat for fear he would fall otherwise. None of it had really sunk in yet, but it was starting to. About the third time that Tyki came back with side dishes he started to smell the things on the table, and his stomach rumbled at them even before he could register what they were. Pasta, decorated by squeaky fresh oysters, drenched in a thick white sauce, pouched eggs, sprinkled with some dark seasoning that smelled a little like truffle, and brown crusted bread, melted butter oozing from the sides of the severed loaves. He almost didn't catch the small dish of grapes on the side of the table.

And when it was all in place, Tyki sat across from him, appreciating the ridiculous expression on his face.

"Where…how… when…" None of the questions finished themselves. The older man grinned at his loss and offered him a large serving fork.

"This afternoon I borrowed the oven of one of the local ladies. When I told her everything that I had hoped to do, she gleefully lent it, and she offered the services of her greenhouse as well. As for how…" He shrugged. "I am a man of many skills."

Lavi gaped at him. After perhaps a half minute of staring he managed to take the fork and serve himself, blushingly. "I… don't know what to say." He mumbled when he had a descent serving of noodles. "I mean… besides thank you."

"Please, don't feel obligated to thank me. It is the least a man can do for someone he wants to sweep off his feet." As he spoke the Noah took the fork back and served himself, his eyes bright in the semidarkness. The sun had fallen so that the sky beyond the glass above them was rich blue-purple, the stars mere pinpricks of light, their brilliance stole by the twin flames on the tabletop. Between the sky, the stars, and the candles, Lavi thought that maybe Tyki was the most handsome man alive. A true strike if he had ever laid his eyes on one.

"If you keep talking like that I'm going to blush myself into a coma." He lowered his head slightly, trying to look very interested in his plate. He picked up what he knew to be the correct fork for the occasion and twirled it in his pasta, stabbed an oyster, and brought the food to his lips. He expected something mildly bland, maybe fishy, but that wasn't what he got. The shellfish was tender against his tongue, the pasta warm but not boiling, the texture just between _al dente_ and soft. The seasoning was perfectly balanced; nothing stood out unless he thought about the specific flavor in his mouth. The overall effect was surprising.

"Do you like it?" Tyki asked as he lifted an oyster to his own mouth.

"Mmhmm!" Lavi enthused. Tyki couldn't help but feel warmth for the young man across from him; he had been so worried about doubting Tyki and yet here he was, taking a large bite of what the man had cooked, and he was smiling. It made the Noah impossibly happy to see him smile at the flavor, and even more happy when he looked at the other things on the table to add to his plate. It was only a slight fraction of trust, but it was trust nonetheless.

He took the bottle gently from the center of the table and poured a splash of golden champagne into their glasses.

He found that he could not eat enthusiastically though; his stomach was far too restless. His mind would wander away from their conversation, when they shared one, and linger on the little things like the shine of Lavi's hair in the light, or the single silver loop in the soft flesh of his left earlobe. His thoughts would then take a darker turn; they would nibble and toy with that silver ring before sliding down the smooth curve of his jaw, across his soft lips, and down is long neck to his still covered collarbone. By the time they got that far he usually caught them, but this time they wandered on to the boy's unexposed nipples, down is tight abdominal muscles and to the dark hollow of his navel.

All without even taking off his clothes.

"Are you undressing me with your eyes?" Lavi accused, pretending to look scandalized. For a number of questions Tyki had been unable to answer with anything more than a short grunt, and he hadn't touched his food more than three times since they started. Lavi's plate was more than half cleared.

"Uh…"

The apprentice smiled at him and pulled the bright orange scarf from around his neck draped it across the back of his chair one handedly. The elusive collarbone was bared before the Noah. "I don't mind, but I would rather that you used your hands." He said it all matter-of-factly, as if this was a casual event and everyone had uncontrollable imaginations like he and Tyki. He undid his jacket also before returning to his plate.

_I'm lying to myself_, He though with a sigh. _If he keeps looking at me like that I'm going to jump over this table and rip off _his_ clothes, I don't care if it's tradition not to._

"In that case, do you think it is time for dessert?"

Lavi swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly filled with moisture. There was no denying the undertone in his voice, the hint that perhaps there would be two sweets after the meal. Lavi felt himself nod even though he knew he still had room for yet more of that delicious food. He wouldn't eat it though. Not with Tyki's voice like that.

Goosebumps rippled up his spine when the older man grinned. He could see that really he wasn't the only one thinking about leaping over the table, and the realization made him shake with anticipation. Dessert seemed trivial when compared to the events he hoped to find afterward.

Tyki stood once more and walked around the same tree once more, came back with an elegant silver dish in his hands. It was oddly shaped, like a square with rounded corners, and the thin legs served to hold it up and decorate it with fine floral filigree; it was something that would have taken great care and time to create. He laid it gently on the table, slightly closer to Lavi's side, before picking up their plate and carrying them back where Lavi couldn't see. The apprentice waited apprehensively for him to return; unaware that he was tapping his foot in excitement. After another trip back and forth to the place Tyki was putting the dirty dishes and uneaten food, Lavi had had enough of wondering and pulled the silver lid from the dish.

Strawberries, he should have guessed, arranged around the outside of the dish. And in the center was a low bowl of liquefied chocolate that smelled almost delicious enough to bathe in. His face brightened at the sight. Slowly he reached inside to steal a berry before Tyki had time to see him.

"Ah!" The older man scolded when he was within sight again. Lavi pulled his fingers away and tried to look innocent.

"I know, I know, 'a parody of romance.'" He sighed. Tyki smiled at his disappointment but didn't take up his seat again. Instead he stood beside Lavi, whom looked at him with a worried expression for moment until the older man sank to his knees besides him – then his expression was completely horrified.

_Situations in which you're in a chair and someone is kneeling in front of you: Marriage proposal. Don't even want to think about the other one. Oh God. I'm going to die._

"You see, Lavi," Tyki reached delicately into the dish and withdrew one of the fruit, seemingly incapable of hearing the boy's frantically pounding hear not too far from his right ear. "What makes this dessert different," He swirled it momentarily through the chocolate until it was coated to the middle before he pulled it out again, without losing a drop. "Is how it is eaten."

"Uh huh…" Lavi thought he was going to pass out when the chocolate covered end turned toward him.

"Don't be shy."

"What?"

Tyki laughed lightly and brought the fruit closer to Lavi's mouth, smirking all the while. "Taste it."

_Make love to the strawberry._ He thought seriously, not really knowing if that was right. _Be romantic._

And the other half of his brain was dying to break into giggles.

The older man watched as Lavi leaned forward to take the food between his teeth. He was mildly surprised when the apprentice didn't just bite it in half and much away merrily; instead he rolled his tongue against it, rubbing the partially hardened chocolate from the fruit's rough, seed ridden surface. Tyki felt his breath hitch when the boy closed his eyes, relying solely on touch and taste to guide him around the skin. He searched delicately and fiercely, sucking and pulling with his lips so that Tyki had to resist his force and hold the morsel more tightly. It took a long while bit at long last, when he could fine no more, he bit it in half, sucked lightly when the warm juice threatened to spill over his lips and onto Tyki's palm. He opened his eyes as he chewed, and gave the stunned looking Noah a slight, unsure smile.

And then there were lips on his, hard, and the half eaten strawberry was bouncing away across the table as Tyki's hands closed one on his shoulder and one on his hip. He was horribly surprised at the sudden presence of a tongue in his mouth, even more so when the hands that held him lifted him up from his chair and unceremoniously pushed him down next to the dessert tray, on the tabletop, spilling Tyki's glass of champagne and rattling the candles.

"Ty-chan—_mmf!_" Lavi tried to protest for a moment. He took hold of Tyki's shoulders and pushed them back, but his wrists were captured and pushed away, his feet off of the ground, legs pushed apart by the older man's. He tried to lift his shoulders up, slow things down, but the man above him would have none of it. His mouth would not even leave Lavi's until he was almost choking for breath. "Ty-chan, I'm all for this, but what happened to romance?"

Teeth came down hard on his collarbone and a hot, wet tongue traced up his neck to his earlobe, circled his earring. He heard himself gasp, felt himself shiver. If Tyki had let his hands up he wouldn't have pushed away anymore.

"Romance," Tyki whispered into his ear, "Died when you licked that strawberry." He let go of Lavi's hands and pushed his jacket aside; the younger man was thankful that he hadn't been cold enough to make him keep it up. His shirt was not so lucky. Buttons zipped and dinked haphazardly as his shirt came open, was smashed back into the folds of his jacket. The not-quite-outside air burned cold against his skin, the contrasting temperature of Tyki's mouth did not help him at all, it only added to his trembling. He reached up with a shaking hand and took Tyki by the chin, pulled him into a long, unfaltering kiss.

"Don't you," He panted breathlessly. "Have a bed somewhere?"

Tyki couldn't think. Or he could think, and that was all he could do. The soft, pale flesh beneath his palms, the warmth of it, the way it moved when Lavi reached up to touch him, every part of him wanted to see more of it, to feel him more closely. He was afraid to speak though. Afraid of the words that would come out. He was afraid that if he was kissed again or if the shy hand that had worked its way to his collar kept at his buttons he would lose control. It was a horrible balancing act between what he wanted and what he wanted more.

_He's right. We should do this in a bed._ **Where I can tie him up and hurt him. Where I can torment him until he's crying in my arms.** _Where I can do this like a proper gentleman, not a wild barbarian. _**And hold his heart in my hands when it stops beating.**_ And tell him the truth about how I feel._ _**I love him.**_

"Ty-chan?" Lavi questioned, seeing the thoughts turn behind the older man's eyes. He stopped undoing his shirt and rested his hands on Tyki's shoulders, waiting for him to respond. "Don't worry about hurting me," He said quietly. "And don't worry if we do this on a table. I don't care. It doesn't matter." His fingers clamped down in the Noah's yet unshed coat and he used it as leverage to pull himself up to look into his dark, confused eyes. "As long as I can be with you."

_Hold him. Kiss him._**Break him. Hurt him.**

"It's alright," Lavi continued. He was sitting all the way up and his hands moved to either side of Tyki's face. "You don't have to control yourself."

_Reassure him. _**Kill him.**

Lavi slid forward and wound his legs around Tyki's hips, pulled him closer. "Please."

"I'm sorry, Lavi-san." He said with a voice that was no longer steady. "I cannot fight myself forever." It took all of his will to kiss him softly, lovingly, without a hint of violence. "But afterward, during, forever – I will feel the way I do for you now. Do not forget that."

Lavi's words were equally soft though more certain. "I swear to God I never will. Cross my heart and hope to die if I do." And, despite it all, his last oath made him smile. What Bookman would cross his heart for a vow? Even his physical one? It was ridiculous. "I want this. I do. All of it. All of _you_."

Tyki kissed him the way his sadistic side wanted to kiss him, bruising his lips against the smaller man's teeth, forcing him back onto the table with the action. He shrugged off his jacket when the redhead's hands made to push it away, but a part of him found those hands annoying. Yet he didn't sever the bones of his wrist the way he wanted, nor did he let them roam free like he also wanted, instead he took them gently in his hands pushed them out to the sides, leaned down to run his teeth almost painfully across the tender flesh of Lavi's neck.

And Lavi no longer carried if Tyki didn't want his haired played with. He only wanted Tyki.

"Off." The Noah commanded, pulling at his sleeves. He complied hurriedly, pulling his arms out and lying down on his garments almost as a cushion. His arms weren't freed though, so he gave up fighting. He simply kissed when Tyki's mouth was close enough and arched into the touches bestowed on his body, because he was willing and he wanted Tyki to know that, even if he couldn't do it with his hands. A rather painful closure of teeth on his collarbone elicited a soft cry from his lips, and a louder one when the hurting intensified.

He began to worry.

"Ty-chan…" He hissed quietly. He didn't like the panting need in his voice, but he figured it would be taken as urgency.

The older man's mouth lifted away and his hands were freed, Tyki did not move away though, instead he placed his palms on either side of Lavi's head and leaned on them. Even like that he had him pinned. "Yes?" His voice was husky, his mind reeling. He ached to keep touching, to keep hurting, to cause pleasure. He thought he understood then, what Lavi had meant about the agony of wanting to be in contact. He would have cut himself with a dinner knife if it meant he didn't have to hold himself bent over Lavi like that.

"Why don't you… let me take off your shirt?" He moved his arms slowly until he had the crisp white fabric between his fingers, gave a tug when Tyki didn't move to stop him. The garment slid nicely out of its place beneath his belt and hung down in Lavi's hands. He only had three buttons left from his first attempt to get rid of it, and he made quick work of them. Unthinkingly he ran his fingers across the smooth, tan skin of Tyki's chest, a sly smile crawling across his face and setting his eye alight. He pushed the fabric up over the larger man's shoulders, and slid it down his muscled arms until he could not move it any farther without assistance. After that he ran his palms back the way they had come, went farther down on his stomach until his fingers rested gently on the curves of Tyki's hips.

Tyki knew when he shrugged off his shirt how the night would end.

Lavi was pleasantly surprised when the Noah accepted his touch, titled his face forward to grace his lips soothingly, the complete opposite of what he had been like moments before. He couldn't help but pull the older man closer, lift himself so that his cold exposed skin was pressed directly into Tyki's warm flesh, which made him quiver at the contrast. His fingers traced icy electric lines around Tyki's back and up his spine, his mouth ran hotly down his neck, his lapping tongue caressing gently at his Adam's apple. Tyki let him kiss and suck lightly, let him hold himself up, and did what he could to return the gestures. His chest felt tight – and so did his slacks – but it did not stop him from rubbing a pink, hard nipple between his fingers, lavishing in the sudden inconsistency of Lavi's lips and hands. The boy was gasping at such a simple thing, moaning under his breath even before he had fallen back in surprise at the sensation.

"Have you never done this before, Lavi-san?"

The apprentice Bookman's face was crimson in the darkness, but the question made his face turn still redder. "Not… like this…" He waffled. "There's what you and I did before. And Sabe-chan kissed me on the train to shut me up. So…"

"It is nothing to be ashamed of, Lavi-san." He said as he stepped back a little to circle the nub he had left untouched with his tongue, the hands on his back clenched against his skin. "I am just sorry that your first time would have to be with someone like me." His face went lower, the heat of his breath played softly against Lavi's stomach; his hands traveled to Tyki's dark hair and down the side of his face so he could half sit up and look into his chaotic dark eyes.

"Why would you want it to be anyone _but_ you, Ty-chan?" As he asked thin fingers wrapped delicately around his left wrist, almost softly, but the Noah's face broke into a cruel gash of a smile.

"Because, Lavi-san," He stood up suddenly, jerking the redhead by his arm and spinning him in place against him before slamming him mercilessly face down on the table top again, his left arm twisted behind him, the Noah's right hand knotted strongly in his hair. He made a short sound of surprise and a muffled groan of protest before his mind could register what was happening. "I am not kind."

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**So my hope is that you're thinking "Oh no! What now?!"**

**Is that what you're thinking? Because BWAHAHAHA! You're gonna have to wait to find out:P**

**Ok. Enough evil Niamh. The truth of the matter is that this next part is going to be… BA-DA-DA! The same day, only what happened in Japan. That way you get to know what happens to sick Allen and caring Kanda and murderous Hiroko and I get to build suspense **

**Thanks for reading! I'll update ASAP! So… like… Friday. I hope.**


	46. The Concept of Being Nice

**Long. Sorry. Lucky and otherwise. Couldn't stand not to. And the reviews made me wanna **

**Me no owning.**

**WARNING: MAN on MAN. Yaoi.**

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The Concept of being Nice

"_Baka…_" The voice was soft. Lilting. It was the kind of voice that made him think of a home he had never known. _"I made food you stupid whore…"_ There was a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking gently, reminding him that a heavy blanket was over him, and he was in a warm bed. "If you don't wake up and fucking eat this shit I'm going to shove it so far up your ass you'll be able to taste it."

Allen's silver eyes blinked open. Above him, though not too far, was a swath of black hair, crescent shaped bangs on white skin, and narrowed gray eyes looking at him with an air of annoyance. He could almost make out a vein on the woman's ivory forehead, prominent because Kanda had one in the same place when he was angry. She held a bowl in her hands carefully with no silverware or chopsticks, just a black bowl. Her fingers were cupped around it as if the surface were hot, carefully, and not clenched in annoyance or anger. Her expression slowly relaxed as he looked at her from half-lidded eyes.

"You look awful."

He grunted.

Allen's fever hadn't abated after two hours of sleep and he hadn't stirred either, he had slept like a log as far as any of the Kandas were concerned. His pallor had not improved either. Secretly Hiroko was worried that it wasn't a cold he had. She took her fingers from the side of the miso she had brought and touched his forehead with the back of her hand, frowned when he tried to flinch away, almost as if he expected to be hit. She was scary, but she wasn't _that_ scary, was she?

His skin was like fire under her knuckles.

"_Yuu!"_ She called over her shoulder at the door. Her voice was like the caw of an old, sick crow, hoarse and biting so that it carried through the house with little effort. _"Get your girly ass in here before I—_oh, good." She tilted her head slightly and smiled one of those cold, mirthless grins. "Can you get me a big glass of water and float a tea leaf in it?"

Kanda blinked at her for a moment, unsure if she had just spoken words or simply mumbled at him pleasantly. He drew his eyebrows together and looked passed her to the white haired boy who had been sleeping on the bed, whom was no longer sleeping. Allen's face was the color of a corpse, his lips a faded shade of purple, his eyes still looked tired, and not at all ready for more than a bowl of soup. As he watched a shiver ran the length of that slight form that he loved, seeming to start in his chest and move outward until his teeth rattled and he bundled the blanket beneath his chin weakly. Kanda wanted nothing more than to go lie beside him and make him well again.

Not that it worked that way.

"Goddamn stupid bastard!" Hiroko detrailed his train of thought and made him look at her with her outburst. "You feed him; _I'll_ tromp out to the kitchen and get some water if you're too damn deaf to hear me ask you nicely. Shit." She stomped the two steps between them and offered him the soup, which he took out of habit more than out of fear. She didn't pause to comment on his lack of alarm, instead she walked away the way she always did, in a flurry of hair and cloth.

Allen smiled at Kanda when he came closer, the soup in his hand, his face a mask of emotionlessness. When he spoke his voice wasn't though, it dripped worry and fear like that of a child about to be punished. "How are you feeling?"

"Cold." Allen replied quietly. The sound of his voice was sandpapery with sleep and quiet with unrest. It made Kanda's mask fall to hear it. "You?"

"Che," The Japanese man intoned, sitting on the edge of the bed with one leg folded beneath him, the other hanging to the floor. He held the bowl in his hands carefully, raised an eyebrow at his lover. "I don't get sick. But I would feel better if you drank this."

Allen sniffed lightly, detected something food-like on the air. His stomach didn't respond to it; it wasn't sure how to feel about food. His mind wasn't sure how it felt about thinking about food or the smell of it. He did know, however, that he was happy that Kanda was here and his mother was gone. He felt like he was less likely to die without her around. "Miso soup?"

Kanda nodded.

Allen trembled as he unwound his hands from the gray blanket Hiroko had thrown over him, shivered more fiercely when the fabric fell away and exposed him to the cooler air of the room. It wasn't cold, he knew, he was just hot. And his body wanted to stay that way. He reached right handed for the container in his lover's hands, but he didn't protest when Kanda helped him bring it to his lips. It was true that Allen did not like being sick, yet he was not about to turn down an arm that kept his soup from spilling. Especially not Kanda's.

The liquid was warm and salty on in tongue but he didn't really care about that. Flavor didn't mean anything to his Innocence. After missing a meal it was about ready to eat the mattress he sat on even if his stomach felt like a roiling pit of lava and glass. He drained the bowl in moments, without stopping, and Kanda shook his head at the tiny, pathetic belch he released afterward. He smiled sheepishly at his lover, knowing full well that he disapproved of his speedy eating habits.

"Are you still hungry?"

Allen smirked out of the corner of his mouth, one of those dark expressions that reminded of the one time he had agreed to play poker with the British boy. "Hungry for Kanda."

"_Baka!_" Kanda berated him with a scowl. "Like hell we're doing that here, now, with you how you are. I don't care how pitiful you try to look, the answer is no."

The white haired boy giggled and pulled the blanket closer to him, trying to get as much of his arms into it as he could without lying down again. "Eh, it was worth a shot…" As he said it Kanda leaned slightly forward and kissed him gently on the cheek, with just enough pressure to make Allen smile. "Hmm… will you stay with me again?" He asked, closing his fingers around the hand that still held the bowl in his. "Please?"

"Che. You're not going to seduce me."

"I wouldn't even dream of trying."

Kanda flipped his still down hair over his shoulder and took the bowl from his lover, placed it gently on the bedside table. By the time Allen was lying down again and he was preparing to lumber into the bed beside him, his mother came back with a jug and a cup, looking as if she expected them to be practicing positions in the Kama Sutra when she returned. Her eyes went wide when she saw that the only thing they were touching was hands.

And they didn't let go when she came in.

"Here," She sat the jug down and handed Kanda the water. "Be sure he stays hydrated, otherwise he'll be in even more trouble. And don't tell me he's still hungry, he gets no food for an hour in case he throws that up. If there's puke in this room, one of you cleans it up. If he keeps that down, he can have another. Maybe some rice. Nothing heavy. Nothing colored. I don't want stains. Understood?"

"_Hai."_ Kanda answered. Allen had never seen him so willing to take orders before, but it seemed to fit what with Hiroko being his mother and having that commanding presence. He rubbed a gentle circle on the back of Kanda's hand with his thumb, drawing his attention for a moment.

"I'll be fine, Love. And thank you, Hiroko-okasaan." He smiled at her, one of those freakishly bright smiles again that made her realize how right it was not to care that he was a man. Kanda needed a smile like that to make him human. "For everything. If there's anything I can do for you once I'm better, please just say so."

She laughed that same, half-sarcastic laugh that was almost creepy. "You can do two things, Whore-chan! You can drink that water and become a woman, but I don't see that second one happening. Aw well. Get better before you try. Drink up. And sleep." She turned back to Kanda, ignoring the stunned look on Allen's face. "If I hear a single thing tonight…"

"_Wakata._" Kanda nodded. "You don't have to remind me." He sighed and offered Allen the water, once again helped him to sip the cool liquid because he couldn't stop shaking. He finished half the glass before pushing the cup away, feeling tired and yet sicker. Kanda watch him fight the nausea and lose as he sank down against the pillows and closed his eyes.

"And don't you _dare_ throw up on that blanket. It's older than Yuu."

"I'll be careful…" Allen's voice lingered on after he stopped speaking, the way it did when he was swiftly falling asleep. Without waiting for his mother to leave first, Kanda climbed over Allen's legs and laid himself down on the blankets again the way he had before. His left arm snaked quickly around his shoulders and pulled him back against Kanda, holding him steady regardless of the cold tremors that still shook him. Allen wanted to stay awake, to hold Kanda and tell him all would be fine, to say sly things in the dark that would hide his blush, but he couldn't. He was too tired to even think of a good way to start. To nauseated to wake himself up by opening his eyes.

"Okasaan?" He asked the room. He heard her harrumph in response, very close, as if she had been leaning down to study his face. Truthfully she had been checking to see if the soup had brightened his color any, and if the tiny dose of sleep aid she had put in the water was working as well as she hoped. "I'm really sorry. For not being a girl."

"Che!" She sounded annoyed, but really she wasn't. Even if she had said it, it wasn't as if he had to apologize for it. In fact, apologizing for it was more irksome than his being male ever could be. "Idiot Whore-chan," There was a hand gently on his face, callused, but still nice about it. "I may say mean thing about you being male but really I want you exactly how Yuu fell for you. Because anything that powerful shouldn't be changed – even for the world." She gave his skin a light pinch and withdrew, her son blinked wide eyed at her motion of tenderness. "Don't look at me like I have shit on my face, Yuu; he's too nice to curse at all the time."

"Che," Kanda's voice rumbled through Allen's shoulder, and he liked it. "He's too nice for his own good."

"Still here…"

Hiroko sighed. "Well, I better go check on Hito. The fool asked that slut to dinner without thinking. Goddamn it all, I'm not old enough for grandchildren." She mumbled something even fouler before retreating across the door, turned one last time before she left. "Feel better tomorrow."

"I plan on it."

She left.

Kanda nuzzled into Allen's neck, which made the British boy giggle and roll toward him, his arms reaching out from beneath the covers to pull the Japanese man closer. It was colder that way, with Kanda's cool skin against him and his arms exposed to the air, but he doubted they should be under the covers together with the way Hiroko was acting. Because he knew he'd try his damnedest at seduction, no matter how bad he felt.

"Allen."

"You said my name."

"Are you seriously going to get better?" The question was somber, pointed; the tone of Kanda's voice was dark with pain at asking. He didn't want to know if Allen wasn't.

So he opened his eyes just a tad to see the unmasked worry on his lover's face. Delicate eyebrows pushed together, eyes slightly wide, lips tucked down at the edges, his sapphire irises sparkled gold in the lamplight, dancing with what might have been unshed moisture. "I can't believe that you'd doubt for a moment that I will. I feel better already."

Kanda's face broke into a more casual grin. "Back to lying again, so you must."

"G'night, Love." Allen groaned, not willing to argue. There was no point when Kanda would accuse him of lying more.

"_Oyasumi nasai, Koi_." Kanda whispered. He pressed his lips one last time against Allen's warm skin and left them there. Even if he did not want to admit it, he knew he was a snuggler; he would only sleep well once Allen could hold him tight under the covers together, perhaps after another bout of bedroom adventures. Because he needed Allen. He had never needed anyone before. Every moment he passed not in the same room with him was like an eternity, and feeling him shiver from his fever threatened to make him incapable of functioning with concern. Yet Allen's words could still have an amazing affect on him. He had said he felt better. That took the bite off of the worry that was gnawing unceasingly at his thoughts.

_You have to get better, Moyashi-kun._ He thought as he pulled his mouth away and leaned his forehead on Allen's. _Otherwise I'll never sleep again._

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Lavi was getting a very personal view of the tablecloth, and the spilled champagne. The glass that once held the shimmering gold liquid rolled back and forth across the table, the few drops still inside sloshing lightly with the commotion Tyki had caused. The hand in his hair pressed firmly, the one on his wrist squeezed painfully, and he felt Tyki press against him, hard, lean down until his lips were less than an inch from his left ear.

"Ty-chan," When he spoke his lips moved half against the table cloth and half through the air; the sound came out muffled. "What're you doing?"

A hot tongue flicked up the back of his ear, making him quake and moan despite his unanswered question. Even though their position had changed somewhat he was still aroused, and he was keenly aware of it bent over the table, his pants pinching downward. Tyki's mouth moved to the back of his neck and then his shoulder, teeth and tongue working fiercely as he heard himself whimper again, his arm gave a twitched when the Noah passed over a rather sensitive place.

The hand on his head was lifted only to come back again at his belt.

"I am having you, Lavi-san," Tyki's lips played gently on his flesh; his breath produced a line of chills down Lavi's neck that demanded he kiss them. "The only way that keeps me from killing you." He let his hand slide down the front of the apprentice's pants, pressing firmly, and he smiled when the boy gasped beneath him; his right hand clutched the tablecloth, wrinkling it and sliding the dessert dish closer by a fraction, his glass wobbled dangerously beside it. Tyki smiled at his reaction, took a firmer hold of the boy's manhood and rubbed more fully; the shaking gasp Lavi made was exquisite to his ears.

The redhead bit his tongue to keep from pleading. He felt very helpless but he didn't mind so long as it was Tyki making him that way. He couldn't stand up with his arm bent and he couldn't reach back with his right hand without dislocating his shoulder. But he didn't want to escape. He wanted to turn around and throw his arms around the older man, kiss him, and offer himself up face on. The ache in his heart wouldn't subside until he did.

"Please," He said quietly. "Don't stop." He leaned farther into the table rocking his hips forward into the palm that rest against him. "Please."

Tyki grinned into the skin of his shoulder and pulled at Lavi's belt, flicking the leather from beneath the buckle with a speed that made him proud. The rest of the fasteners went equally fast, and the boy beneath him moaned again when his fingers grasped the top of his erection, teasingly but not overly so. The contact made Lavi quiver; his right hand jerked back before he over compensated for the action and threw his hand forward again, releasing the fabric between his fingers and bashing his knuckles on the silver tray of strawberries. The dish was displaced mightily, skidded across the table and fell to the tiled floor with a loud crash. Neither of them cared.

"Be careful, Lavi-san," Tyki said gently, pulling his hand away. "I would hate for you to hurt yourself." His teeth closed delicately around the top of his ear and his fingers traced the line of his abdomen, following it until they were resting once again against his phallus. He caressed delicately, twirling the tip with a finger until the younger man arched into his hand, the movement unconscious but purposeful. He sank his teeth into the ear in his mouth a little, bit yet harder when Lavi arched into him again; it was a simple form of trade. Lave left more of his hand but he bit harder. It was too simple. He wanted more.

"Lavi-san?" He moved his mouth away from his ear to look instead at the face of the Bookman in training. His green eye was wide, his lips slightly parted, but he did not look too frightened.

"No, don't stop…"

"I am going to hurt you, Lavi-san." He couldn't tell the emotion in his own voice. Was he sad? Was he mocking? Was he feeling superior? It all blended into a single, horrible emotion. He couldn't name it. "If you do not fight me, it should be more bearable."

Lavi nodded into the table, displacing his headband. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." When he said the words Tyki tilted his face up painfully and kissed him on the lips, ran his tongue lovingly across the bottom one before pulling back sharply. In the course of things he had never let go of the thin wrist between his fingers, and now he took a more secure hold on it, pressing it farther up the redheads back to be sure he did not move undesirably. It was time to do what he thought was going to be the more horrific and enjoyable deed of his life.

With his free right hand Tyki ran his palm over Lavi's shoulders, amazed at how calm the younger man was beneath his fingers. He followed his side to his hip and to the pants that rested there, gave a slight tug so that they slid lower, though not quite off; he watched as the apprentice's breath hitched slightly, but continued a moment later. It was a splendid reaction.

Tyki smiled, licked his lips and dragged his hand down the boy's side again, stopped to tug momentarily at his pants again. "If I had a length of rope, among other things, I would keep you begging for me for a thousand breaths, but we haven't the time." As he spoke Lavi felt his pants slide down around his ankles and pooled around his boots. He wished he taken those off, but it was too late now. He wished so many things but they were all too late. "All the same, I would like to make this last."

Lavi breathed deeply and sighed. He didn't speak though. Speaking might have made him darker. He heard the click of metal and the wiz of leather on slacks, felt the hand that constrained him loosen before it let go entirely. That was new. He never imagined that Tyki would let him up before. Curiously he pulled his arm from behind him, winced, his muscles were sore from being in that position for so long, he flexed his cold fingers twice before he was satisfied enough to attempt to roll over and face the man who had stopped touching him for the moment.

The belt hissed through the air before it slapped hard against his right shoulder, earning a sharp protest from him as he flopped back on his chest, slamming his chin on the table and biting the inside of his cheek. That had been unexpected. He didn't specifically like being hit with a belt with no explanation, so he narrowed his eyes and turned his head to ask the blow's purpose. "What was that fo—" He was cut off by a second lash with the garment; this time the buckle bit painfully into the small of his back, stinging like a thousand bees in a single place. He swallowed hard against the pain and set his jaw determinedly. Yes, Tyki liked causing pain, and yes, he had been warned that he should expect it, but this was something completely different from what he had predicted. If he was going to be whipped he wanted to be tied down and whipped nicely, not beat while he could defend himself.

Tyki smiled when Lavi completed his turn regardless of being stricken directly in the spine. His expression was livid, his cheeks flushed, eyebrows pushed down so that they were visible beneath the line of his horribly crooked headband. He swung for a fourth time and the smaller man raised his arms to protect his face – too slow.

The buckle hit Lavi just below his left eye, which made him scream. He curled in on himself immediately, cupping his hands around his face and folding in the middle, turning sideways to draw his legs up completely onto the table with him. His pants hindered the process somewhat, as did his boots, but he managed nonetheless. He never expressed his fear of losing his eye but that didn't make the fear any less real. He could feel tears against his fingers, but it was too dark behind his palm to know if he could still see.

Tyki froze in place at the boy's reaction, half of him completely satisfied, another part of him shot through with moment-shattering terror. What had he done? He had let himself lose almost all control. The belt dropped from his hands as he watched the pale form of the apprentice pull itself together, hiding his face from sight.

His breath came in slow, shaking waves as he raised his hands to look at them.

They were the same hands he looked at everyday. He had cooked with these hands. Eaten. He had caressed Lavi lovingly and hurt him to the point of tears. He had killed six Exorcists with these hands before they touched this one. These had tied ribbons, tied ropes, tied shoelaces, and tied neck ties. He had bound their lives together with these hands, their hearts, but he could not help the loathing that stirred in his stomach for them. These hands had hurt the most important person in the world. These hands had enjoyed it. These hands, his hands, were what made him what he was.

_I want to reject you._ He thought with finality. _I don't want you here anymore. How ironic it is that the one thing I am incapable of rejecting is myself._

But he could still try.

Lavi tensed when two large hands pulled him up from the table, arms wrapped around his back and pulled him firmly against a bare, warm chest. He had spent that small amount of time feeling the flesh of his face, slowly determining that though the eye would swell in the morning, he would still be able to see with it. Now that that was established he turned his attention to the older man who had pulled him to the edge of the table to be held close.

"Ty-chan?" His voice was broken sounding, almost small. If he had not known he was speaking, he might not have known it as his own. "Are you alright?"

The arm arms around his back pulled tighter, the Noah's head rested gently on his shoulder, his eyes closed, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Lavi opened his sore eye farther and studied the man against him, uncertainty washing through him as he gradually lifted his arms and returned the embrace.

"I'm sorry, Lavi." The older man whispered. "I should have controlled myself more."

Lavi chuckled at him, rubbing his back with a more confident hand. "It's alright, I'm fine. You didn't hurt me that badly."

Tyki shook his head and pulled away to look at him. There was a bright pink mark beneath the orb of his left eye, a perfect buckle shaped mark, already beginning to swell. "I _did_ hurt you though, Lavi. I never want to hurt you again. You have been hurt enough already."

The apprentice did something then that he wasn't expecting, something daring. The younger man took the hand from his side and forced it down his stomach, sliding it across his hip and onto his still present arousal, eliciting a gasp from his own lips. "Then don't, Ty-chan. Do what you planned to do when you first brought me here. What _I _planned on. If it happens again, if you hurt me, you can't blame yourself for it. It's what you are. And I… I accept that. All of you. You are faultless in my eyes, Ty-chan." He leaned forward so that he could kiss the stunned man on the lips, feather-light, trying to be seductive. "So… please…"

Tyki did as he was told. He kissed back with the tenderness he had always half wanted to show, let Lavi guide his hand into in a motion that pleased him. It was far too easy. In his heart he knew that even if he enjoyed Lavi's suffering, his lack of control, he could enjoy this as well. He no longer cared for pain. Not with Lavi. Not ever. He would tie him up or not, he would hold him down or not, but he would not hurt him. Not for his own pleasure.

When he saw that the Noah wasn't going back to his old ways Lavi reached out tentatively with the hand he had free, took hold of Tyki's pants and pulled him closer, grinned when the buttons came undone easily in his nimble fingers. He liked that his companion didn't try to stop him from pulling them down one handed, or demand that he keep his hands away from the newly exposed skin. His fingers danced lightly across the older man's hip and down his thigh, and he moaned to have Tyki pressed especially hard against him. Moaning broke their lips apart and Tyki's came back on his jaw, slowly moved to his neck and up to his ear, back down to his already bruised collarbone. He thought that he was going to melt.

A thought struck Tyki when the younger man's hand touched him experimentally, three fingers drawing from base to tip, swirling gently before they went down again, more sure the second time. He pulled his lips away from their warm quest to speak. "There is a bed in the loft, if you would rather go there."

"Loft?" Lavi panted. What on Earth made Tyki think that he'd want to move? He was naked, but for his boot and the pants gathered around his ankles, so what would make him want to walk what sound like a flight of stairs?

"The word you should have paid attention to was 'bed.' Are you interested?"

In all honestly Lavi no long specifically minded if they consecrated the table, a chair, the floor, the walls, or if they found a comfortable way to touch each other standing. He was cold though, and the table was very hard, so it seemed like perhaps relocating would make things more comfortable. He shrugged.

"I don't care."

Tyki smirked at him. He dragged his palms down the apprentice's legs and over the bunched up mess of his pants, passed the cumbersome folds to his boots. With short wiggles and harsh tugs he relieved first Lavi's right foot and then his left, dropping the shoes beside his abandoned belt. The redhead couldn't reach what he had been fondling while that was happening, so he settled for leaning back and watching it happen. Tyki's expression was determined.

"And now these…" The Noah said as if to himself. One swift motion had Lavi's pants torn off and thrown gracelessly over a nearby potted tree.

"Impatient, Ty-chan?" Lavi raised an eyebrow at him as he bent to remove his dress shoes.

He scoffed in answer. "You said you do not have a preference and I do not want to walk up stairs. And you are already naked; I see no gain in waiting." By the time he had those words out of his mouth he was without clothing himself, standing with his hands on the edge of the table, almost expectant. Lavi's gaze passed over him shamelessly. He took in the subtle muscle tone, the curve of his hips, the smooth tone of his legs, and noted the fact that though he was indeed lusting he wasn't shy about it. That, for some reason, made him feel welcome.

Tyki gently placed his knee between Lavi's and heaved himself up onto the table – which gave a slight groan but did not threaten to fall. He was pleasantly surprised when Lavi's arms came up and hooked around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss, and placing most of his weight on him. He never thought that the Bookman in training would be able to understand how his likes and dislikes changed by the moment, or to accept him despite everything he had done. Yet he had. The arms around him, the passionate kiss, the fire burning in his chest – it all meant something. It all made him feel as if this union of enemies was right.

Lavi whined beautifully when Tyki's skin graced him and he lifted himself into the contact again, whimpered chokingly through his gently parted lips. He was done with waiting. Done with games. Done with foreplay. It was time for something more.

He made a sound of questioning when his companion backed away slightly, fishing over the side of the table with a foot. After a few moments he caught the garment he was looking for and pulled it up beside them, shaking it vigorously until a small, cylindrical container fell from one of the pockets and into Tyki's outstretched hand. It was perhaps an inch deep, four in diameter, with a screwing lid, black but for white writing that Lavi couldn't read in the dimness.

He still knew what it was.

Lavi could hardly contain his excitement. It didn't hurt anymore. He ran his hands over Tyki's chest and pulled him closer, sliding himself downward across the table until the older man's knees touched his inner thighs. He felt fire burning in his loins, threatening to outwit his logic and unleash his desires upon the man above him. A pair of tentative lips swept over his and made him pant – he moved his right palm from Tyki's shoulder to his chest again; found a nipple and rubbed it between his fingers, nonverbally confessing his desire to be done with the waiting.

Tyki smiled at the panting boy beneath him, smiled and lowered himself back so that his chest rested gently on the smaller man's; he held the container of lubricant in his right hand against the table, waiting for Lavi to say something about it. He didn't want to pressure him. He didn't want to hurt him. He didn't want to make him do anything he would regret.

"Are you going to use it or are we just going to sit here?" His voice gave the answer for him, but Tyki still had to ask.

"You want to use it?"

Lavi's expression was incredulous. "Ty-chan, I'm dying here. A romantic dinner first, then I was thrown on this table, and then you almost broke my arm off. Oh! You hit me with a belt. Now you've realized that that wasn't the best plan and you think I want to just walk away and call it a night?" His green eye narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly in a sly smile. "I _came _here thinking that I was going to _cum_ here. My ideas haven't changed." Tyki's eyes went wide when Lavi lifted himself forward, rubbing his erection fleetingly against Tyki's. "Get it?"

"Yes." Tyki husked. "I get it."

The redhead sighed in ecstasy as the warmth of Tyki's mouth connected with his throat again, kissing in a slow, wet line down the front of his chest. He could hardly get to where he wanted to be without falling off the table, but the Noah arrived there nonetheless. He did not hesitate to draw Lavi's length into his mouth, flicking his tongue at the sensitive tip as he untwisted the cap on the jar. There were hands in his hair, encouraging him, and he sucked lightly as he sank is fingers into the slick cream, coating them completely before moving on to the next step.

Lavi frowned when the swirling tongue and enclosing lips abandoned him to the cold of the room. He made to speak, but the brush of something against him brought the words up short.

"Do you want th—"

"Ty-chan, don't you _dare_ ask after what you've done. Just do it."

Tyki swallowed in a mouth gone dry and pressed gently into the younger man, afraid of hurting him, scared not to give him what he wanted. The tight space was warm against his skin, and the apprentice proved to have amazing control over his reaction to being invaded. He whimpered lightly, gasped, but Tyki did not feel as if he were in danger of being rejected. So he pressed in a second finger, which was more difficult, and stopped short when Lavi moaned at him, the fingers in his hair curling as if to hold on for dear life.

"N-no don't stop." Lavi breathed.

"Am I hurting you?"

"Don't _stop…_" Lavi pleaded, tugging slightly at the hair between his fingers. He hissed when the Noah pushed the rest of the way in, the sensation much like how his knees felt when he bent to touch his toes, only displaced. He was not adverse to it though, even if it was mildly painful it was still pleasant.

Tyki pressed deeper, trying to locate the place that he had touched before when Lavi had been tied to the chair in Durnshire, and trying to ignore the slight sounds of affection coming from him. He knew at once when he hit it. The apprentice's voice lifted suddenly, and his fingers released only to close again, his hips moved toward Tyki's fingers and the action made the older man smile. He touched it twice more, just to be sure he knew where it was, before removing his fingers and sinking them once again into the jar.

Lavi pulled him up into a panting, wordless kiss, fingers falling to his neck, tongue questing for the companionship of his own. He had never felt so wanted in his life. He positioned himself just outside of Lavi, where he could feel the heat pounding through him, and pulled their lips apart to breathe, to see the emotion on the younger man's face. His flushed cheeks coupled with his parted lips, and the cloud of lust in his deep emerald eye left no room for second guessing. He thrust slowly forward, sheathing his length at a maddeningly slow pace. The man beneath him shook violently, hands pulling him closer even as his expression changed from one of pleasure to one of mild discomfort. He did not voice it however, and even went so far as to ache into the older man, changing the angle at which the two connected.

The slight change made his eye go wide, a loud growling cry escaping his lips. Tyki felt a sudden constriction around him and called out quietly, his arms threatening to let him collapse against the redhead.

"Did I…" He gasped between words, incapable of speaking clearly. "Hurt you?"

Lavi shook his head, wordless. It took him a long moment to find his voice again. "No. You're… wonderful…" He kissed Tyki's chin, shifting again.

The Noah kissed him back, pulling back slightly to go forward again, trying to set and keep a rhythm that would not be too swift too soon. It was not long, however, until his lover was calling out for more of him, demanding that he increase his speed and force. He pounded onward, growing aware that Lavi could not have been completely enjoying himself, what with being untouched previously. But there was naught to do about it with pleasure cutting through him, fire growing in his heart, and Lavi rising to meet his every motion. He could only move forward, hitting the place repeatedly and relishing the sound the apprentice made in response.

Lavi could hardly stand the sensations running through him. His fingernails bit into the flesh of his lover's back, but he couldn't stop himself. A warm hand circled his erection and stroked it tenderly, following the beat that he had coaxed Tyki into. His body tensed as he came closer and closer to climax, his heart slamming in his chest and his breath refusing to move properly through his lungs. Even the slight pain did not stop him from finding his peak.

Tyki closed his lips over Lavi's when he felt him find release, his head tilted back as passion took him. Every muscle went ridged, driving Tyki to follow him directly after, his moan swallowed by Lavi's mouth and tongue. His arms gave out on him then and he fell the short distance between himself and the redhead, for the moment utterly spent.

A few seconds passed with no speaking between them. He felt somehow contented with it; words had no meaning after the sounds he had heard. They were simply a more eloquent way of expressing the same emotion. His hand circled gently on the younger man's shoulder, the touch a means of communication in and of itself. He did not look at him when he finally did speak. "Are you alright, Lavi?"

He breathed in deeply and out again in a tired sigh. "Yes," He said quietly. "Thank you."

Tyki smirked as he pushed himself up, looking down at him. "The least I can do for the one I wish to sweep off his feet."

Lavi gave him a small, glowing smile. "You know what would make this perfect?"

"What's that, Lavi?"

"A bed. A nice, warm, cozy bed to sleep in. With you. And I wouldn't even have to think about leaving until morning."

The dark haired man backed gracefully away and off the edge of the slightly displaced table. Charmingly he took the apprentice's hand in his and brought it to his mouth, kissing it delicately before pulling him up into a half-sitting position. "Allow me, darling, to find my pants and escort you to the loft, if a bed would so please you."

Lavi chuckled, shaking his head. "You don't _have_ to find them," He said, lifting the garment beside him. "You have to get them back from me."

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**Lavi inspired by Allen? Dunno.**

**Thanks readers! Reviewers! Love!**


	47. Chores and Notes

**Look! It's normal sized-ish!**

**Ugh… sleepy. Classes are nuts, I slept very little the first night I worked on this – thus I would like to apologize for a few… odd things. You'll see what I mean later.**

**Luffy – It would help if you logged in so I don't have to answer you here… but whatev. Yes. I can write a lot of smut, I think it is fun to. Besides, I can't just pretend that the characters don't have sex drives! It would be a total lie!**

**Dsiclaimer of Down: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I think the plot would be darker. Which is sad. It's already pretty dark…**

WARNING: Men-lovin'-men. Homosexual relations and some pretty terrible cussing. Rated R.   
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Chores and Notes

"So it's _tabemasutai?_"

"No. Just _tabetai._ I don't even have a comparison for the word you just made up." Sable sighed and put the cards down with a grin, splaying her hand proudly. She pulled out a five and placed it grinningly next to its brothers by Allen's left knee and spread her book of jacks in front of her. "Tonk. I win."

She, Allen, Hitori, and a very disgruntled Kanda had passed much of the morning more or less on Allen's bed, playing a card game that Allen had yet to learn how to cheat at and Kanda simply could not play well. Hitori had caught on soon enough, being his mind worked that way, but he was still making silly mistakes like trying to make runs that did not match suit. Needless to say Sable did most of the winning, which was fine with her.

"_Tabetai,"_ Allen repeated, frowning. "I'll have to remember that."

Since the previous night he had improved greatly, though his fever had not entirely gone away. He wasn't well enough to go out hunting akuma, nor walking across the house in Kanda's opinion, but he was sitting up, talking, and cracking little jokes that only he, Kanda, and maybe Sable understood. Lastly, he had hinted at being hungry all morning, though he seemed frightened to outright ask for sustenance. Kanda noticed though, and Hiroko had vanished into the kitchen when he told her.

Allen though, was oblivious to her disappearance. And, in his own completely unbiased opinion, he was well enough to kill demons, search for Innocence, screw Kanda, and play cards all in the same day. If he could eat something, he would show Kanda just how well he felt.

"Sable-chan," Hitori frowned at her, throwing his hand down so she could shuffle. "This game is crap. I can't count cards worth shit when you only play once around the circle." Kanda hit him in the arm with an open fist, rocking him slightly but not hard enough to hurt him. He blinked at his older brother, who sat directly to his right, between him and Allen. "What?"

Kanda narrowed his eyes at him, but the glare left the boy unfazed. "Che. You're cursing. I told you to stop, you're too young."

Hitori raised an eyebrow at him, amusement crossing his feminine features in a playful smirk. "Right. And just who were you fucking when you first got here? Oh, that's right, your sixteen year old man-wife. And where were you doing him? Hmm?" His voice dripped obvious sarcasm as he pressed a finger to his lips, mocking thought. "Ah! I remember. You screwed him in _my bedroom._ On _my_ futon." He pointed accusingly at the British boy, gray eyes never wavering, "_You_ did _that – _which is younger than me – where I sleep at night." He crossed his arms over his chest indignantly before he finished. "So you best keep your damn mouth shut, child molesting hypocrite."

Kanda watched his younger sibling say all of this without arguing. The last he remembered, Hito was a quiet little bookworm with a rude streak, with nothing but a dash of cuteness to keep him alive. He was very different now.

"Actually…" Allen broke in with a deep blush, eyes averted. "I was doing him."

Kanda and Hitori turned to him, the first wide eyed with horror, the second with an expression of pure disbelief. Naturally Kanda was worried that this subject would result in the same thing it had the first time; swords clashing and Allen worse for wear in the end. That was not, however, his brother's response.

"Wow. You must be _way_ the hell better than Yuu is for him to let you."

Allen laughed lightly and waved his hand in dismissal. "Oh no, not at all. Kanda's a very fast learner. It just happened to be my turn." He was still blushing, but his color was returning to normal when he realized that Hitori was not completely disgusted by the topic. "We have a system – though I don't think we've ever talked about it being one." He shrugged a little at the raised, curious eyebrow on the smaller Kanda's forehead. "So in that way there really is no wife. I just kind of got the title by default. Maybe that's unfair though, being Kanda is the obviously more feminine of the two of us. I mean the first time we—"

"_Moyashi."_ Kanda's voice was dangerously low, much like how it sounded when the Japanese man scolded Lavi for calling him by his name.

"Yes, Love?" Allen smiled sweetly. Blushing, teasing, smiling – he was either asking to be kicked or…

"I would rather that you not recite the details of our…life to Hitori." He wanted to yell but he wouldn't. He wanted to kiss him too, which he wasn't going to do either. "Or Sable."

Allen didn't lose that same glowing, bright expression, but he didn't let either of the mentioned eavesdroppers interrupt him. "But Love, if he's curious, why shouldn't I? I mean, you are my beautiful, elegant, feminine, gorgeous, sparkling, bubbly, superior, withdrawn, wonderful, semi-enraged – _hmm…_" The rest of the list was lost as Kanda kissed him, deeply and hurriedly, his fingers wrapping in his lover's clothes and pulling him over for the duration of the contact. Sable made a small sound of appreciation before they separated. "See? You're all those great things, so why shouldn't I talk about you?"

"Che. You're just trying to seduce me."

"Am not!"

"I can see right through you. That's all you get, Moyashi, until you're cool to the touch." He spoke softly, but his voice carried so that the two innocents that occupied the very edge of the bed could hear him clearly. "Sh… don't tell me you're hot for me, don't tell me you're hungry for me, don't tell me you'll feel better when I've satisfied you – no is no until you're completely better."

The white haired boy pouted up at him and tugged with his sleeve almost shyly, like a child playing with his toy. "That could be _days _though! And it's not my fault you're irresistible…"

_So Goddamn adorable…_ "Self control is a beautiful thing."

"Not when someone has more than you."

"Che."

"Ugh…" Hitori groaned, bringing their attention back to the pair that they had nearly forgotten about. He had his hands over his eyes but he was peering through the cracks in them. "I'm not sure if it's sick or if it's cute…"

"That's how it's starts," Sable patted him lightly on the shoulder, "The next you know, you'll either be helping me with my club duties or asking to join them."

"Ew! That's incest! Not to mention gross on about fifty-two other levels." His large gray eyes had turned to Sable, completely horrified. "How can you even _say_ something like that? And what the Hell do you mean by club duties?"

Sable's face, which had been drawn up in a creepy, almost stalker-like smile, wavered momentarily as she lifted the deck of cards to her lips and placed the edges between her teeth. "I'm the vice-president of the SAUK Fan-club, responsible for – among other things – research and development. The President makes my notes into sparkling artwork, which is the pride and joy of our group." She spoke around the cards, her words coming out a little distorted. "And I can say it because I think it or someone here does."

"SAUK?"

"Seme-Allen/uke-Kanda."

Hitori smashed his eyes with the heels of his hands and lowered his head to his chest, mumbling softly. "I don't want to hear this. I don't want to imagine it."

She laughed. "Sorry. You asked."

Hiroko opened the door at that moment, black braid swinging out like a rope as she burst in, looking half-murderous. Her eyes were narrowed dangerously and a large cooking knife in her left hand. Allen, who could not see the door with Kanda still holding his yutaka, spoke the first words that came to mind.

"It's Lenalee isn't it?! I knew it!" He shook his head, glowering. "Ever since we were in Sweden and I talked to her on the phone she's had a fan club hasn't she?"

Kanda blinked at him, trying to put things together in his head. "You told Lenalee in Sweden? I thought you only ever talked to Komui on the phone."

The British boy floundered for a moment, remembering the day Kanda had been wounded and wanted to talk to Lavi, before he had known that their relationship was going to be open for everyone to see.

"Well, about that…"

Hiroko cleared her throat nosily and tapped the flat side of her knife loudly against the doorframe, demanding everyone's attention. It was given at once, and the hand that Kanda had wrapped around the fabric of Allen's shirt released at once. "There's food in the kitchen for you bums if you feel like it. Don't even move Whore-chan, Yuu will get you a plate." He lifted her knife and pointed it at Sable, who pulled the cards from her mouth to hold them over her nose as if in fear.

"Yes, Hiroko-dono?"

"Afterward, get your skinny ass off the bed and get wood to heat the water in the tub. Yuu," The knife blade flicked to Kanda. "Get your lover naked in the bathroom – Whore-chan, stop smiling. And Hito," She lowered the knife but didn't smile at him at all. "You haven't practiced a single minute since your lame-ass brother showed up; it's about time you started again. I don't want some freakin' weak bitch for a child, so no arguments."

He frowned in response, sagging like a broken doll against the bed. He looked up with his thoughtful eyes and pouted despite his mature air. "Then consider this a refusal."

Those words had everyone look at him in silence.

"Excuse me?" Hiroko had the knife up again, threateningly. "Is that an argument?"

"No. I'm not arguing. I'm just not going to practice either. I don't like it, I don't want to, and Yuu isn't dead. I have no reason to."

"Yuu isn't dead?" It was Allen who asked, a frown making his features dark. He knew immediately that he shouldn't have spoken by the way Hiroko looked at him.

"Che! It's tradition in the Kanda family that the oldest sons, who are responsible for carrying the family line, learn kendo. My eldest boy-bastard did when he was young. This little shit here though, he didn't start until a few years ago, after Yuu stopped calling. Now, the stupid cocksucker wants to give it up, being he's not the oldest. Aren't I right?"

"Hiroko-dono," Sable said quietly. She hadn't been specifically frightened of the Japanese woman with the knife, but she quickly became so as soon as the pointed end jerked toward her. "I think that Allen, Kanda, and I all take offense to the term 'cocksucker.'"

Allen was still smiling. Kanda's face turned a deep, embarrassing shade of puce.

Hiroko sighed, flipping the knife in her hand so that the blade faced downward, almost as if she were going to stab Sable with it. "Well you shouldn't be. Have pride in your smuttiness. Now _I_ have already eaten, I'll be out back doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I expect to see you there Hito-_baka_, at least to talk over this more fully. The rest of you lazy fuck-tards get to your chores before I flay you."

With that she turned on heel, leaving the door open behind her. The four still in the room looked at each other quietly for a long moment. Sable sighed and looked at the cards; Allen tugged at Kanda's sleeve until he turned to look.

"So…" Allen said softly. "Are you going to feed me, or should I get naked?"

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The fight for Tyki's pants had ended as soon as Lavi discovered that running hurt. After that he had limped back to the table, handed Tyki is garment, and grinningly asked for his own. The older man had shaken his head in what might have amusement before eventually carrying him up the stairs to the loft. Lavi did not particularly enjoy being carried, but having Tyki's chest that close to his face made it all worth it.

He had not realized until they had made their way all the way up the stairs that he was going to be sleeping next to that chest all night.

He had sighed contentedly.

Tyki had ascended the old metal spiral staircase with the mess they had left in the back of his mind, prodding him. All it took was Lavi's small, happy sigh for him to know that he wasn't cleaning it until morning. It wasn't worth it. No one was coming in the greenhouse until five, so it didn't _have_ to be clean until then. He would rather have spent the time with Lavi anyways. The thought of it had made him happy beyond reason.

The loft was not large, perhaps a fourth of the size of the greenhouse below. The floor was hard wood, but the two walls were glass and steel, just as the roof was, and the railing that ran the remaining two sides was polished metal. The bed was tucked into the corner away from the railing, a short table on one side, a crammed bookshelf on the other. The pipe from the furnace beneath them was routed out just beside it, filling the room with surplus heat. Beside that there was nothing but a dresser, decorated with a potted lily, and a low sink with a hand pump.

The simplicity of it had made the Noah smile.

Neither had spoken when they had arrived at their destination. The older man had simply laid his younger companion on the old, noisy bed, and flopped himself down on the soft lined sheets, waited to see what was next. He had not been at all surprised when the redhead had rolled to face him, wrapped an arm around him and pulled them close. It was right for it to happen. So he had circled him protectively with his free arm and laid his cheek softly in Lavi's hair, breathing in his scent as slowly but surely sleep claimed them both.

Dawn was a new, colorful event when seen through the closed left eye of the apprentice Bookman. The glass above him broke the light into reds and yellows, painted the silver-white clouds in shades of burnt gold. He slowly blinked into the light, turned slightly to avoid looking at it directly – and found himself face to neck with Tyki Mikk. It was only then that he took note of the hand playing softly in his hair, stroking back and forth as if he were a small, soft animal that liked to be petted. Honestly he did not mind so much. It made him feel… warm inside.

"Good morning, Lavi," Tyki said gently, leaning down and kissing him softly on the lips. He looked rather tired, perhaps pale, but his small smile was a genuine one. His hand did not stop moving as he spoke. "Did you sleep well?"

The redhead couldn't help but kiss him back when he was leaning so close. He couldn't help the hand that floated up from beneath the covers to touch Tyki's soft, taunt flesh. He could not explain the desire anymore than he could explain the fire burning in his chest. "Like a log."

The Noah'a face fell a little and he sat up more; Lavi pushed himself up against the thick pillows as well, wincing. "How does your eye feel?" Tyki asked, looking ashamed. Lavi smiled at his tone, tried to be happy, but his cheek mashed the sore skin when he did it too widely.

"My ass hurts more than my face does."

Tyki made a sound that might have signified horror.

"What? It's true. And it's my fault; you shouldn't feel bad about it." His fingers continued their exploration of the dark haired man's stomach, drawing lines and circles that his mind did not need to focus on. "I'm… really happy that we did… I mean… I wanted to. It's not like you forced me."

He watched the Noah sigh, look at his hands as if they were not his own. He was very poetic like that, broken looking, thoughtful. Lavi's fingers stopped their movement as he pushed himself up, folding his knees so he could lean his bare chest against Tyki's arm and shoulder, wrap him in a tight embrace. It took a long moment for the other man to relax into his arms.

"Seriously, Ty-chan, stop moping. It's depressing." He felt the Noah stiffen when he laid his hand gently against his palm, letting the darker, larger fingers cradle his pale hand. "I never said that I didn't like any of it. I never said any of it was bad did I? I never said I didn't want it." He tilted his face forward into the corner of Tyki's neck where he could feel the other man's heartbeat against his face. "Because I wanted all of you. I still do. Every part."

"Lavi," He said the name so quietly he was not even sure he had said it out loud, pushed the apprentice away slightly. "I do not understand. You said those things last night – you accepted me for what I am, you begged me to go on even though you knew it would hurt you – and now you are no different, as if you are unaware what I am capable of – what _all_ of me entails.

"You look at me and you do not see the horrors I have committed. You only see what little good there is left. How can you? How can you ignore what I have done? I have killed people you knew. I have tried to destroy your goal. This all started when I wanted to make you surrender your Innocence to me. But you think nothing of it. I do not understand how you can be so blind to it.

"You," He touched the side of Lavi's face with a trembling hand, ran his thumb across the bruised flesh beneath his eye. "Who is supposed to see nothing but the truth."

Lavi squeeze the fingers in his, titled his face into Tyki's hand. "You're a fool, Ty-chan." His piercing gaze did not waver, nor did his voice, but he could feel the tickle of tears behind his eyes regardless. "I do see it, I just don't care. None of it matters now. I don't care if you hurt me, killed people, shattered Innocence, made akuma, raped, pillaged, gambled – I don't care if you burned down an orphanage and built a whorehouse where it was; I still…" His mouth was suddenly dry. His heart suddenly still in his chest. He felt impossibly cold. "I still…" The tears escaped and he saw them mirrored in the face he was confessing to. "Love you."

He could not breathe. The room suddenly dimmed to nothing but the young man in his arms, the words on his lips, and the honest, unsure expression on his face. No one was supposed to love him. Not like this. "Why?" The word was a broken, sob torn whisper. "I don't understand _why_. I'm not perfect. And you're so _good_…" He couldn't say it all. There was no way. He pulled his hands away from the younger man and laid his face in them. "You cannot love me. Not me."

The apprentice took his hands back again only to release one in favor of touching his face. "You can't tell me not to love you. Panda is a lot scarier with his attempted persuasion, and I don't listen to him."

The Noah made a short sound of amusement at that.

"I can't name all of the reasons I have, I just do. You don't have to understand and you don't have to love me back; all you have to do is understand that this is how I feel; this is why I accept you, so stop questioning it. Who cares that you have the genes of Noah and I have a shard of Innocence? I sure as hell don't." He paused for a moment before he continued in a softer voice. "It doesn't change how a feel."

"Lavi…" His eyes were glimmering, shining like gemstones. He titled forward and kissed the smaller man on the lips, effectively silencing him. "Every part of me – the murderer, the traitor, the Noah, the man – loves you. I didn't want to admit to it for fear that you wouldn't believe me, but I see now that I was wrong. Your logic may be beyond me but I do not need to understand it." His eyes closed and he licked his lips, cupping the back of Lavi's head as he pulled him into a hug, suddenly aware that he was not shaking alone, nor was he the only one frightened. "Because you do."

Pain wasn't the word for it. There was no word for it. Lavi just knew deep inside of him that it was all true, all right, and that never would he feel the same for someone besides the confusing man before him. He could not understand why the Noah would love him, he who was supposed to be incapable of love, or why Tyki couldn't understand his affections back. And it was fine.

It was all perfectly good.

"You… love me." Tyki thought that maybe the redhead was lost in his thoughts by the way he said it. He kissed him hungrily, letting his captured hands wander away from their warm prisons to take hold of Lavi's shoulders and move him into a more proper kissing position. "You…" He mumbled as their lips came apart and back together again. "Love…me…"

Lavi felt the Noah smile wider every time he said it and that made him smile as well. After perhaps five times repeating those words he had the older man pressed back into the pillows, his hands on his chest, Tyki's wandering down his back and taking a firm hold of his upper thighs.

"And you…" Tyki panted back. "Love me."

The words made Lavi think that maybe, just maybe, his chest was going to erupt in a spray of blood and happiness. "I do." He half-moaned, "I do." The hand on his left thigh traveled to the crook of his pants and gave a short, experimental squeeze. "Ow…"

Tyki chuckled from beneath him, a melodious sound that rumbled through them both, made his lover smile. "I wish we could stay here together, even if you are too sore for certain activities. It might indeed make this the best day of my life." Without releasing his loose hold on Lavi's bottom he brought his free hand up and once again ran his fingers across the tender flesh beneath his eye again, amazed at the dazzling shade of purple it had turned. "It would give the marks some time to fade as well."

"Marks?"

Lavi looked far too innocent to be true.

"You have a black eye dear." Tyki smiled. "And there's this…" He drew is fingers over the welt on his neck, where he could count his teeth prints in the skin. "And three on your back, I believe. And these lines…" He tilted his face toward Lavi's wrists, which were marred by finger shaped bruises and a single belt lash, both blue-black on his pale flesh. Even though he hated those discolorations he thought they were beautiful; the contrast, the slight rise they produced, the pain they spoke of. On some strange level he felt that pain as his own, having caused it. But he was fine with that; the pain would serve to bind them that much closer. "Lenalee will kill me when she sees you."

"Ah!" Lavi blinked at him for a moment, fear coming into his eyes, widening them. "Shit! Lenalee expected me back before dawn!"

"What?"

"I left a note. I told her not to freak out if I wasn't back until dawn. Oh God, she's gonna kill me! Worse yet, she's gonna kill you!" He pushed himself back, reeling. "What if she told Crowley? He'll be crushed! I have to go. I have to go be sure they aren't hunting for me. 'Cause if they are they—"

"Might find you here, with me?" Tyki finished. He did not sound at all accusatory, indeed the observation was entirely factual, but it was sad nonetheless. The apprentice Bookman in his arms gave a small, unwilling nod before once again sinking down into him, disappointed. "I'll find you again. I will come for you every opportunity that I have, Lavi."

The redhead sighed. The side of his face lay softly on the Noah's bare chest so he could hear the breath rush in and out of his lungs. "That's not fair. I want to be able to see you whenever the hell I want…which would be about every day, I think."

"Well, we could run away together."

"Yeah. Sure. Or we can have ourselves a double suicide."

"I was being serious."

"Me too."

Tyki sighed. "Well, if you are so worried about it, you should go. Otherwise we will have a double murder on our hands." He smiled at the cocked eyebrow that statement got him. "Your Chinese friend seems like she could be potentially murderous when faced with such trouble as a missing friend."

Lavi made a face that scrunched his face up, half-between horror and amusement. "You're right. I should go." And yet, after two minutes, he did not move from the larger man's chest. And Tyki was not about to make him. "In an hour."

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The young man could not see him in the shadows. He walked on through the brush and trees as if he knew where he was going, ducking beneath the over hanging branches, gray eyes scanning for something or someone he had lost. It did not take a half a moment for his watcher to glean from his mind that he was looking for his mother; hell bent on finding her and arguing his way out of something unpleasant. Unpleasant. The thought made his watcher smile.

Hitori wished that his mother would not go _all the way out in the middle of nowhere_ to give him a talk that he did not need. It was pointless. He didn't like the sword. He didn't want the sword. He didn't have need for it. Hito was a young man who based his world on thinking things out slowly and saying them with a few colorful metaphors just to make things interesting. And sometimes, he even forgot to use those.

The boy was so contained in his thoughts that he did not see the shadow looming ahead of him until it reached out to touch him. The sunlight through the tree branches laid soft gray lines on the path he was walking, breaking it up into shapes and colors he had not been able to truly focus on. Now, with a sudden, dark thing reaching for him, he could not leap aside or run from it, or even spin away in the hope of finding a weapon. Instead he stood stark still, frozen with terror, incapable of even thinking as a gruff, hand shaped shadow closed around the collar of his shirt, pulling up forcefully. He heard himself yelp before a hand mashed against his mouth and he was pushed back into a tree trunk, jarring his head painfully against the bark and dislodging a fair amount of half melted snow.

Fear showed bright in his wide, smoke colored eyes, burning up his reason. He took a firm hold of the hand on his mouth and struggled to pull it from his lips. He felt his fingernails sink into the creature's flesh, but to no avail. He could hardly breathe with that large hand holding his mouth closed, the hand on his collar, crushing his throat. He could taste blood on his tongue, which made him realize just how hard his skull was being pressed against the tree. It was inhuman strength. Strength that he could never win against.

The shadow bent close to him, speaking softly into his ear. Hitori could not slow his ragged breathing; could not will his hands to release the ones that held him – not in a million years. Terror was an ice cold knife in his chest that he could not pull out.

"You need not fear me, Hito-kun." It spoke in a man's voice, silky, like that of a person used to having what he said taken into account. Hito was as ridged as a corpse in his hands. "All I want," The hand on his collar moved up to his forehead, though the palm against his lips never wavered. "Are your thoughts," The man leaned yet closer, close enough for Hito to feel warm breath on his neck. "Will you give them willingly, Hito-kun?"

'_Kaasan…_ Hito thought desperately. _Now would be a good time to come storming over to beat my ass…_

"Is that a no, Hito-kun?" The strange had a smile in his voice that made the boy's hands clench more tightly on fingers at his mouth. "Kanda-san would be proud."

Uri smiled as he reached through his fingers and into the young mind before him. It was so much easier this way – rummaging a mind without mercy – than it had been when he felt guilty for it. He could sift through the boy's thoughts and memories as if they were his own, relive them, make the boy relive them, rewrite them more to his liking. He wouldn't be too horrible though. The point was to find what he wanted, not thrash his mind beyond repair.

Hitori was an innocent. Uri would only go so far in hurting him because of that.

The Japanese boy, though, wouldn't have known if he meant to cause him pain. Memories and thoughts that were half his and half someone else's flicked through his mind rapid fire, breaking off even before he could understand what was happening. He saw birthdays. Felt his first skinned knee. Watched Yuu leave with nothing but a harsh glare and a biting word of false hatred. Felt the years he had spent alone with his mother, each one more tenuous than the last. Each one made him want to scream. The hand on his forehead did not cause the pain, it simply amplified it, the epicenter was somewhere within him, somewhere he could not reach without controlling his own mind – which he could not do. There was a moment of peace though, when the thoughts ground to a near standstill and Yuu came home, the moment he hugged him, looked up with shimmering eyes and felt unwarranted happiness rush through him.

'_Holy shit you're tall.'_

Then time sped through his mind again – less painfully – slowing every time Kanda came into his mind before zipping away again. He could not remember what had happened already and what he had only thought would happen. It all bled together as he relived playing Tonk, watched his mother come in and berate him. It was only a few more moments until he was walking through the darkened wood again, braches interlaced in a thick, dark lattice above and around him.

When Uri let go his victim fell face down on the unkempt stone walkway, which had not been cleaned in near fourteen years. He knew it all. The man he sought was here. Just at the house. Unsuspecting. He could not have asked for a more perfect occurrence.

_I can't… remember…_ Hitori thought desperately. _Where am I? Why can't… why can't I push myself up? What happened?_

"Don't move for a while, Kanda Hitori." The voice said with an air of satisfaction. "You won't remember how to for an hour anyway, so there's no point in trying."

_I won't remember?_ He could see blood pooling on the ground by his mouth, coming from the cuts on the inside of his lips.

"Well then," Uri knelt to sweep the child's hair away from his face, the better to make him comfortable. _"Ja mata, ne?"_

Hito could only listen to the hollow sound of booted feet as his attacker moved surely away down the broken walk.

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**At last! The plot is moving for everyone! Heehee. Heehee. Sorry for the Lavi-Tyki mood swinging, but it's how they are. Next time in TFL: Allen takes a bath with Kanda, Lavi faces his friends, and Uri stalks the person who helped him momentarily become human! Doo doo doo!**

**Wow. It sounds horrible in a nutshell.**

**Love you readers and reviewers. Thanks for sticking around this long; it's almost to chapter 50, O.o**


	48. The Second Line

**So Allen's crazy, Sable's a perv, Kanda's far too normal, Lavi's depressing, Tyki's also normal, Hiroko's crazy, and Lenalee's…mood swingy. Oh well. You have been warned.**

**Disclaimer of **_**Daddy**_**: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I wouldn't be nearing a spoiler (oops).**

**WARNING: Cheesy confessions of love, unexplained violence, and implied sexual acts between men. Have at it.**

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The Second Line

Allen was so full of Hiroko's excellent cooking that he couldn't even pretend to be well. It was one thing to tough it out and walk down the hallway while it was swimming a little, and another, completely different thing to pack himself with food and then attempt the same thing. He would throw up, he knew, and all of that good food and faking would go out the door. As would any chances of getting Kanda out of his clothes in the next twelve years.

So instead he took his lover's arm and half-wobble-stepped toward the bathroom, feeling woozier with every inch they moved. By the time they got to where they were going he thought he was going to fall over and die, but he knew he couldn't. Not if he wanted Kanda to think he was alright. Not if he wanted to get out of the house anytime soon. Not if he wanted any of the things he actually did want. Thus he bit his lower lip and leaned against the wall while Kanda drew water into the tub, closed his eyes and prayed that his stomach would stop rolling and his head would stop spinning sometime soon. He had seducing to do and akuma to destroy; he didn't have time for this.

His arm gave a painful twitch as if to remind him of the importance of his second thought.

"Che, don't faint on me, Moyashi."

"I'm just resting my eyes."

"_Baka_." Kanda said softly. "Your fever's going up again."

Allen shook his head but could not bring himself to lie with his eyes open. "No I feel fine. I'm just tired." He had the sudden feeling that his stomach wanted to claw its way out of his throat and onto the floor where it could roll around more easily. Maybe even dance a jig. "All of that food, you know?"

Kanda sighed, shaking his head. "You didn't eat _that_ much, Moyashi." He laid his hand softly on Allen's skin, confirming his suspicions. Though it was not like fire yet, it was close. However, the silver eyes that blinked at him in question were not dimmed or foggy, they were alert and sparkling, so he gave into a small urge then and kissed him, relishing in those warm, willing lips against his. Allen blinked up at him when he pulled away, slyly cocking an eyebrow. "No." Kanda said baldly.

"I'm going to die before you fu—"

"OI!" A loud, distinctly feminine voice erupted from the small, barred window above the tub, too loud to be natural. "Yullen-chan! How hot do you want the water?!"

The white haired boy made a face that was none too pleasant; Kanda almost laughed at it, it was so uncharacteristic. He looked about ready to strangle the young woman outside for asking. "Hot is good! But don't cook me!" His voice though, was just as happy as it had ever been. "Does that make sense!?"

Sable cupped her hands around her mouth and called back so that the neighbors could hear. "DOES KANDA CARE HOW HOT THE WATER IS?! OR ARE YOU NOT SHARING?!"

"…I'm going to maim her…"

"What?!" Allen called back, just to see the look on his lover's face.

Sable cackled before she could yell back again. "ARE YOU – ALLEN WALKER – TAKING A BATH WITH KANDA YUU!?"

Kanda clapped his hand of Allen's mouth and called back in a much quieter voice. "Hot is FINE!"

The blonde snickered into her fingers before moving to the woodpile. This was going to be fantastic. She had brought three pencils and seven pieces of paper and a towel, just so she could sit beneath the window and write every little thing she heard while they were in there. It was going to be exquisite. Lenalee was going to worship her. And there would be a girls' night at HQ dedicated solely to the reading of her observations and the viewing of several attempted drawings.

Kanda tested the water a number of times before calling out that it should be good. Sable threw in a little extra wood, to be sure that it stayed that warm long enough, before screaming back that she was going inside. Kanda waited perhaps five minutes before turning to Allen and ushering him toward the now steaming Japanese tub.

"Aren't I supposed to wash out here and then just soak in it?"

The Japanese man shook his head. "We're making an acceptation. You get to soak, wash, and soak some more in it if you want." He knelt down by the side, offing his hand. "Don't look at me like I'm nuts, it was my mother's idea."

Allen tilted his head and gave an odd, unreadable smile. "She's nice."

"Che."

Kanda watched his lover stagger a little away from the wall and catch himself, grin as if it were a normal occurrence and untie the belt of his robe. He tried not to focus on the soft white skin that was exposed, or to hunger for it, but he could not help thinking about it at least for an instant. He loved every curve of that young man, every scar, everything down to his semi-transparent, almost nonexistent leg hair – so how could he _not_ think about it? It was impossible. He just tried not to let it show on his face when the yukata was shrugged off completely, pooling on the floor.

"Love?"

"Hm?"

Allen placed his hand in Kanda's, leaned on it a little more than he would have liked to. "You wouldn't be able to stare at me if you got in with me."

Kanda's shoulders slumped as he pulled the boy forward, touching his hip lightly with the hand that was not held between Allen's fingers. "Moyashi," His face was set with an air of determination. "Get in the tub."

Allen pouted at him. A serious pout. He even tucked his chin. _"Pleeease?"_ He touched the side of Kanda's face with his right hand, drawing his fingers slowly down his soft skin, sighing when he touched his lover's lips. "You don't have to touch me. We can just sit naked together, okay?" He swayed a little on his feet, tried to hide the vertigo. "I won't try to seduce you after that, I swear."

For a moment the older boy just studied the pair of pleading eyes looking down at him, weighing his options. It would hurt more, in the end, if he denied Allen this small favor than if he accidentally did something stupid. He let go off Allen's hip and instead took the fingers on his lips in his hold, brought both of the younger boy's hands to his mouth, kissing lightly.

"Alight."

Allen's face broke into a triumphant smile.

"But if you even_think_ about doing anything, I'll do you so hard, what I did at Christmas will seem like _nothing_."

"Love, that's hardly a threat." The British boy laughed, stepping over the side and into the water. "I wasn't used to it and you had me tied to the bed frame, if anything happened like that now it wouldn't be so big a deal." He lifted his other leg, hissed at the heated water on his limbs. They felt stiff, underused, and at the same time sore. He felt that he might collapse into the water and fall asleep at once. "Though if that ever happens again, I think I'd want my hands free so I can touch you. It's not fair to you if I don't."

Kanda made a sound of dissent as he stood, unknotting his own clothes. "It's perfectly fair. You'd have us both spent in a matter seconds if I let you freely interfere all the time."

"Not true. I know better now."

"Che. Knowing and doing are very different things, Moyashi-kun."

"Do I get a freebee because you said it?"

Kanda sighed softly. "You're the one that made up that stupid rule, not me."

"Then that's a yes." Allen lowered himself into the water with a light plash, reached up to his lover to pull him in also. Kanda looked impossibly glum as he let his hair down and entered the tub, being careful not to slip on the warm bottom. After a few moments of splashing and rearranging Kanda was leaning on the side of the tub and, though it was large enough for them both to enjoy the water without touching each other, Allen was leaning into his chest, an arm draped over his shoulders. The British boy craned his neck backward and laid his lips on Kanda's, kissing deeply and unhurriedly, drawing out the contact as he flicked his tongue across his lover's cool lips, tasting him and enjoying the flavor. He did not hide any of his wishes, nor did he act on them. The action easily could have grown into something more entertaining, but the Japanese man did not lift his hands to make it so.

When the kiss broke Kanda had to struggle to give him his best glare.

"Love… I'm…"

"Not getting any, stop trying."

Allen sighed in a great huff. "God, you're so sexy when you say that…"

"Moyashi…"

"And you're glaring. You know how I get when you're glaring…"

"Allen Walker."

He gave his very best blazing grin. "Yes, Yuu-sama?"

"No."

Allen groaned and sank low in the water, crossing his arms. _Oh well… I'll just have to get better by tonight._

Kanda went about wetting his hair while Allen did the same, trying to ignore the urge to take up the younger boy's invitation. He focused on getting all of himself wet, completely, even going so far as to lean sideways and drench most of his face with his hair. The water was searing hot on his face but he did not mind – the feeling helped to distract him from other, more pressing matters. Like the pale skin of his lover from the corner of his eye.

_No. No. No._ He told himself repeatedly, looking away. _I will not do something that I will regret._

Allen was quietly amazed that Kanda could ignore him so well. He was dizzy though, so he wasn't about to do anything crazy to get his attention. The more he thought about it, the dizzier he felt, and the dizzier he felt the more difficult it became to actually focus on what he was trying to wash. By the time he thought he might want to find something foamy to put in his hair, his hands wouldn't come out of the water to do what he told them and his heart was banging in his chest, too slow for his liking.

The world suddenly turned sideways, becoming quite warm. It wasn't the same as the almost-too-hot water on his skin, it was softer, like cotton, and the bathroom light flickered as if fogged over by something distant. He felt himself sink even lower, the water covering his lips and nose, but he was dizzy and tired and it seemed impossible to push himself up. The yellow wall across from him suddenly sparkled with little lights that he recognized as what he saw before he fainted.

_Crap…_

Kanda turned when a hand drifted haphazardly into his hip. His immediate suspicion was that Allen had fallen asleep in the warmth of the water, food and claimed tiredness sapping what little energy he had had left. But that was not the case when he turned to see him. Allen's face was in the water, eyes half open, lips parted, and he was making what appeared to be very little effort in lifting himself up. Kanda felt a jolt of fear through his heart. Hurriedly he took the younger boy by the shoulder and struggled to pull him up and close; a thousand questions and demands clouding his mind and leaving him incapable of speech. It was not until the British boy's back was against his chest, Kanda's arms wrapped surely around his hips and shoulders, that he found any means of vocalizing his concerns.

"Moyashi," He gave him a little shake. Allen's damp, clinging hair was half plastered to Kanda's shoulder, his head lulled sideways as if he could not lift it. "Damnit, say something!" He shook harder.

"Wha's…wrong…wit'…'e?" He mumbled, shaking. Tremors so violent they rattled his teeth together coursed through his thin frame, the fingers of his left hand switching with every passing, a small amount of awareness coming back to him as they worsened. He made a small sound in the back of his throat as his head came back and leaned gently on Kanda's shoulder.

"What?" The Japanese man asked softly. Allen still quivered against him, his eyes had gone wide. The skin on his chest was _far_ too hot. He had to get Allen out of the tub as soon as he was still. "What is it?"

The white haired boy breathed slowly in and out, clenching his left hand into a tight fist. "Love, I…" He blinked slowly, twice. "Don't let me… I…can't…"

"Moyashi!" Kanda half yelled, turning him in his arms so he could look down at the boy's slowly dimming eyes. "Don't you _dare_ pass out! I swear to God I won't touch you for a week if you do!"

"Don't let me… don't let me… I don't want to…" Allen felt Kanda pull him into a forceful embrace, sloshing water with the motion. _No, I can't. I have so much to do! I have _Kanda_ to do! I have to hold on…!_

But the world was closing in on him, growing darker, his lips refused to even silently protest anymore. His heart was like a slow, heavy thing in his chest, crushing him, his lungs dysfunctional billows. He held Kanda's eyes, willing himself to focus only on them, only on the tears that were brimming in those beautiful eyes. If he could hold on to them, if he could see only Kanda, if he could feel nothing but the hands on his skin and the fear in his heart, he would be able to perhaps outlast the wash of darkness that threatened his world. He did not blink, only looked at his lover's eyes.

Kanda mouthed words that Allen could not hear.

A blood curdling scream ripped those sapphire anchors away from Allen, dislodging his hold on reality. He could only watch in muted terror as the world spiraled away into nothing, blackness, cold oblivion. He would not have minded so much if Kanda's face were not turned away toward the window.

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Sable pushed the papers away in favor of covering his face with her hands, blood and pain making the reaction almost instinctual. It had never been so horrible before, never so bad. It didn't just hurt her skin either, it was a pain that pierced her bones and down into her neck, rendering her incapable of fast movement.

Uri had to be very close.

To make matters worse she was seeing things that she shouldn't have seen, things Hitori had told her about at dinner. They were fleeting images, broken by her own thoughts, but she could see them, and each one brought with it a twist of agony in her skull. She could taste blood in her mouth even though she knew none of it had gotten that far, she could feel fire in her stomach and excitement in her heart, none of which was hers. Uri had to be very close. Right there. Enjoying himself.

And then she saw herself, Kanda, and Allen, at the door.

"Hi-hito…" The name was a soft, powerless cry on her lips. Her hands dropped from her face so see could look at them, see that they were covered in far too much blood, more than she had ever seen flow so quickly. With her fingers gone it came easily down the sides of her face, down her nose, dribbled onto her jacket – but that didn't matter. She didn't need to stop the bleeding. She needed to find someone to save Hito.

Hiroko was standing on the walk even before Sable could push herself up from her place by the bathroom, a sword in either hand, bow on her back, sandaled feet splayed wide and ready. She had heard the scream and come back as fast as she could, not taking the path, and the bloody sight before her filled her with inhuman wrath. She twirled the blade in her right hand, glared at Sable with an intensity befitting a person of purely evil intentions.

Without explaining how she knew or what she knew she turned to face the woods, pointed her wakizashi as if she were sighting down its, gleaming, razor sharp length. "So," The hatred in her voice was almost palpable, "Where's the fucking idiot who hurt my baby?"

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Lavi was finally wearing all of his clothes, standing outside the inn, attempting to say goodbye. The way they had for almost twenty minutes. He could say the words, but he couldn't mean them. He kept his hold on his lover's hands even as he repeated them again and again, knowing that he would most likely never be able to let go. It hurt to think about it. It was a pain he did not like.

"Lavi," The Noah said softly. He was in his suit again, standing very close, Lavi's back against the building wall. Tyki looked rather dashing in his top hat and gloves, handsome enough to be ignored by the passers by when they saw the younger man looking up at him with hungry eyes. "I really should go. I must explain my absence from last night's family dinner."

The redhead's fingers closed more tightly. "I know."

But the knowledge did not stop him from leaning up to kiss the older man, nor did it stop the older man from kissing back. He didn't care if people saw nor did her care if they didn't, he simply went with the urge that pressed him. After a moment he let go with his left hand, his touch drifting to the starched fabric of Tyki's jacket, which he used to pull their bodies closer. The Noah's free hand came up next to his head, leaning on the buildings face so that he over shadowed the younger man with all of his height and his arm, like a protective barrier. He used it to gently push himself away.

"Darling, I am sorry."

"I know, you have to go," But Lavi kissed him again all the same.

"I swear that I will come back for you," Tyki whispered, lowering his head so that their foreheads rested against one another. "As soon as I can – maybe as soon as tomorrow."

The redhead still did not release his clothes. "I don't want to lose you."

"Never, Lavi," He spoke back surely. "Not in a million years." He wrapped his arms around him, holding him close, feeling the other's unwillingness to let go. He did not want to leave, but he had to. If they were discovered, those thousand marks against him would be a reality. And his love would be the one to pay the price for it. "I love you."

"Then stay."

"You know I can't."

The apprentice was quiet for a moment, burying his face in Tyki's chest, inhaling his scent. "I love you too." And saying the words still set his heart on fire.

Gently the dark haired man pushed him back; this time sure that it was goodbye. He fished in his pocket for a moment, closed his hand around something before pulling it out and offering it to the redhead, who frowned at him from his place against the building. "Take it."

Lavi blinked for a moment, wondering what small trinket the Noah had brought for him, and why. Shyly he stuck out his palm and let the small, metallic thing with Tyki's hand fall into his.

A tiny silver cufflink. The kind rich men used when they lost their buttons.

"You ripped off more than just one, Ty-chan." He laughed, closing his fingers around it.

The Noah chuckled at him, tilting his head in a way that made his somewhat disorganized hair fall from beneath his hat and onto his forehead. "I know I did, Lavi. But that cufflink is part of a set of two. I, you see, have the other one."

Lavi sighed at him. "Romance again?"

"Resurrected from the shallow grave you put her in."

Lavi rolled his eyes. "You know what? You should just go before I kill her again."

"Oh? And how would you go about doing that?"

The apprentice Bookman smiled at him lopsidedly, shifted on his feet so that his back was pressed firmly against the building, his hips and feet slightly more forward. "I have my ways."

The Noah leaned down to capture his mouth. He kissed with all of the force he could, still amazed at how easily Lavi's lips parted for his tongue, how accepted his actions had become. He never would have seen this happening. Not after all of the pain he had caused could he even imagine himself here, on a street corner, being held tight by the young man who loved him.

Him. All of him. Not just the parts he showed his opposing worlds.

"I love you." He whispered.

"I love you too."

"I will see you soon, I promise."

Lavi smiled at him but the expression did not reach his eyes. "Okay." He released him at last, let the older man step back without hindrance. He stepped out also, turning toward the inn but not looking away from the Noah. "Bye…Ty-chan." His feet carried him on to the door but he could not look to take the knob in his hand.

A person walked between them, breaking his view for a fraction of a second. When they moved aside he found himself blinking at an empty street, a chill wind sweeping what was left of the brown and gray snow with icy fingers. Tyki was gone. Gone as if he never had been there.

With a deep sigh and a gloriously bright smile he faced the door, turned the knob, and in one swift motion, pushed it open. The receptionist was napping at her desk, so he waltz right passed her, attempting to make it to his room in time to feign sleep for a few minutes – because he figured that Lenalee hadn't crashed through the door yet.

How wrong he was.

Lenalee was standing in the hall, short slip of paper in her hand, reading it for what felt like the thousandth time. Every time her eyes went over the words she saw something she had missed the before, like the chibi pictures of Lavi and Tyki that litter the edges of the page. She still hadn't looked at all of them in detail.

_lenalee-chan and crow-chan,_

_sorry! i got pulled away by SomEthing eXtremely important. i should be back before dawn, but if  
i'm not, don't worry too much. i seriousLy dOubt eVen for a momentEnt that ty-cHan wIll do  
anything to hurt Me, so don't come looking for a few days. i'll Be fine. You kEep up the good  
work! really._

_MAYBE,  
Lavi :D_

It didn't take a genius to pick out what he actually meant to say in that letter. In fact, the little blobby picture of himself in the arms of the Noah next to the first line was completely unnecessary, as was the little Lavi-head accompanied by a heart on the second. She seethed at the note. What the hell was he thinking?! Sex, love, passion, hope – none of it mattered if the Noah didn't feel the same way. Lavi would never be home. He'd be dead. A tiny fraction of her world would crumble into nothing but a sad, distorted memory.

"You idiot," She hissed under her breath. Even after three hours of having the sun up and two of reading and rereading the note, he still wasn't back.

She was assuming the worst.

She heard a floorboard squeak at the end of the hall and glanced momentarily up to see what it was, not that she honestly cared. The note was smashed in her hand when she saw a head of messy red hair, a crooked green headband, and a jacket decorated with an ugly orange scarf. The half-terrified expression on the young man's face made the ensemble complete – perfect Lavi, the way he was supposed to be, safe and missing no limbs, slowly backing away toward the foyer.

"Lavi!"

Too late. She had seen him. He stopped moving and waited for the Chinese girl to attack him or hug him, being he knew that she was going to do one or the other. He wavered on his feet a little when she smashed him with a bear hug, exclamations of worry and happiness at his wellness leaving her lips in one large wave, none of the words distinguishable in tone at all. She was happy. That was good.

"Lenalee – can't – breathe…" The redhead gasped, prying at her arms. She heaved a heavy sigh as she let go and pushed him to arms length, inspecting him for damage she had missed on her cursory sweep. The eye was the first thing she noticed. Then the amazingly dark bite mark on his collar bone, which was no longer hidden by his scarf. Beneath his jacket his shirt seemed to slightly more open than normal, but it was hard to tell with that heavy garment obstructing most of the view.

"What happened?" She demanded, trying to poke the flesh under his eye. He batted her hand away before she could. "Did he hit you? And what's with the bite mark? It looks human…"

Lavi attempted to laugh awkwardly and did it perfectly. "Didn't you… get my note?"

She narrowed her eyes in a deadly glare. "Yes. But that doesn't explain the black eye or the…_oh_…" She stared at him for perhaps a whole minute, thinking about the things that must have happened, the things that must have changed, everything that he and one of the enemy must have done. It was hard to decide what to do. Reluctantly her hands moved from his shoulders to his elbows and then to his wrists, her eyes never leaving that blatant love mark on his neck. "You two… even though he's one of the Noah…"

Lavi's expression fell a little, but his smile remained. It was on odd expression, especially on so bright a face, and it pulled at Lenalee's heartstrings to see him make it. "That doesn't matter to either of us, Lenalee. I still love him."

"_Love _him? Even though he did _this_ to you?" She indicated the bruise marks on his wrists, the black eye. "Even though he's killed people you knew, hurt those you loved? Even though he's _evil_?"

"He's _not_ evil."

"He _is_ evil, Lavi. He's evil and you're good."

"It's not like that!"

"Then how is it? He's changing sides to be with you?"

"No…I wouldn't ask him to…"

"Then listen to me!" Her voice, which had grown louder with every exchanged, fell to a dangerous whisper; she glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one else could hear her ranting. "He _is_ evil. What other word do you have someone who does this to someone they claim to care for? And he's a _Noah_. He takes pleasure in causing you pain. He_ winked _at me after what he did to you in the alleyway. He's done so many awful things…

"I can understand what happened that night in Dernshire – you had me down the hall if you needed me, but what did you have last night? You had no one! You had only yourself to defend you. You're not enough. One person is not enough. He could have destroyed your Innocence Lavi, he could have last night—"

"No he couldn't have – not that he would."

She stopped for a moment, confused. "What?"

"I left it here." He said flatly. "In case anything happened to make Ty-chan lose his mind."

Lenalee was suddenly enraged. She dropped his hands and slapped him across the cheek, hard, angry tears burning in her eyes as she did. She did not pause to hear more excuses. "What were you thinking?! If he _had_ decided that now was the time to end this little charade he's playing – or lost his mind as you put it – you would have been dead without a fight. Gone. You're so stupid. So selfish. You'd let yourself be murdered for some stupid emotion you _think_ you feel!" The contact of hands against her shoulders pushed her back three steps, Lavi's hands, pushing her away.

"Don't you _dare_ say that again," He spat, the words a growl in his throat. "You don't understand, Lenalee. You _can't_ understand. Good and evil don't matter anymore. Hell! I never _was _good. I've been a Bookman all my life and we don't even have a side, so you give that 'opposite sides of the war bull crap'. And I don't care if you do; all I care about is the fire on my skin when he touches me, the pain in my chest when you say things you don't even recognize the meaning of.

"If you can't understand that, you're not human.

"I _know_ how I feel. You can't tell me that I don't love him; you can't tell me that saying goodbye this morning wasn't like chopping off my own arm. You can't tell me that he doesn't feel the same way. Because if he doesn't love me, I'd rather that he just kill me without saying a word about it. Does that make sense to you? Can you even_ pretend_ to understand it? I would rather die this instant, thinking that he loves me, than go on the rest of my life knowing that he doesn't."

Lenalee's lavender-gray eyes watched the mask of anger break, slide away so that she could see the hurt on his face. She realized then that she had said too much, gone too far. She had pushed the one button that did not need pushing, the one that she had only vaguely been aware of until the words were already tumbling out of her mouth and into his ears. She had never seen him truly angry before, not at anyone, but now that she was the subject of his fury she found that she did not like it at all. It frightened her.

"Lavi, I'm sor—"

His fists clenched at his sides until his knuckles turned white. "Don't apologize to me." He hissed. She closed her mouth with a snap, not knowing what he was going to do. She watched him breathe slowly in and out again, close his anger brightened eye and sooth himself from the inside. The color of his face, which had gone slightly pink with rage, lightened with every passing moment, but Lenalee's hand print still shown red against his skin. When he looked at her again he was calmer, his voice was gentle though it still rasped with suppressed emotion. "You're just worried. You're just scared that something will happen to me."

She opened her mouth to speak but no words would come.

"Doesn't that make you more selfish than I am, really? You're so worried that you might lose me that you're willing to hurt me more than Ty-chan ever could."

"Lavi, no I—"

"Forget it." He turned his face from her even as she took a step closer as if to touch him. "You'd make it so I could never see him again if it guaranteed that nothing would happen, wouldn't you? Because that's how you are. You'd rather I be unhappy and living than content and dying."

She couldn't take it anymore. "I _do_ want you happy! But isn't there a safer way for that to happen? A way that doesn't involve you leaving coded notes and coming back with bruises so deep I can see the imprint of the belt that made them?"

Lavi blushed a little, turned back to face her. He felt an ironic, tiny smile pulling at the edge of his lips. "I don't mind the bruises, Lenalee." And he lost out to the smile, the anger in his gut dying out a little as it blossomed across his face. "Like you said, they're normal."

"You… like it when he hits you…" She said it almost as if she did not know she was speaking out loud.

He chuckled a little at her completely shocked expression. "It's better when he bites me, or just pins me down but…yeah. I mean… it's different than most people – and you're starting to look pale – but it works for both of us. I had to talk him through the last part though; I think he was afraid of hurting me."

"Afraid… of hurting you…?"

"Uh huh. But there was no _way_ I was walking away from that table a virgin after he hit me with his belt."

"Table… virgin…"

"Lenalee, are you alright?"

"Alright…"

"Lenalee?"

She shook her head, her expression going from blank to understanding in that time. "I think… I think I understand now. And… I think… I need to draw… Sorry, can we talk later?"

He laughed his same, normal, bouncy Lavi-laugh, all of his prior anger and sadness forgotten. He reached out with his right hand and patted her lightly on the head with it. "Sure thing, Lenalee-chan!"

And all she could do was smile brokenly back.

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**Title Explanation of Unimportance: The fine line between good and evil. Because Uri is going on over to attack people and well, I think Lavi explained the other implication pretty well. XD Don't ask me how many lines there are either, I don't know.**

**Anyways! Yeah, it ended pretty horribly. Cliffhanger in one place, apparently unimportant character crap in another… yeah… I should have devoted more time to Hiroko, huh? (Love that mother-child-psychic connection XD)**

**Thanks for reading again! And for reviewing! I'm almost to 400!!! I'd like to see like, 1000, but that's only a distant dream… oh well! LOVE anyways!**


	49. Truth Part 1

**Hallo! Please read this and 50 all at once. Otherwise my waiting to post this is purposeless. :D**

**Me no owning.**

**WARNING: LOTS of CUSSING. And VIOLENCE.**

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Truth Part 1

Kanda pulled Allen's limp form out of the tub, nearly falling when his wet feet slipped on the tile. He laid him out on the cool, flat floor, trying to keep his head regardless of the tears that filled his eyes, the scream that had come from outside. Sable could handle herself – right now, Allen was important.

The British boy did not even groan in his unhealthy slumber, nor did his shivers stop. He lay like a broken creature; helpless, naked, breathing shallowly and raggedly, which made Kanda worry more than anything he had ever known. He could do nothing. Even though he was willing to take every pain and sickness that Allen was enduring on himself, there was no way for that to happen. His curse did not work on this, no matter how much he wanted it to.

The sound of his mother's voice did not distract him from his lover. Allen's skin was impossibly flushed, his heart beating too fast and too hard against his ribcage. Kanda wasn't sure what to do. Did he try to keep him warm? Or was he too hot now? Was he supposed to cool him off? And if that was the case, what the hell was he supposed to cool him off with? A paper fan?

"Kanda…" It was Sable's voice, still outside the window, small sounding. "Allen… you guys should get out here before your mom get's herself killed."

He cursed under his breath, wrapping himself in a yutaka. Now was _not_ a good time for Okaasan to go off murdering a visitor. "Allen's fainted. You take care of it."

"Can't."

"Che, why not?"

"Noah."

Kanda was silent for a moment in the bathroom.

"Uri-Noah." Sable said almost indifferently. With a great effort she pushed herself up off of the ground – snatching her ever so important papers up as she did – and lumbered a little crookedly toward the house, trying to ignore the commotion Hiroko was just beginning to cause.

Because at the far end of the path, just out of the trees, a blond man was walking calmly, his grin visible even from Hiroko's distance.

"Dickhead," She said. "Walk faster so I can send you on your way back to Hell"

Sable wiped blood away from her forehead as she wandered back inside and into the bathroom – the door of which she did not bother knocking on. It was not in her nature to be flustered at the sight of a half dressed Kanda and very naked Allen, both more or less on the tile floor. Instead she was worried immediately by the expression on the Japanese man's face, the lack of one on the British boy's.

"What happened?" She came forward at once, ignoring Kanda's sad attempt to save a scrap of Allen's dignity. "How long's he been like this?"

"Maybe three minutes."

"Shit." Sable pressed bloody fingers against Allen's forehead, forgetting her own troubles. "Drain the tub."

"Why?"

She shook her head, dripping blood on the floor. "He's too hot; we have to pack him in with snow."

"Che, then I'll just take him outside."

She sighed at his obvious lack of observant skill. "My brother, Uri, the one that broke three of your limbs, is outside right now with your mom, most likely getting ready to try and kill her. If you want to take a helpless Allen out there and lay him down in the ice, have at it, but don't blame me when Uri switches targets."

Kanda sighed, pulling his robe tighter. "Fine, I get it. Wrap your head in something and get snow, I'll get rid of the water and douse the fire."

She nodded. "What about your mom? Isn't she going to be in trouble?"

He raised an eyebrow at her in what might have been the closest thing to a smile he had ever shown to anyone besides Hitori and Allen. "Have you even _met_ my mother?"

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Hiroko swept her right leg behind her, the better to put power behind her swing, and let a slow, deadly smile creep across her face. She could tell just by looking that this was the man who had hurt Hito, not that she even understood how she knew it. It excited her. The thought of hurting this man, killing him, calling him all sorts of names that he deserved to be called – it made her grin from ear to ear just thinking about it.

Because, like all women of the Kanda clan, she loved those things.

Well not _all_ women. Yumeko was an exception.

Uri sighed when he was not less than fifteen feet away, taking his hands out of his parka pockets and ringing the cold out of them. "Hello, Hiroko-san." He said lightly, pulling at his jacket collar and cracking his neck as he spoke. "Are you going to stand in my way like your son did, or may I speak to Yuu?"

Her lips parted, showing a white shimmer of teeth as she smiled broader. "Don't even pretend to be nice, Fuck-face, I'm not interested in it. I don't know who the hell you are and I don't know what the fuck you do, but I don't give a damn; you'll die before you lay a finger on that bastard."

He raised an eyebrow at her, took to cracking his knuckles one at a time. "Is that so?" He sighed a little, folding his arms. "Well, I don't like fighting, Hiro-chan. I like talking. Wouldn't you rather just sit down and have a nice little chat about all of this? You, me, Yuu-kun—"

"I get it." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Hiro-chan, yo? No one's called me that since Otousan left. You can read my mind, eh? That's nifty. And a pretty goddamn stupid for an offensive power, if you ask me. Might be pretty easy to gut you, Chatty-san, if that's all you got." She twirled her sword twice, taking her eyes off of him to watch the silver blade swirl in the afternoon light. "It's most likely not though. What is it you can do? Speed? Strength? Something I can't win against unless I've got a piece of Innocence shoved up my ass? Che!"

"Well… I guess you're more of a fighter than I thought you were." Uri observed. "Graphic images in that mind of yours; I see where Kanda-san gets it."

She laughed, settled on her feet as she breathed, timing her last insult with the beginning of her first strike. "I've killed twelve men with this sword and four with Mugen before Yuu inherited it. Does that count as being graphic? Or does it take more than sixteen men, Chatty-san? Because if it does I'd like to hear how many men you've killed with nothing but your hands."

Uri did not even think before he answered. "None." But the woman he directed the answer at was no longer standing as she had been, looking at the tip of her sword in thought, instead she was less than a foot away, slashing down at the space he occupied.

Worse yet, he could not glean from her mind what her next move was. He brought his right arm up, aware that it would do little to stop the blade coming for his face, and stepped back in a feeble attempt avoid her offhanded strike from below. It was impossible. He did not realize until a razor edge came down and imbedding itself in his forearm just how very out overpowering she was, and just how much she wanted to see him bleed. Her left blade caught him in the hip, made him grimace.

He shoved her back as hard as he could; sending her perhaps four steps and showering the gray stone walk with crimson. He had not thought she could cut him badly, not until then. And he was very happy when she did not keep slicing at him – because even if she could not kill him with those swords, she could make his day a living nightmare.

"Had enough, bitch?" She seethed, shaking the blood from her blades.

"Heh," He almost laughed as he pressed the wound on his arm with a steady left hand. "You're terribly worked up over all of this aren't you? Kind of odd for someone so un-motherly."

She laughed back at him, centered her shorter sword directly in front of her body once again. "You see, that's something you haven't been able to notice about me, even if you can read my thoughts." Her smile never faded, even though her voice took on a distinctly different quality. "I might say shit to my kids to make them feel like worthless cunts, and I might beat Hito over the head sometimes, but that's me. No one else gets to fuck up the people I care about."

"How nice for them."

"No kidding. Can you imagine life with me _and_ a useless wanker like yourself after their asses?"

"Certainly not."

This time he saw the twitch of her foot and dodged, but she kept her head too well protected for him to touch it. She seemed to understand that her face was important, at least.

"Just hold still dammit."

"Yeah, like I'm that stupid."

"You look like it."

"Better to look stupid than be stupid."

"Che!"

_Why does this feel familiar?_

A stream of gold from the house was all he needed to know a fraction of the answer.

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Sable tiptoed out the back door, one hand on the old linen obi around her forehead and the other still attempting to get the blood off of her face. It wasn't working so well, but she figured her tiny bandage was better than nothing.

She bent low to the ground just where the iced over snow had not been walked on, attempted not to look over at Hiroko and Uri as she filled her arms and shirt with it. It occurred to her then that there most likely would be no more snow here until next winter, and the icy, hard substance in her hands was as good as she was going to find anywhere, which was too bad for Allen. He'd wake up sore and bruised and maybe cut from it. If he woke up at all.

Kanda had put out the fire first, silently and hurriedly, then hastily gone back inside to drain the water and see if Allen was getting worse or better. The tremors had lessened, but he still twitched occasionally, his face did not register pain or pleasure, only indifference to the world around him. With hands that did not want to perform the action Kanda wrapped him in an over large towel, it's only function to cover him from prying eyes. He had picked a white one. The color made him realize just how pale Allen really was.

Before Sable could come in with her first loud he did something he had not done since he was young, since before he had become an Exorcist. He pulled his lover's head into his lap and quietly spoke a prayer for him, a selfish prayer, without incense or candles or names of the dead, and he meant every word of it. He did it unthinkingly, though he picked his words carefully, and when he was finished he felt just as useless as before. Allen's expression had not changed in the least.

Sable came in then with her shirt held out and her arms bent around a ball of snow so large he was amazed she could lift it. With a grim smile that was nearly all teeth she lumbered across the tile and dumped it lazily into the tub. She turned back to him, rearranging the thing across her forehead that she was starting to bleed through.

"I'll get more snow; you flatten that out and put him on it. After that, you're going to want to go help your mum."

"Che, is she losing?" Kanda asked as he laid Allen gently back down again.

Sable glanced sideways at nothing before looking back. "…not yet…"

"Didn't think so. If you're so worried about her, you fight him."

Sable narrowed her eyes at him. "Uri's partially compatible with my Innocence remember? I can't fight him."

Kanda harrumphed and spread the icy snow around the bottom of the still slightly warm tub, ignoring Sable altogether. She soon took the hint and disappeared out the door again, sighing. She was thinking, Kanda knew, that Hiroko was defenseless against her brother, perfectly incapable of killing him or hurting him or anything, but Kanda knew otherwise. If anyone could stand toe to toe with a Noah without Innocence it was his okaasan – especially if her children were threatened. She just had it in her like no one else did.

By the time Sable came in with more snow he had the first layer spread out in an even sheet. He moved quickly across the floor, scooping Allen into his arms, towel and all. It was a dangerous thing, lowering the shivering boy into the tub without hitting any one part of him on the hard edges, but he was careful in doing it. Kanda felt horrible about putting Allen, who had complained so often about being cold, on a bed of frozen water. He felt even more horrible when Sable dumped more on top of him, helped Kanda smooth it over his torso and thighs. What made it the worse, however, was that he did not move. Allen just lay there; face calm, unmoving, without as much as sighing at him or twitching an eyelash.

If Kanda had not known better, he would have thought his lover dead.

"Okay," Sable said with finality, brushing snow from herself, "I'd like to let you stay in here with him, but logically it won't work out. You have to go out there and fight Uri; I'll find Hito and then watch Allen."

Kanda's eyes narrowed at her and his palm unconsciously found Allen's forehead. "Find Hito?" His face became darker as he said it. "What do you mean _find_ Hito?"

"Well…"

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Hiroko cackled as her left hand jabbed forward, tearing the Noah's jacket again. She was growing more fond of him as she went, because no matter how much she cut, no matter how much she made him bleed, he kept standing, kept pushing against her blade, kept saying things even though he was starting to mumble. She new that he should have died four times over, but it didn't matter that he was still breathing – in fact, it filled her with a sick sense of happiness.

And when she cut him so hard in the shoulder that he fell to his knees, she could only grin broader.

Uri was getting fed up. This woman wouldn't leave her skull open to attack for more than a half second before she hacked at his arms again, or attempted to disembowel him with a sideways stroke. His wounds would heal quickly, he knew, but they still hurt while he had them. Pain was not lessened for a Noah. Nor was guilt. He'd feel guilty if he broke her arms like he had Kanda's, even more so if he hurt her in a way that would not heal properly. But guilt would shrivel in comparison to the accomplishment he would feel when he had finely killed the man he had hoped months before to betray is comrades to. The pain and the guilt would be worth it.

It was time to play dirty. As she dug the sword in her right hand through his heart he sighed to himself, aware that what he was about to do would not be pleasant for her.

She watched the man sag against her blade, blood flowing unhindered from his lips, falling in strings to the ground. "Immortal my left ass cheek, fuckers." She smiled, placing a sandaled foot in the middle of his chest to slide his body off – it was always hard to pull a blade out from between someone's ribs, especially when one turned it like she had.

The woman made a short sound of surprise when the fingers of his right hand closed around her slim ankle and pulled her down, driving the other sword she still had pointed at him into his shoulder and scraping the lower half of her spine on the bloody stones as she fell. Her eyes went wide as the man she thought to be dead placed a palm against her forehead and tried to find within her the whereabouts of Kanda Yuu.

He found it at once – the bathroom – but she continued to writhe in his hands. It made him frown. How could she keep fighting when he was ravaging her mind with his hand?

"Why can't you just _die_, Chatty-chan?" She asked, kicking him hard in the gut in an attempt to get him to release her. "Something wrong with my head?"

He tried again, bringing up all manner of twisted images and destroyed memories, twisting them and changing them, waiting for her to stiff with shock in his hands.

Hiroko laughed. "You aren't gonna get anything else out of me," She leaned up and took the handle of one of the swords in her hand again. "So you might as well stop trying."

Uri frowned deeply. Why wouldn't it work? It had always worked before! What made this one little Japanese woman different? "Call him out, Hiro-chan," He growled. "Call him out or I'll crush your skull between my fingers."

"Yeah, like he'll listen to me?" She scoffed. "If you wanted to kill me you'd have smashed my head in by now, ain't that right, Baka-bollocks? You're more of a pussy than Hito is in the long run."

"Hmph." He stood up from the ground as quickly as he could, throwing the little samurai as he did. He felt her hands tighten on the swords in his chest and sighed half in relief when they sailed away with her toward the woodpile – it would have been difficult to pull them out himself.

Hiroko found herself looking at the blond man from the corner of the house by the bathroom, though she couldn't quite decide how she had gotten there. Not that it mattered. She'd stabbed him through the heart and he hadn't even flinched. That wasn't something she could deal with. With a sigh that made her feel very, very weak she stood up, turned her head over her shoulder so she could yell.

"_Kanda Yuu! Eldest bastard son of the Kanda line! Womanish man-fairy! Come kill this idiot! I'm bored and this whore is weak!"_ She turned back to the man she had deemed Chatty-chan to see him poking the places she had stabbed experimentally, smiling at the new flesh that had knitted over the holes. "I don't want to fight some bastard who's going to heal up every time I own him; it's boring as shit."

Uri smiled at her as he rubbed the skin over his heart. The Japanese woman jabbed one of her swords into the ground and sat down beside it, folding her legs comfortably as she laid the other blade across her lap. She seemed so very indifferent, so at ease that he almost felt worried. "You did ruin my jacket, if it makes you feel better."

"Che!" She glared at him. "I'd rather have killed you, douche bag." She shrugged. "But I guess it is fine. You didn't get to have your way with my brain, so I guess that's something."

"You'll have to tell me how you do that. After I kill your son."

"Ha! As if _you _can do that. If _I_ can beat the living crap out of you, he'll be able to slice you open like a fish on the dock."

He was about to say something else, something too mean to not be friendly, when a door slammed on the outside of the house. He could find no words when the man he sought finally came into sight.

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Sable snuck from the front of the house around the back, chanting _silencio_ over and over in her head, though she wasn't sure why. Her feet still made crunching sounds on the ice and her breath still hissed loudly through her teeth, her heart still beat noisily in her chest. There was no such thing as silence when she didn't want to make noise.

She circumvented the whole house, which was much bigger when she had to walk around it, and at long last came to the expanse of woods that the Kanda family owned. She figured Uri wouldn't go after her if he did see her, so she kept just inside the tree line after she darted through the clearing unnoticed. Besides, she needed to know where the path was at every moment, being Hito was bound to be on it somewhere.

Distantly she could hear the sound of voices raised in anger, one of them Hiroko's, another Kanda's. She couldn't hear Uri. She didn't know if that was good or bad.

After perhaps two minutes more of walking in the snow she at last moved instead to the stone path, glad that it was at least a little worn down by Hiroko and Hitori's feet, otherwise the ice would have been almost impossible to walk on. The shadows tried to play tricks on her eyes, but she ignored them, always looking passed them and onto the white ground they painted with broken lines and blotches. Hitori's form wouldn't be a shadow cast from above, so there was no use looking at them.

She saw a small, wet flash of red and stopped short, her eyes following it toward her own feet but stopped when they came across a pair of open, dull gray eyes. Hitori's eyes. His long ebony hair thrown back over a small shoulder, his bruised lips did not move to speak to her or cry for help, but his chest rose and fell in a more or less normal pattern, little tears glimmered in his eyes as they drew her feet into focus.

"God, that asshole," She said with a growl, kneeling to touch Hitori's shoulder ever so gently. She rolled him onto his back, pulling his pale, emotionless face up into her lap to look at more clearly. His eyes focused on her face but his expression did not react – her heart clenched in her chest at the small line of red that dripping from the corner of his mouth unhindered, the source of the blood on the path no doubt. "Are you hurt badly? Blink twice for 'yes' and once for 'no,' 'kay?" She watched him blink slowly down once, determinedly, as if he hadn't been able to even do that not too long ago. "I'm going to haul you back to the house for now, until what Uri did wears off. I'll explain everything when you can ask questions, otherwise I'll run myself off at the mouth and you won't learn anything."

Hitori blinked back a very steady _yes_.

He wished that he had some way to protest when she picked him up like a baby and threw his arm over her shoulder, the better to give a little support. He remembered being able to move that arm, the same as he had remembered blinking, but moving it wasn't as natural and what he had managed with his eyes. Blinking was just an eyelid, so it wasn't hard to remind himself how to. But hooking his arm around Sable's neck was completely different; there were too many muscles to talk to, and talking to them risked sending the wrong message.

He didn't want to accidentally punch her in the face.

"S-ss-s…" He tried. They had moved maybe twenty paces, each one faster and quieter than the first, and now she was walking off of the path, looking down at the footprints she must have left in her wake. "Soli."

Sable chuckled and looked down at him, a sad smile cracking her face tiredly. _"Nondemonai, Hitori-kun."_ She hefted him a little higher and tightened her grip. "You must have done something right; otherwise he would have killed you."

He sighed because, somehow, even when she was trying, his barer could not manage to be reassuring.

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"If you weren't such a lame ass weak sack of useless pig shit, I _would_ encourage you! But as it is you're hopeless!"

"Okaasan – trying – to – CONCENTRATE!

"Che! Give up you worthless whore. I had him bleeding in seven places by this long into our fight."

"Okaasan – _urusanai!_"

"Oh c'mon, Yuu-_baka_, if you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch."

Uri laughed under his breath as he slid passed Kanda's blade and hit him in the shoulder, not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to throw him back a few feet. "She's right, you know." He said to the samurai as he pushed himself up hurriedly. "She's far less predictable than you are."

Hiroko smiled proudly. "It's pretty easy to be unpredictable when you don't think." She sighed; the sound was almost dreamy in Kanda's ears. "Too bad you were so fucking lazy as a kid – never learned to understand that concept."

"Okaasan…" The name was a growl. He did _not_ need her talking right now. He needed nothing but a clear shot at Uri's guts and it would all be over. Completely. And he could go find out how Allen was and how Hito was and then just hold his lover until he got better. Because that was far more important than this stupid Noah and his idiotic grin. "_Please_ go see how Allen is doing."

"Che! I'm not your slave."

"You know…" Uri said thoughtfully. "You think far too much about things that have nothing to do with the moment at hand."

"Che," Kanda rolled his bruised shoulder. Such a small wound would heal in a matter of moments. "Those things are what make this moment matter."

Uri laughed. "You also let far too much about yourself into that little head of yours."

He didn't answer. Kanda could not have cared less if Uri thought that his mind was disorganized. He was going to flay his skin from his body the next he spoke.

"Like you _curse,_" He said the word so that it made Kanda's fingers grip Mugen tighter. "Or should I say some thing more… eloquent? Perhaps… The gift your father gave you?"

The Japanese man's eyes narrowed dangerously. Hiroko was as still as stone at those words.

"It's true, isn't it?" Uri asked in a quiet voice, taking a step forward. "A small, gifted samurai, not yet old enough to understand what it means to be compatible with his Innocence, dragged into a life filled with the horror of akuma and the pain of a double edged power—"

"Shut up."

"Every invocation sapped away your strength, left you on the verge of death. It was killing you slowly. So they were going to let you live out life as a normal boy – it was too much to ask of a six year old. They even brought you home. They left you and the sword at your mother's doorstep, the one place you had wanted most to return to – the place where fighting didn't cause you impossible pain and fear."

"_Stop."_

"But your father wanted to save the world. So he sealed your life in a lotus – broke apart your soul and made you what you are now. Living. Filling the fate you grew to despise so young. A _curse_ you call it; a curse that makes you worth the air you breathe."

"Shut _up!_"

"Come now, Kanda-san," He said as if speaking to a child. "Is that really the attitude that you should have toward the person that united you and your _wife?"_

He lunged.

The Noah could only smile at the fury in those ocean deep eyes.

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Sable was wheezing and trying to hide it. _Too… many… pastries…_ She thought as she sat Hitori down on the bathroom floor. _I'm either fat or… or… he is… gah…_

She gasped a few times, sinking down to rearrange the Japanese boy more comfortably on the tile. "S-sorry that I..._hoo_… carried you here… _hah, haa_… Allen fainted and Kanda's fighting and I just… _hoo_…did _not_ feel like hauling you to your room." She swallowed hard as she folded his arms across his stomach. "I'm gonna go see how our dear limey is doing, will you be fine here?"

"Mmhmm…" He blinked twice. His gray eyes were brighter now, and he managed to twitch his fingers closed on her sleeve when she tried to turn away. It was _not_ going to take an hour for him to move again, he had decided. "Stell 'e…" He swallowed, willing his lips to work the way he wanted. "Ha-haw he… is. An a'out… Nii…s-ss…s…"

"Shh, I get it." She touched him on the cheek with her free hand. "You're worried too. Don't try so hard, I wasn't going to leave you in the dark." She gave him a little pat and tilted her head to the side, smiling. "You know, in levels of determination, I think you're a lot like your brother. But you're _way_ better at expressing concern. He tends to be more..." She narrowed her eyes in the most Kanda like way she could manage, "'Che, I hate people who can't carrying their own weight; let me get your suitcase.'"

"Tch…" Hitori rolled his eyes. "No'ing alike."

"So say all siblings."

She turned away from him and walked the few steps to the bathtub, aware that his gaze was following her as she went. Not that she minded. He was a cute kid. He could look if he wanted.

Allen was still lying still in the bathtub, but his lips had fallen open slightly, his breath came in slow, unlabored waves, as if he were sleeping soundly. She placed two fingers gently on his forehead, expecting to find his skin just a little cooler than before.

It was cooler, a lot cooler, and his skin was slicked with sweat.

Weakly his silver eyes blinked open at the contact, distant, unfocused, and half-lidded when they stopped blinking. He turned his whole head up as Sable pulled her hand away, looking confused and pale and more than a little sleepy. "Sable?' His voice was so very small, like a whisper of wind through his throat. It pained her to hear it. "How come you're in the bathroom with me and Kanda? And…" He glanced down at himself, raising an eyebrow. "Why am I covered in snow?" As soon as he asked the question his teeth started clacking together as if he were cold.

Laughing, she knelt down beside the tub, leaned on the edge of it and peered at his slowly comprehending eyes. "You fainted in the tub, silly. You're fever was too high so we had to pack you with ice to keep you from cooking yourself from the inside out."

"Oh."

"You're just that _hot_," She giggled.

He narrowed his tired eyes at her. "Where's Kanda." It wasn't a question. It was a demand. She had been there on Christmas when he had been jealous of Lavi for a whole of five seconds, but it was still odd to hear him sound so… _defensive._.

"Come on," She said with a sigh. "Let's get you into something warm and dry while I explain _that_ situation." She took him by the shoulder and pulled him up hurriedly, turning away when she saw that he was still wearing nothing but a towel. She used Hitori as an excuse for turning. "Oh, and Hito?"

"Mm?"

"Still watching me, eh?"

"Nu huh."

"Hm, liar." She turned back to Allen to find him frowning at his wet towel, but seemingly satisfied with how much of him it covered. "Let's go, Limey-chan! Kanda might need your help in about… ten minutes, so let's get you filled in and not naked by then. Up we go…" She stood with him, holding his right arm steady while his left hand clutched the towel to his shivering body.

He was cold and weak, and they both knew that it was will and love alone that kept Allen from falling back into the tub.

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**I'm sorry that I can't write action :(  
Please don't be too hard on me for it QQ**


	50. Truth Part 2

**And here is part two! Sorry that it kind of skips around. I'm kind of trying to keep all of the plot rolling for everyone, which is more difficult to do in 4-7k words for me. Which is why you get a two parter this time. It's all one big idea, even if the title only has a little tiny bit to do with anything at all.**

**The Omake at the end is to CELEBRATE CHAPTER 50!!! And it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. It all happens in a kind of… alternate universe. Think of it as proof that Niamh can think up some baby crack if she really needs too :D**

**Have fun! Love you all!!**

**WARNING: Pretty violent stuff and some spoilers for the anime, though it's not THAT big yet. Sorry. Oh, and OMGoodness cursing.**

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Truth Part 2

"What do you mean? Why can't you help him with whatever's out there?" Allen asked, pulling his jacket over his shirt. Sable was standing on the other side of the door, waiting. She hadn't told him that she had seen him naked in all of his well muscled amazingly pale glory – in fact, she hoped never to say a word about it. It was funnier that way.

"Because Uri and I kind of neutralize each other," She said, rubbing a suddenly painful place in her left shoulder. "Trust me, the best thing I can do is go out there and just stand next to him – if he attacks me we're both screwed for a while, and that's your best chance."

"What happens if you attack him?" Allen opened the door, frowning.

She shook her head and dabbed her forehead with her fingers. "It would be like you trying to claw yourself in the leg with your arm; it just doesn't work that way."

He gripped the doorframe for a moment, refusing to let her see that even though his fever was gone he wasn't well. His head hurt and so did his arm. His stomach felt like it was filled with nails. Every moment that passed was a minute closer to his inevitable collapse, he knew, and he would have to go help Kanda before that happened. He wasn't going to stop until he did. He had to.

"You look kind of pale, are you feeling alright?" Sable asked when he had been steadying himself against the doorframe for what she thought to be too long. It was a useless question – with Uri so close she could almost read minds as well as he could.

"Ah, I'm ok." He lied, letting go and stepping out into the hall. "Let's go." He smiled.

Sable could not make herself smile back.

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"You weren't at dinner last night."

"Yeah, you weren't at dinner. Didja have something more important to do, eh?"

Tyki folded his arms and looked disinterestedly at the brothers, annoyed. "I was busy."

"Busy with what? Procrastinating?"

"Yeah, you haven't been doing a very good job lately."

"And then you missed dinner."

"Uh huh."

"And you _still_ aren't doing a very good job."

"Nope. No one on your list died last night."

"Not a soul."

"Which means you haven't even touched a human in a month."

"A whole month. You're lucky Hakushyaku-sama doesn't just come down here and yell at you himself. Or worse."

Tyki sighed and turned his face yet farther away from them. _I truly am a fool._ "I know I haven't killed anyone, now leave me be. I do not need the two of you reminding me of my failure."

Jasdebito spoke together as they frowned, "Is Tyki having a bad day?"

"Wanna talk about it?" The blond continued.

Tyki just let his face fall slowly into his hands.

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Lavi threw himself down on his bed with a deep, much needed sigh. All he could think about was _tomorrow_ – the day Ty-chan would be back again, hopefully. He had thought about the Innocence they were searching for, but that train of thought hadn't lead anywhere at all, just back to the greenhouse, and the greenhouse had led him to _tomorrow_.

So he gave up thinking about other things. Obviously tomorrow was more important than any of them.

_Maybe Lenalee is right about me being stupid and selfish,_ He thought, drawing the cufflink from his pocket and twirling it between his fingers. _Because everything I said is true. And it really doesn't matter to me that he's a Noah. And I feel so… empty with him not here…_

"Yeah, I'm pretty stupid," He said aloud, clenching the link in his hand. "I don't know anything about his life before he was twenty. I don't know what he's planning to do after tomorrow. I don't know what Panda's going to do when I write about it in the logs…" He sighed, closing his eye and letting his fist come down on his forehead gently. "Which I _have _to do…"

He cursed under his breath softly. Where was Kanda? He could really use a silent, annoyed, cold Kanda to vent to. Or even Sable. She always had stupid things to say that hurt his feelings but hey, it was better than talking to the ceiling, wasn't it? And things that hurt made him feel better, after all.

_God I'm a contradiction,_ He thought with a small smile. _But that's alright. So is he._

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It was an old, old habit of hers, something that she had been yelled at many, many times as a young girl.

'_Think of what you will do next!'_ Her father would yell, hitting her gently on the head.

'_I can't papa! You'll see it on my face!'_ She would protest, swinging her little sword at his knees. She never hit him but once with those wooden weapons. It had still ended in a tickle fight, the way it always did.

In the end she could never figure out how to know what she was going to do next – it just happened. It was like dancing to her, like drawing a picture without a reference. She would go from one stance to another without any of the transitions, without knowing that she had done it, and he would always berate her for it. Always. Because that was not the way to fight anything that had a brain.

But he had changed his mind moments before she'd killed him. The memory still brought a smile to her lips. She had been dancing with her sword the way he had told her not to, completely oblivious to the way she was fighting, focused only on the blood her blows brought, the power she felt when she surprised him, the fun she had turning his own movements to her advantage. It wasn't a game and it wasn't a battle, it was simply her body doing nothing but what it wanted in the way it wanted.

He had never even thought it possible that she'd beat him. And that had been his greatest folly.

She had killed him. And she had liked doing it.

The sound of liquid falling to the earth pulled her back to the moment at hand, the important moment that she never paid too much attention to. Kanda had Mugen pushed against Uri's left shoulder, cutting him deeply, and his feet were pushing Uri backward faster than he could recover. But Hiroko saw that it was too early to celebrate. The Noah pulled his right hand back and down and made to punch with it, forcing Kanda to pull the sword from his flesh to block the coming blow. Something was wrong. Something Hiroko knew that Kanda should have realized – something simple. She could not name it until Uri's left hand came up at the same time as his right, but at a different angle.

He could not block both at once.

_He's left handed._ She thought as she watched. _Yuu, please notice that he's left handed._

He blocked the right punched.

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"Shit!" Sable hissed, stopping suddenly. Her head was bent down, her right hand held tight to her chest, and her left hand came up to stop the sudden flow of blood from her forehead. She felt herself sway on her feet for a moment but did not reach for anything to steady herself with.

"Sable-chan!" Allen called. His right hand was on her sore shoulder almost at once. "Are you okay?"

She winced at him, tried to open her right eye despite the blood pouring down her face. "Yeah… we're right there, let's go. I give up on keeping the blood out of eyes."

"But won't you need to see?"

She chuckled, clenched her right hand until her fingers dug into her palm. She felt as if a knife were sticking through her hand, as if a brand was pressed against her forehead, but she wasn't going to tell him that. "I can't fight anyway, it's pointless to."

He tried smile at her depressed looking expression. "If you're sure you're alright…"

She nodded and he reached for the door.

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The flesh of Uri's right hand would never be the same again, or at least it would not be the same for a long while. Mugen was stuck deep in his flesh, between his third and forth fingers, half way down his palm. Blood dripped from his mutilated appendage, coating the blue-black katana that pierced him. His broken fingers curled around it, holding it in place as a cruel, dark smile split his face, darkened his skin, made his eyes go wide. This was the opportunity he had waited for.

Kanda heard Allen's voice calling to him, felt a sudden jolt of happiness go through him at the sound. Allen was alright. Even if he couldn't move his sword, even if he couldn't think of what he was going to do next, Allen was alright. Everything would be alright.

But those thoughts vanished when five, unharmed fingers graced his forehead.

"Kanda!" Allen heard himself scream. He was moving before he could tell his legs not to, his arm flying before him even as it seared impossible pain through him. The sound it made was louder than before, like something being cut, and his curved fingers twitched as he reached for the Noah and his now still lover in the man's arms. As his hand flew he remembered what he had thought in Sweden. How the akuma there had been about to hurt Kanda, how he had been willing to do anything to see it stopped, how he had thought it impossible to save the stoic man his lover had been.

But he had. He had stopped that akuma, ended the pain of its torment, and stopped Kanda from dying at the same time. He had been wounded but what did that matter? His goal wasn't his own safety. He was only there to protect the things important to him. His own well-being did not matter if his goal was accomplished.

As soon as the Japanese man was unconscious Uri switched his weight to his right hand, which still held Mugen, and attempted to meet the other Exorcist's blow with his left fist. In the fleeting moment that he had touched Kanda's mind, he had seen the reason he wanted himself to die at his hands – and that reason was now shrieking to high heaven, intent on killing him no matter the cost. That young man, Allen Walker, was precious to Kanda in a way that had reminded him of his feelings for his twin, though with a distinctly different undertone. He had felt that, with the intensity of their emotions so close, he might have been able to ask him to end it all in a way that would let his sister have peace.

Looking back, he wasn't sure how he felt about that anymore.

Allen knew the moment that he hit Uri that something was wrong. His arm did not feel right. His body did not respond correctly. His feet made little progress on the icy ground and his heart beat too slowly in his chest. He had not been ready for this. Activating his arm was too demanding, too hard – he felt he was going to crumble into a thousand pieces if he moved too quickly. The battle cry that had ripped through his lips stopped short and his vision swam as a new, worse ache took hold of him.

Uri dropped the samurai on impact. He fell back two steps, the strength of his arm wavering beneath the force of Allen's attack. He knew that it should have hurt worse than it did, maybe even broken his arm, but it didn't. Instead, he felt the large knuckles against his separate as the boy's fist unraveled, felt the pressure slacken until he was stepping back on his own, out of reach. He did not press the attack; he watched to see what had become of the white haired boy and his choked off roar.

"Whore-chan…" Hiroko whispered. She had pushed herself to her feet when Yuu blocked the wrong hand, but Allen had been there even before she could rip her sword from the ground. He was just a few feet in front of her, though his hand was perhaps ten feet away, his shoulders were hunched and his feet shifted on the icy path, almost unwilling to keep him up. She wanted to approach him, to say something motherly, to go get her fallen son and steal him back from the enemy, but her feet would not take her. She could only watch.

A broken exclamation of pain seared through Allen's throat as his palm came down on the ground heavily, just to the side of Kanda's feet. He could see Uri watching him, wide eyed, but he could not make his anti-akuma weapon reach that far. He could not move his fingers. His legs gave out and he fell forward, catching himself with his right arm before his face could connect with the stone walkway.

It had never hurt so horribly, felt so wrong, and no rebound had ever affected him without first making his arm normal again. This was new. New, painful, and bad.

Uri smiled. _I'm not sure what's wrong but hey, I can just kill them both and be done with it._ He took the time to rip Mugen from his hand, dropped the sword to the ground. He would have time to corrupt it or crush it after he had dealt with the other one.

Three steps passed Kanda and Sable finally made her presence known.

"Uri! You misguided failure of an author!" She yelled, wiping the blood off of her face with her coat sleeve. She had been standing just inside the door, watching, stunned. Now though, with him there, looking hungrily at her friend, she could find her voice. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?! And using your powers? I'm about ready to maim you for all the shirts you've ruined."

He stopped walking to stare at her. Her. Sable. The one from the picture. Just the sound of her voice brought back a thousand memories that he had forgotten and a thousand more he had wanted to forget.

"Sa…Sabe…"

"Damn right, you illiterate prick."

"Illiterate? I write for a living!"

"Pfft!" She glared at him, stepping out from the building so he could see her in the sunlight. "You'd live more if you wrote something worth reading."

"I'd write better if you read books with plots."

"I'd read books with plots if you wrote them."

"So you admit that you only read for the content?"

"Only if you admit that you don't write with a plot."

"You're a horrible sister."

"And you're a horrible prick."

"Since when do you even _say_ prick?"

"Since you became one."

"Oh! That's mean!"

"Not as mean as ruining all of my white shirts with your powers!"

"What are you talking about? We might be twins but me killing people and you spilling things are completely unconnected."

She glared at him, fiercely. "My face bleeds you nitwit. All over my room, and my clothes, and my friends, and my friends' clothes, all over my friends' clothes' rooms – and really, it's just not a fun experience."

His face shriveled in disgust. "You need to invest in some new face cream 'cause that doesn't have anything to do with me."

"Furthermore! I look bad in headbands."

"You look bad no matter what's on your face."

"Oooh… like you're one to talk, pussy-head."

"Or you, Frankenstein's mother."

"That's _monster,_ Man-whore."

"Or better yet, Princess."

"Weakling."

"What else do you hate to be called? Oh! Cute. You're absolutely adorable."

"Ugh, I hate you."

"You can't hate me! I'm your _twinsie!"_

"You need a new hobby."

"Yeah, like what?"

"Like _dying in a fire_."

Hiroko and Allen watched them exchange words without moving or speaking. The first was mildly amused by this new development, but Allen was completely perplexed. Here they were, twins, a Noah and an Exorcist, arguing as if they were not in the middle of a heated battle. And they were both smiling. Despite it all they were smiling. Allen could only turn his pain skewed face toward his mother-in-law and shrug in confusion; she shook her head and blinked as well.

Neither of them noticed that Kanda was no longer unconscious.

In the time it took for the two of them to argue so much Kanda, who was just slightly behind the Noah, had come back to himself. He felt off, misconstrued, and his head hurt like he'd been hit with a sledge hammer. His sapphire eyes turned to Uri, who was standing just within the reach of Allen's unmoving, activated hand.

Allen's hand. He really was alright.

"Going back to the argument we were having _before_ you turned into a ten year old again…" Sable said as she watched Kanda push himself up from the corner of her eye. She knew what he was going to do, knew that it was going to hurt, but she didn't care. It was that or nothing.

"A ten year old? I have to pretend to be five to even give you a _chance_ of winning."

"You owe me at _least_ ten pounds for every shirt you've destroyed."

Uri sighed. "Look, Sabe, if you want to blame me for your shirts like you blamed me for your broken bicycle—"

"That's different!" She scowled. "You ran me over with a car! How could that have _not_ been your fault?"

"It was Lloyd's fault. I wasn't old enough to be driving."

"But you _were_!"

"_Exactly!_"

"Well, this is _still _different! Lloyd doesn't make you kill people now, does he?"

"No… not _now…_"

"Uri, you know what I meant!"

"I do? Tell me, what is it?"

Kanda wished that the two of them would just shut up. But at the same time he was glad for the noise. He had been able to reach Mugen while they argued, and his mother and lover were going completely unnoticed. It was if the two of them were in their own little world, lost in their argument – but it was not going to last. With shaking hands he pulled his sword up to his waist, bracing the hilt against his hip. The world did not want to stay right side up but it was going to, because Kanda said it was going to. Forget gravity, and equilibrium. He could stay upright with will alone.

Sable only looked at Uri. She refused to see Kanda.

Allen did see him though. And he realized then what it meant. He would have voiced a protest, stopped his lover, but he saw the folly in it. And even if he hadn't there was no guarantee that he would have much of a voice to speak with.

Hiroko just grinned.

Kanda drew back and thrust forward.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He had had enough. He was leaving. He did not need these people, these family members. They could keep their powers and their dinners and their murders, he wanted nothing to do with it.

But he could not go see Lavi. Not so soon after leaving. It was suicide. Even thinking about it was a potential danger. In the end he could only come to one conclusion – after everything he had learned about himself, everything he had felt, he should not have come back at all. His redheaded friend would have been left a lot safer.

So he decided that he would simply take a walk and see where his feet carried him. And finally, tomorrow, return to the place he belonged.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Uri's mouth fell open and stayed open; blatant surprised the only emotion on his face. Sable felt something of the same expression reflected across her features, but not so deeply – she had expected the pain of a sword through her chest, whereas he had thought Kanda incapable of even moving.

The blade protruded from the left side of his body, just to the right of his heart, and passed through the fabric of his jacket in a new hole the same size as the one Hiroko had made. The tip was coated in a thick layer of blood, gleaming almost black in the afternoon light, the liquid that fell from his lips was slightly lighter, almost crimson. Sable thought that maybe, if she weren't hallucinating it, the blood made him look perfectly human.

He gasped an unspoken word as the sword was pulled out of him and swung across his back, bringing him to his knees.

Kanda felt himself smile.

He raised Mugen again, one handed, and swept it down toward the Noah's neck, faster than any human would have been able to avoid. But Noah's were not simply human. Uri threw himself to the side. He was on his feet; his bloodied right hand jammed into the place Kanda had stabbed him. He turned his face to his sister, completely aghast, and spoke the one question any loving brother would want to have known the answer to.

"Why didn't you tell me he was there?"

His twin was holding herself the same as he was; her face a pale travesty of what it had looked like only a moment before. "Because you're evil, Uri." There was nothing argumentative about her voice. "And I don't know any other way to save you."

_Save you._

_Save me. Don't save me. I deserve the death they have wrought._

His eyes went sudden wide as he turned to see the samurai still coming for him. _I remember. I remember it all. But was I wrong then? Or am I wrong now?_ He did not have time to think about it. He only had time turn and run for his life.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hiroko sighed to herself when he was gone. It had less than an hour and yet she felt as if things had gone on for twelve. And it appeared as if her visitors felt the same way. Sable collapsed into the snow, no longer even trying hide that she was in pain, Allen gave up supporting his weight on his arm and fell face down, his arm twitching. Kanda though, had the strength left to sheath his blade and the determination to carry himself down the walkway to his lover, who – now that he looked – still did not seem well.

Allen did not lift his head when a pair of knees came down by his face, nor did he move to help the hands that pulled him upward, turning him slowly until he was pillowed against the person's knees. He realized when a palm touched the side of his face that he had closed his eyes and it took more than a little effort to open them again.

And in them, Kanda saw nothing but pain.

"Are you alright, Moyashi?" The Japanese man asked. Allen could see the glimmer of tears in his eyes, the same as he had in the bath before he had fainted. He would not let that happen again, not ever. Not if this was what happened when he was out of it. He reached up with his right hand a brushed away those fine crystal droplets and smiled despite it all.

"That depends if you're willing to screw me or not."

Kanda barked a laugh that split his face in a thankful smile. "You seriously have a one track mind," He gently ran his thumb across the younger boy's face. "But I love you anyways."

Allen smiled at him. "Naw, I just wanted to see you smile." His hand came down again and his left arm twitched twice before deactivating as if of its own will. He grimaced at it, but did not allow himself any more show of weakness. "And I still love you, even after you left me in a bathtub full of ice and snow."

"Che, it was for your own good."

"I know, I'm teasing."

The Japanese man was very surprised when a hand came down lightly on his shoulder. He glanced up to see his mother smirking down at him, a wincing Sable on her shoulder. "Come on, Pretty-boy." She squeezed. "Pick up your whore and get inside. He's going to get sicker if you don't."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?" Allen interjected from his lap. "You _are_ pretty."

"Moyashi."

"Hm?"

"Not in front of my mother."

---------------------------------**OMAKE THEATER:** **Valentine's Special!**-----------------------------

"Happy Valentine's Day, Love!" Allen chimed, proffering a large box of chocolates to his lover. The Japanese man glared down at the red, heart shaped cardboard box before turning away with a jerk.

"Baka, Moyashi!" He growled. "You are not supposed to get me candy."

The British boy frowned at him, letting the box lower to his lap. "But Love… I'm the wife. Isn't it Japanese tradition that the woman gets the man candy on Valentine's Day?"

Kanda sighed in annoyance, turning on their shared couch. From behind him he pulled a small tin of caramels, decorated with a delicate pink ribbon. "I might be the husband, Moyashi," He said darkly. "But _you're_ the seme."

Allen shook his head, held the chocolates out again. "Then trade? They're unsweetened…"

"Che," Was Kanda's only answer. But he dropped the caramels and snatched the box all the same. "If I didn't love you…"

"I'd fill those with laxative and send them to Cross."

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

"Look what I got for me! You! Us!" Lavi cheered.

Tyki raised an eyebrow from the bed, smashed his cigarette in the tray beside him. "Well,_that's_ interesting."

The redhead beamed. "Mmhmm! And look! This part even spins! And the chords are real leather. They won't break no matter how long you use them."

"Well, would you rather use _that_, or…" He rolled sideways, reached beneath the bed and came back with something in a black box. "Or _these?_" He dumped the contents on the mattress – a pair of sturdy handcuffs, one key, and a small bottle of what might have been maple syrup. "Hm?"

Lavi bit his lip in mock thought. "Um… handcuffs…" He looked at the thing in his hands. "Or a handmade kite from Africa? Do you even have to ask?"

The Noah smiled and made room on the bed.

---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----

"God, I hate couples."

"Me too."

"Me three."

"I don't mind so long as they let me watch."

"Sable-chan! What a horrible thing to say!"

"Well, she has a point. If it had been me on that train with Kanda and Allen, I might have ruined the upholstery."

"Lenalee!"

"Pfft!" Sable threw a chocolate covered peanut at Komui, glaring. "If you're going to be the secretary, you need to learn that Lenalee is going to say things like that. Stop being a brother and start being a fanboy, understand?"

"…Yes."

"Good. And now, for the remainder of Singles' Awareness Day..."

The Li siblings squeed together: _"DOUJINS!?!?!"_

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**Yeah… my crack is truly cracky, huh? Lenalee and Komui squeeing together… that'll ruin ANYONE'S Valentine's Day XD**

**Thank you everyone who's made it this far! Sorry that this post was… all separated and yet together. And just to stop the questions before I get them – no, Allen is not going to die :)**

**Lovelovelove! And see you next chapter:D**


	51. Tomorrow

**Niamh's muse has gone into overdrive because of a certain fellow authoress who shares smut that cannot yet be posted for the rest of the world because the prequel is not finished. That's right, you. It's ALL your FAULT that I WRITE so FAST! (AndIloveyouforit.)**

**Furthermore – this is kind of a winding down chapter. Nothing really exciting happens, just a lot of explaining. Its original title was 'Aftermath' but that's **_**way**_** too dramatic for the **_**nothing**_** that happens here. Well… stuff happens but nothing like last time :D**

**Disclaimer of D'grossness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lavi's theme music would be less… flamboyant.**

**WARNING: CUSSING, YAOI, man-on-man, and… spoilers :(**

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Tomorrow

Kanda was amazed that Allen did not yell at him for carrying him inside. It was almost as if the British boy were happy to be in his arms, happy to be told that no, he was _not_ going to walk to the room and no, he was not going to be sure that Hitori was alright. He was going to take off his jacket and his boots and lie in bed for two days, because his husband said so.

Or… something like that.

Allen tried to smile at Kanda when he found himself sitting on the edge of the guest bed, letting his jacket be unbuttoned. He didn't help the older Exorcist. He just studied those deep blue eyes and those gently shaking hands, willing them to miss the quaking of his own limbs. His breath caught in his throat when Kanda pushed his coat off, the pressure on the skin of his left arm was like a thousand tons of burning fabric against him, but his lover started pulling at the laces of his boots as if he had not noticed. While Kanda was not looking his slipped his arm out of the sleeve and frowned at it, amazed that his skin wasn't crinkling off, and even more amazed that he could move it.

"Love," He said quietly when his boots were sitting up beside the bed. The Japanese man looked up at him as if willing to hear anything he said. "Will you do me a favor?"

Kanda glared at him. "If you even suggest that I take off your clothes and have my way with you…"

Allen gave him a small, half-amused laugh. "No, just… kiss me. And stay here until I fall asleep. And be here when I wake up." As he spoke his voice cracked, and with the crack he lost control of the emotions he had not yet been able to feel. He had been so frightened in the bathroom, just moments before fainting, he had been so confused when he found Kanda not in the room when he woke, he had been so worried and angry and scared when Uri had attacked his lover. And then, when Kanda had nearly killed him, he had felt that something was very wrong with the situation. And then there was his arm.

And the haunting sense that, if things had gone the way the Noah had intended, it would have been the return of an old nightmare.

"Moyashi-kun," Kanda said softly, standing. "You don't have to ask that of me." He cupped the side of Allen's face in his palm and kissed him lingeringly, sliding his tongue between his lover's willing lips, his arms wound around him in an embrace. When they broke apart he kept his arms as they were and Allen leaned his head forward onto Kanda's chest. "You can just be your demanding, horny, completely irrational self and _make_ me stay with you."

The white haired boy drew him closer with his right arm. "Can I be my normal demanding, horny, irrational self and _make_ you _do_ me?"

Kanda bonked him on the top of his head with an open fist. "Che, _baka._" He left his hand there for a moment before it slid down Allen's cheek and turned up his chin. "I promised you a week of _no touching_ because you passed out, remember?"

"If you don't take it back right now, I'll play every dirty trick I know to make you sleep with me."

Kanda laughed. "Tomorrow, Moyashi-kun." He pressed his lips to the boy's forehead. "When neither of us is about to collapse from exhaustion."

"I'm not going to collapse."

"Che, say that when you're the one standing."

Allen took a firm hold of his collar when Kanda tried to step back. He shook him back and forth none too gently, but the samurai just rocked on his feet almost indifferently. "Kaaaandaaaa! Why won't you sleep with me!? I'm going out of mind! I've bathed with you, woke up alone and naked without you in a tub of snow, watched you almost die, watched you nearly kill someone, and you _still_ won't just _give it to me_. And I've been wanting you for what – three days now?"

"Two."

"Whatever! Goddamn it! Just rip off my clothes and touch me! Is that so much to ask!"

"_Che!"_ Allen's eyes moved to the doorway where a very disgruntled Hiroko stood, arms folded, a glare shining in her colorless eyes. Allen felt the color drain from his face at the sight of her. "Yuu-_baka_, either fuck him or kill him, his voice is making my ears bleed."

Kanda turned away from his stunned, terrified lover to make a less than pleasant face at his mother. "Che, like I said to him – _tomorrow._"

"Kanda!"

"You've said enough in front of her, there's no use hiding it."

"…Really?"

"Yes."

Allen pulled him close again and kissed him, deeply, but Kanda pushed him away perhaps halfway through. Allen leaned sideways to see Hiroko's reaction. She looked miffed, slightly annoyed but she _always_ looked miffed and slightly annoyed. Allen's expression though – which was somewhere between fearful, happy, and expectant, made her smile too broadly at him.

Kanda glared at him with a blush. "That doesn't mean you should do _that _in front of her."

"Hmph. He's right, Whore-chan; _tomorrow_ would be a good day to wait for. You're still not well enough for some things. If that doesn't stop you, think of him – Yuu took a little bit of a beating back there, too.

"But I don't care if you get naked and share the bed – fuck, I don't care if you get naked and share the tub again. But be careful, the last thing I need is a pale ass corpse in my guest bed, growing European mold." She pushed herself from the doorframe and sighed, as if mulling over what she were trying to say.

Kanda raised an eyebrow at her while he pried Allen's fingers from his collar.

"I wanted to say…" She looked away from them both, choosing to focus on the floor instead of their curious faces. "That I really do care."

"O…kaasan…" Kanda blinked.

She glared at him. "And now that that's over just do him or let him do himself or something! I'm going to bed." She slammed the door as loudly as she could when she closed it, leaving a very surprised Kanda and a slightly confused Allen in her wake. By the time she got to the front room she could hear that their argument had started again despite her sudden confession.

It made her smile a little. Allen really could see through anything if he wasn't surprised by that.

"Oi," She droned at the blonde on the floor in the living room. Sable had elected that as her place rather than moving to one of the guest rooms though she had never explained why. She looked up at the Japanese woman and tried to grin. "The love birds are fine."

"Good." She smiled wider. Her forehead was wrapped in a thick layer of gauze, but there was nothing to be done for the pain in her right hand or in her chest or across her back. Every place that Uri had been struck with Innocence caused her pain, but the farther away he moved the less she felt it. She figured that by the time he was home she would feel fine. "Have you checked on Hito?"

"I dun't need checked." A voice said from the hall. The Japanese boy stumbled into view determinedly, his expression sure, his hands bunched into fists at his sides. When he wobbled sideways he chose to sit crookedly next to Sable's bed rather than attempt to save himself from the fall. Hiroko watched him try three times before he pushed his hair over his shoulder so he could half-smile-half-grimace at the foreigner beside him. It was a warm look, and his uncertain left hand laid itself on Sable's right.

It took all of Hiroko's self control not to attack him.

"Th-thank you." He hardly managed. "I w-would still be out th-there if not for you."

Sable's smile was almost sad looking. "Kanda was in a slippery situation at the time, otherwise he would have come."

"But you did." He insisted. "S-so tthhanks."

She giggled. "Completely different from Kanda indeed. He'd never let himself talk if he had a cute stutter like that."

"It's just hard to w-we-remember how to for-form wolds." He explained.

"Che!" Hiroko reminded them of her presence. "Enough touching. Hito-baka, go to your room."

He looked up at his mother with pleading eyes as he spoke. "I w-want to st-ay here."

"What?"

"I," He said more surely. "Want – to – stay – with – Sable."

"Over my rotting corpse you will!"

"It's ok, Hiroko-dono," Sable attempted to calm her. "I'm just going to go to sleep anyways. I don't care if he stays."

She looked between them, both appearing completely innocent but for their still touching hands. "Fine." She turned her body away from them but left her eyes to drill holes in Hitori's skull. "But if you so much as grace an _opai_…"

Hitori's jaw fell open. "Neber!"

She stormed away in a flurry of yutaka, leaving her youngest terrified bastard and blushing foreign whore alone in the living room together.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She found him by a river, late in the evening, watching the sunset. She hadn't expected to find him there, really, just because it only suited him after he killed and he had not killed in weeks. And yet he was there, watching the sunset, his feet dangling bare into the cool water. His face was not the carefree expression he made for her sake, it was not the indifferent mask he showed the twins, it was not the picture of duty he painted for their master. His face was not blank. Instead his face was sad and thoughtful, his lips turned down at the corners even as his eyes smiled at the fading orange light.

She had seen that expression a thousand times before, but never on his face. It was the face of a man looking back at a broken dream.

She pulled off her shoes and slid off her thigh high stockings, held them in her hands as she descended the steep riverbank to his side. He didn't hear her. He was far too lost in his own thoughts.

The sound of something falling into the water brought Tyki's mind back to the moment. He glanced left to see two small feet in the water beside his, and a dark haired girl sitting beside him, looking out at the reflection of the sun on the water.

"How did you find me?" He asked gently, turning back to the view.

"I know you best." She smiled, leaning into his shoulder. It was something she did in her less bored moments. Something she did to reassure him. "And you always come here when you're down. And I think you've been down."

"You do?" His voice had only a mild spark of disbelief.

"Mmhmm."

He swirled his feet in the water, scaring the guppies and displacing a small amount of algae. "What would I be down about?"

She shrugged, but answered anyways. "Maybe… something you regret." She felt him stiffen and knew that she had hit the mark. He really couldn't hide anything from her, unless it was in plain sight. "Something important…"

He sighed, leaning down to touch the clear water with the fingers of his right hand. Water was always so calming, as were train rides. They were both things he had known before his powers had made themselves known, as a miner and as a traveler, so it seemed right to find comfort in them. "I am not going to tell you about it." His voice was not cold to her as he offered his fingers to the guppies that had come back to investigate him.

"How come?"

"It isn't fun."

She giggled and tugged on his arm, dragging him up and away from the silver-gold water and making her look at him. "You haven't had fun in a while. How about we go have some? We've both got akuma, and time, and you haven't killed anyone since…forever – so let's go! Torment and destruction and death are waiting!" She smiled broadly at him, still pulling on his arm, but he did nothing blink back with a pair of surprised, thoughtful eyes.

"Rhode," He made a little sound of appreciation as he smiled at her. "How about tomorrow?"

"It is tomorrow. Somewhere."

"I mean really." And his smile widened. "Can I promise to have fun with you tomorrow? I have some playing to do in the morning, so it would have to wait until evening."

"Okay!" She enthused, squeezing his arm. "Now stop moping around, Uncle Tyki, it's depressing. And boring. Let's go get something to eat and then talk about what we're going to do tomorrow, okay?" She stood up, not relinquishing his arm, and stepped back, pulling on his white shirt sleeve. "It'll be fun!"

He gave her a smile that did not quite reach his eyes. "But I want to sit here and watch the sunset in silence."

She frowned at him. "It's so boring…"

"Would you rather I go back home and sit quietly while I read?"

Her face fell further while she thought about it. "No… I want you to tell me about all of the fun we're going to have tomorrow."

He made himself smile at the irony of it all. "It would ruin the surprise."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Allen," Kanda said gently, kissing him again. The British boy wasn't letting him go. As soon as Hiroko was gone Kanda had found himself in a one armed embrace, Allen's lips tracing a hot line up his neck to his lips, sore legs wrapping around his hips and pulling him toward the edge of the bed. He could feel his will faltering under the smaller boy's touch and he did not want it to, not when Allen was so weak. Yes, he wanted to touch his lover, yes, he appreciated the warmth on his chest, but he did not want to see those silver eyes fade at his touch. "You shouldn't…" But he was falling onto him, his hands pulling Allen's face up to give him more leverage to kiss and move with. He felt the lips against his smile as his knee came up onto the mattress.

"But I want you to." Allen pleaded when their lips parted. "I want to feel you. I want to know that you aren't dead. I want to know that there isn't just pain and fighting left for us." Kanda felt a hand close on his belt and pull him forward, the silver eyes that held his danced with something that made him only want to hold his lover, not make love to him. "Please, Love."

"_Baka,_" He whispered, and Allen frowned as Kanda's face fell to his shoulder where he couldn't read it. "Am I supposed to tell you no because I can see it in your face that you're in pain? Or am I supposed to do what you want to take that pain away?" Allen felt the Japanese man's hands close on his shoulders as he spoke. "You're hurt, Moyashi. And you're sick. What if what I do to you makes you worse?"

"Kanda…" Allen leaned his head on top of his lover's, letting his sore arm curl around his back. "If you're that worried, I can wait until tomorrow." His right hand ran through the strands of black hair that cascaded down his lover's back. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Che."

The one hand on Kanda's back moved in a slow, soothing circle, a circle that would have made him fall asleep if he weren't half standing. "Touching you like this is enough if you're that…afraid for me. Though," His voice took on the tone of a smile. "I think I'd like it more if you were shirtless."

And, just because of how he said it, Kanda laughed. He pulled back and smiled at the white haired Exorcist before him, reached up to run his fingers through Allen's hair before cupping the side of his face and drawing him into a slow, meaningful kiss. "Take of your clothes, Moyashi-kun."

"_Why?"_

"Because the first thing I am going to do tomorrow morning," He smirked. "Is you."

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Lenalee knocked lightly on Lavi's door, expecting to hear him shriek and hide the man she suspected him of housing. She heard no such scrambling however, and after a few seconds of silence she pushed the door open, amazed that it was unlocked.

He was on his bed, still dressed, his pillow drawn up so that it was under his head and pinned between his arms, his fisted left hand in the middle of its padded surface. His expression was contented. His breath came slow and even, his left eye flicked beneath its lid. Dreaming. Sleeping and dreaming at dinnertime.

She stood in the middle of the wooden floor, just watching him for a long moment. His black eye made her stomach do little flips of annoyance, the bruise on his neck was almost enough to make her scream. But why? He had come back alive, he had been happy. He had explained to her that he enjoyed the pain he was given – and yet she did not trust that answer. It seemed so _wrong_. How could anyone like the pain a supposed enemy gave them?

The redhead whispered his lover's name, the word only a ghost of wind on his lips. Lenalee felt her hands curl into angry fists at her sides, but she could not even venture a guess as to why they were angry, or why they were fists. She couldn't find it in herself to be mad at Lavi. And she did not know her emotions toward the Noah he loved. So where did it come from? Who was it for?

_Me._ She realized. _I am mad at myself for… letting this happen._

"Lenalee?" Lavi glanced up at her from the bed – she immediately placed a mask of a smile on her face, forced her hands to relax at her sides. He didn't need to know that if something happened, she would blame herself for it.

"Crowley attempted to help the innkeeper make dinner. You should come eat with us." Her voice was too enthusiastic for her own ears, her smile too wide. She half wanted him to notice and yell at her for it.

Lavi pushed himself up from the mattress and yawned. "Oh? How did he do?"

"I don't know yet, I thought we should all try it together."

"You mean all die together."

She scoffed. "Jerry has been teaching him!"

"Not how to cook…"

"What?"

Lavi laughed, smiling so that his eye was pressed into a little line of eyelashes, the sheet print on the side of his face looked like a wiggly pink scar beneath his eye patch. Between the line, the patch, and the black eye, he might have looked the part of a bedraggled, tired young pirate. "Oh, nothing. What did they make?"

Now her smile wasn't quite so forced. "Chocolate cake, dumplings, and chicken casserole."

"Ugh…"

She shrugged. "At least it's not all in the same dish, right?"

"Yeah… I guess."

Lenalee waited for him to lumber out of bed, watched him reach for his boots and drop something small and silver onto the floor. He made a little sound of dissatisfaction as he leaned to catch it, but it rolled quickly away from him and only stopped when it collided with the tip of her dark right boot. She didn't need to look at him to know that he was a little frightened by her kneeling to pick it up, and she didn't need to hear him to know that he was making some excuse for having it. What she did need, for a moment, was to know what it was.

"A cufflink?" She asked as if to no one. A simple, silver one, with a little black butterfly on the part that poked out for people to see. Lavi didn't even have cuffs on most of his shirts – like the one he was wearing – so why would he need a cufflink?

"Uh huh," He half groaned. His voice was somewhere between worried and happy. "It's… kind of important."

She ran it down her fingers and into her palm so she could see it more clearly. Finely made, the butterfly laid on a bed of polished pearl. It seemed important. "It's pretty."

Lavi smiled as he laced up his second boot. "You think so? I thought it was kind of an awkward present, but I guess it's better if it's pretty. I should have given him something back though. I kind of feel bad about that…" He brushed his headband with the back of his hand, sighing. "I feel bad about a lot of things, actually."

Lenalee closed her fingers around the trinket, having realized where it came from. Somehow, it hurt to hear that the Noah had given Lavi something. It felt… too good to be true. If Tyki really did love him, if he gave him such a small, beautiful thing as a sign of it, maybe his affections were meaningful – but that would make every assumption she had made about him wrong. It would give him a potential for good that she did not want to imagine. It would perhaps, in the end, put them somewhere on the same side.

It was so much easier if everything just stayed black and white.

"You were right," He said quietly. "I am selfish."

She stared at him, a boy she had known for a good portion of his life, and blinked in surprise. What was he saying?

"I'm a Bookman and an Exorcist and a friend… none of those things are supposed to be selfish. But," He looked up at her, and she could see that he had been thinking about this for a long while, even before she had come in. "I'm human too. And humans can't help it. We're all out for ourselves on some level. All of us. So… I'm sorry that my humanity had to show itself the way it has – because it puts you and Crowley and me and everyone in danger. I wish…that he were someone else, but at the same time I could never want him to be anyone but you he is." He stopped short, smiled at Lenalee's blank expression. "Sorry, am I rambling?"

She offered him the hand that had the cufflink in it, her expression brightening. "It's ok. Anyone would need to ramble after what's happened, right? You're… in love with an enemy. I think I'd cry my eyes out and collapse entirely in your place." She dropped the little piece of metal into his outstretched palm, and then let her fingers fall softly into his hand. "If you need someone to talk to, you can talk to me, ok?"

He smiled and stood up, squeezing her hand and the present together within his palm. "Thanks."

"It's what friends are for."

"But I don't want to hear about any LUTS clubs."

"LUTS club?" She blinked. "I haven't the slightest inkling what that would stand for."

He pulled his hand gently away from hers and slid his treasure into his pocket. "Right. Neither do I. Let's eat!"

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It didn't matter to anyone in the house that it was only evening; they were all too tired to care. But for Allen. He was determined to have himself a little more Kanda before he let the sun go down on his chance. Tomorrow, after all, was hours away, and he did not see his arm improving in that time.

So he would seduce as best he could before it rendered him incapable of such things.

Kanda left to find his brother while Allen attempted to single handedly peel off the clean clothes he had put on upon leaving the bathroom. He was very glad to have a right hand that worked just as well as his left – it made buttons much simpler to undo. By the time he had his shirt off his lover was back, a small smile playing behind a devilish glare. It seemed that he had found his sibling with enough strength to argue over something or other.

"What?" Allen asked as he slid his shirt down his shoulders. Part of him was glad that Kanda turned away – he allowed himself to cringe when the fabric came off of his left arm, which was slowly starting to feel less painful. It didn't feel normal, that was for sure, but he didn't feel like it was going to crumble into a hundred thousand pieces if he touched it either.

"Che, Hito-to…" He growled, narrowing his eyes as he shrugged off his jacket. "The first thing he says to me is a curse word. Hmph." He dropped the garment and turned to Allen as he indifferently tugged open the yukata that he wore beneath it. "You'd think he does it just to annoy me."

Allen smiled at him, now wearing nothing but his pants. "I bet he does."

Kanda just shook his head. With a deep sigh he moved closer to the bed, looking tired. Allen had never known Kanda to look quite that tired before, not unless he had gone days without sleep, but he wasn't going to let that stop is seductive plans – not in a million years.

"Kanda…" Allen spoke softly, just loudly enough to draw his attention away from the knot he had just finished undoing. He had was leaning backward on his hands, just enough so that the bangs that did not reach his hair tie fell softly back from his face, his entire chest and stomach bared for Kanda's eyes. The Japanese man bit his lip without realizing it. "Will you help me with my buttons?" He lifted his eyebrows, titled his head, and let the corners of his mouth turn up in a tiny, almost nonexistent smile.

He saw the air catch in Kanda's throat.

The Japanese Exorcist reached out without even asking why. He undid them slowly, each button took slightly more time than the last, and when he had them finished he realized that Allen could have undone them all along. How could not have the strength to undo his pants buttons and yet be able to hold himself up with his arms?

_He's trying to seduce me…_ He thought, as a hand slid under the fold of his yukata and across his shoulder, pushing the fabric down his arm until it caught on his elbow. The fingers on his no long bruised skin were warm and soothing, and when a palm slid up to his back he let his fingers hook the belt loops of Allen's pants, his other hand came up to pull him into a very soft, almost timid kiss. _And he's doing a splendid job of it._

"Moyashi-kun…" He whispered into Allen's lips when he felt himself pulled closer. He knew where his hands were, knew that having them there must have been a horrible reminder of what he wasn't planning on doing, but the tongue that traced slowly up his throat to his jaw was not a reminder. It demanded that he keep going, that he lean down and press his body against his lover's, and that he not regret it, even for a moment. "I told you tomorrow."

And his voice was full of pleasant gasps.

"Oh, Love," Allen looped his protesting fingers around Kanda's hips, drawing him closer. "_Today_…" He kissed his mouth before kissing his neck again. "Please today. Please. I swear I'm fine. _Now_, please…" His thoughts were lost to him when his lover pushed him back onto the mattress, soft kisses pressing on his face. He was more than willing to let his lover pushing him back so that they were both on the bed, Kanda leaning over him on one hand. He felt rather than heard a deep chuckle bubble up out of Kanda's chest, the sound made him frown though; being there was nothing funny about his asking Kanda to touch him.

"You _have_ to wait until tomorrow," Kanda grinned at him, "Because I'm not going into Hito's room to find the oil."

Allen's face was the picture of disappointment. "Not even if I ask you nicely?"

"No." His voice was thick with finality. He did, however, kiss Allen again before he moved to lie beside him. "I know better than to go in there while he's not."

"But Love…" Allen tried to pout. Could Kanda really resist him? Was he really that bad at being seductive? But then again Kanda looked very tired. Almost like _he_ were about ready to collapse. Why was that? Wasn't Allen the one who fainted in the bath tub and had his left arm give out on him sporadically? He felt his expression change as a strong arm pulled him close to Kanda's half clothed chest, he turned his face up to see the Japanese man's expression.

He was relieved. And yet worried. And very, very tired. Why would he look like that?

"It's not just Hito, is it?" Allen asked softly, looking up at Kanda with those endless silver eyes. "There's something else that you're not telling me."

Kanda felt himself glare even though he didn't mean it. What was he supposed to say? _Yes, when I saw that you were alright I almost cried for joy, but now I know that there's something wrong with your arm that you aren't telling me about. Also, I don't sleep well when you're sick _– just didn't seem like the right thing to say. So he pulled the British boy close, buried his face in his beautiful white hair, inhaled his scent. "I was worried about you. And I still am."

"I'm fine, Love. I am."

"If that were true you wouldn't grimace every time something touches your left arm."

Allen was quiet.

"Haven't you hunted enough? Shouldn't I be able to give in to my desires without worrying about your Innocence?" He was surprised when the boy in his arms let out a small, adorable snicker.

"You shouldn't worry about _my_ innocence…"

"Che." He glared harder, which only made his lover laugh. "You know that's not what I meant."

"Yes, but still. It doesn't hurt as bad as it did it just…feels different. Whenever I think about you and everyone else, or fighting akuma, or stopping the Noah, it doesn't seem so bad, so maybe…it's testing me." He held his arm up and looked at his fingers, aware that Kanda's sapphire eyes were looking with him. "Reminding me of why I wanted to become an Exorcist."

Kanda's left hand gradually joined Allen's in the air, his larger fingers curling protectively around Allen's smaller red ones.

"Hn. It should just tell you then, not play stupid guessing games."

"Hmm. I guess that would be easier."

He nodded as their hands came down on Allen's chest, effectively leading them into something of a natural embrace. They lay in silence for a long time, Allen watching Kanda's worn features slowly relax on the pillow next to him, his dark eyes losing focus on the fingers intertwined with his. It wasn't the fight that had made Kanda tired; it was Allen's lack of health. He hadn't been able to sleep, just they way he thought he wouldn't.

All of his sleepiness was coming together behind his eyes because Allen had said that he was fine. And he looked closer to that standard than he had in days. The knowledge was enough to make his eyelids feel like led plates. Just squeezing the hand in his felt like impossible work. He felt his eyes closing but could find no way of holding them open.

Allen watched him and smiled. The fingers in his were losing the strength to hold on, so he clenched them just a little tighter. Maybe, Kanda really did need rest and waiting wouldn't be so horrible in the end. "Sweet dreams, Love." Allen whispered, tilting his body so that he could feel Kanda's chest rise and fall against his side.

"_Oya..sumi_…Moya…shi…"

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**Aww, poor Kanda. And poor Allen too I guess, has to wait all of 12 hours before he can get any XD**

**Thanks for reading! Sorry that this was kind of a fixer chapter, it'll be more… smu—I mean plot oriented next time :)**


	52. Reservations

**Blegh, it took so much longer write this than it normally does. I think it's because it was mostly… umm… non-obvious plot movement… or… something…**

**Ok, I lie, this is basically fan service. XD Aaaaand my internal Allen was going to slay me in my sleep if I said no to the smex. So… have at it!**

**Disclaimer of Defense: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Bak-chan would love sweets. Because anyone with Tsuzuki's voice just **_**has**_** to love sweets. It's how the universe works.**

**WARNING: YAOI. Boy-on-boy. Man-on-man. Little cursing.**

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Reservations

Unlike Kanda's old room, the one he had inhabited before he left for the Black Order, the guest room had windows. Allen thought that it was a horrible sin for the morning light to have missed playing on Kanda's features all of the years he had lived in the dark. The light made his countenance look soft and delicate, brought out the contrast of his hair and his face, played little shadowy games on his eyelashes. He seemed almost happy in his sleep. Almost.

Allen studied his face and felt himself smile at it. It made him feel like melting to see it, or curling up into a tiny ball and cramming himself into Kanda's chest. Just because he was so…_Kanda_. Pretty didn't fit him, beautiful wasn't the word for it, and like hell he was going to call him handsome. He was just perfect. And looking at him made Allen what to touch his perfection, if only for a moment. So he turned onto his side and put his arm around his lover's chest, pushed the fabric of his yukata away so that he could lay his face on the exposed skin, just inches from the odd, dark tattoo that marked what he thought of as his lover's curse. He didn't look at it. Instead he tilted his head so he was looking down across the flat plane of his lover's stomach which disappeared beneath the roiling hills of a gray blanket just above his hips.

_I wonder,_ He thought as an arm came around his shoulders to pull him close, Kanda did not wake as he moved. _If he knows how I feel like this… with his arm around me, protected. I feel warm and safe and happy. And it's all because of him. He wanted these things so long ago; even before I really knew him, and yet I'm only now thinking about how right he was. How stupid I was not to see why he's cold to everyone. I wonder… why he didn't try sooner._

_Or… did he?_

While he thought about it his right hand traced a slow, even pattern on Kanda's stomach, his eyes half-focused on that soft, unscarred skin. He had half a mind to fall asleep like that, on Kanda's bare chest, and let him wake up whenever the inclination struck him. But the other half of his mind was moving swiftly away from how safe he felt and on to how he wanted to touch him, how he wanted to run his fingers over Kanda's flesh and make him shiver with impossible pleasure, how he wanted to try all _sorts_ of things in different ways, different positions, just to see what worked best in giving him all of the satisfaction he deserved. Kanda still had that bottle of honey… somewhere…

And then the rest of him just wanted to shred that pink yukata and get laid. _Now_, dammit.

_I'm a horrible person._ He thought, tilting his face so that it was pressed more closely to that fine, soft skin. _I really should think about him more. He needs to sleep, obviously. I can worry about my own needs later._

The sleepy hand on his shoulder slid down his arm until it came to his still swirling fingers and closed around them only half-gently. The chest beneath his face took an especially large breath before a soft voice altered him to his lover's state of awareness. "You haven't the slightest idea how much that tickles."

Allen's smile widened evilly. "No, but I'm sure you'll tell me." And he took to tracing with his pinky – which was the only finger not captured by Kanda.

"Che," Kanda yanked his arm upward in an almost tender way, dragging the British boy until his protesting mouth was directly in front of his, silver eyes wide and questioning. He ignored the words falling from those fragile lips and sealed their mouths together – and it made him smile when Allen suddenly became willing. The hand he held stopped fighting, the lips against his parted ever so slowly, and the boy in his arms melted against his chest. He smiled at the expectant look on his lover's face when they pulled apart.

"You know Love, it _is_ tomorrow."

"Che. I swear you don't think about _anything_ but getting yourself off."

"I think about getting _you_ off."

The Japanese Exorcist glared at him deeply. Allen tilted forward a little on Kanda's chest and kissed him lightly on the tip of his nose, making a sly face that titled his eyebrows and drew up the corners of his mouth. "I'm kidding Love. I think of a lot of things. But there's just something about lying on your naked chest, my pants unbuttoned, with your lips right there in front of me that makes it hard _not_ to think about it being tomorrow." His left hand – that pained him only moderately as he moved it – took a shaky hold of the fabric of Kanda's yukata. "So you should probably close this or take it off, it's up to you."

Kanda smirked at him, abandoned the hand in his so he could sit up and Allen could back away easier. When he was up right, Allen found himself sitting on his lover's lap, his knees to the side of either hip, and he had to move his hands to Kanda's shoulders to keep balanced. He wasn't sure what was going on, not with Kanda looking at him with eyes that seemed to burn with hidden fire.

"You swear to me that you're well?" He asked in a tone that demanded nothing but truth. Slowly Allen nodded at him – and Kanda took it as a sign from heaven. He launched himself into the smaller boy, pinning him so that his head was at the foot-end of the bed, the blankets folded in half beneath him. Kanda watched those silver eyes flash with surprise but did not worry overmuch about them – if Allen was well, which he was, Kanda was going to have his way with him; the way he had wanted to since _before_ Allen had fallen ill in Hito's room.

"Lof—" Allen found his mouth pressed suddenly into Kanda's, a hand came down on his stomach and ran to his hips, began to tug lightly at the pants he never quite got out of the night before. He was very surprised by his lover's sudden willingness to forge ahead and take control, not that he minded, and he hoped to remind him somehow that the oil was still in Hitori's room before things got too out of hand. When their lips broke apart he took two hurried breaths before he managed to speak to the man who was now running his tongue down his chest, slowly heading for his nipples. "Wha-what's gotten into you all of a sudden?"

Kanda paused just before he got to the little nub he was aiming for and looked up at Allen, snickered at the surprise in his eyes. "Che, did you think you were the only one with a sex drive, Moyashi?"

Allen blinked at him.

"When we got here I wanted to do you on Hito's futon, remember? And you stopped me. We hadn't touched each other for days before that, and when we did we tried as hard as we could not to be seen or heard." As he spoke he saw Allen's eyes get wider and wider. The British boy hadn't realized that saying no to that request was saying no to a lot more than just a few days of celibacy – he was saying no to everything Kanda had envisioned over that time. "And then you got sick. You got sick and I decided that I wasn't going to make you worse."

Allen continued blinking.

"So nothing's gotten into me. I – unlike you – just happen to have a descent amount of self control." He lifted an eyebrow and let his face fall closer to Allen's body, just so that his breath played lightly in the skin he had just been touching. "Can I go back to licking you now?"

Allen started to nod but stopped mid motion, remembering what he was supposed to have said before realizing that Kanda was just as lusty as he was. "The oil. Shouldn't you go get it before you get us both – _ah!_" He exclaimed as Kanda's tongue returned to the path it had been tracing a few moments before, drifting swiftly down until his teeth closed on his sensitive skin. Allen's hands moved at once to Kanda's back, spinning in his hair as he gasped lightly under his lover's touch. He took a firm hold of what fabric he could find beneath all of that hair and pulled Kanda upward, continued to heave until Kanda's face was directly above his, their chests pressed together, ebony hair falling around his face and onto the bed beside Allen. "Which would be _now_, Love."

Kanda's expression was quite mischievous, his sapphire eyes continued to burn with that inner fire. "If I say no?"

"I'll do my best to discover this thing you call _self control._"

Kanda captured his lips again before rolling away gracefully off the bed, pulling his more than half removed yukata closed as he went. Allen had never seen Kanda go out without brushing his hair and putting it into one of those tight, ridiculous ponies he wore – unless he wasn't going to be seen by anyone but his mother, and even then he put it back at least loosely. Now though, he simply tied his robe closed and turned for the door, ignoring the fact that his hair followed him out like a long, flowing, seductive cape on the wind.

It was only when he was gone that Allen remembered Sable bringing in his suitcase the day before.

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"Thank you, you make tea a lot better than I do."

"Oh no, it's no big deal. And I liked the tea you made last time." He smiled and she brought the cup to her lips. "Are you still sore?"

Sable shook her head. "Nope! Well, my head is, but I should be good enough to take notes today." She grinned, taking her right hand off of her cup to wiggle her fingers enthusiastically, "Which is good, because your brother has some stuff on his mind right now that…I shouldn't talk about."

"What?" Hitori asked, almost curious. The two of them were in the living room, sitting on her makeshift bed, talking about life with the Order, their favorite child memories, anything that came to mind. Sable felt as if he really were the nicest Kanda she had ever met, just because of how curious and willing he was to talk about anything and everything. He didn't cuss almost at all when he wasn't around his brother, and he never lost his temper, even around his mother; he was a completely different creature when compared to them. He wanted nothing to do with fighting or bloodshed – but it wasn't that he was weak compared to his family members, it was that he simply didn't like it. The mere mention of akuma, though, could draw from him hundreds of questions that would keep her talking for hours.

"Nothing, but when Kanda comes storming down the hallway, demanding to know where Allen's things are," Sable snickered. "Tell him I put them in the guest room."

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"Kanda!" Allen called, scooting himself off the bed and doing the best he could to run to the door. He didn't want to admit it but fast movements – like when Kanda had pinned him against the bed – still made his head spin a little. He would live with it though. He wasn't going to stand aside and let the others walk on without him. "Kanda!"

"Whore-chan you stupid ass – that's the name of three people who live in this house, might want to pick something less common if you're looking for your fuckbuddy, eh?" Hiroko, who had been coming down the hall a few steps behind him, made her presence known. He glanced over his shoulder, suddenly realizing that he was still shirtless with his pants unbuttoned, and here was his mother-in-law, waltzing up behind him to lay a palm on his bare shoulder.

"Ah, O-okaasan," He stammered, attempting to work his buttons without her noticing. "H-how long've you been there?"

"Long enough to know what you're doing with your hands. Just step aside, you're clogging the hall with your flamboyance." She glared at him, sidling to his left and barreling down the hall as if it were on fire.

"But Hi-kaasan…"

"Either Hiroko or Okasaan, don't attempt to mix them." She looked back at him, no longer attempting to get the last two buttons done. "What?"

"I was just going to ask… what I'm supposed to call if not _Kanda._"

"How about _Yuu?"_

"But everyone will respond to _you_."

"Che! You call him _Love,_ don't you?"

"But that could just be someone saying it, not calling a name."

She narrowed her eyes at him as if she couldn't see and stopped walking. "What are you getting at?"

Allen thought for a moment, not sure himself. "Is there anything that he's called that no one else in this house will respond to?" There was suddenly a warm, strong arm around his shoulders, a veil of hair falling over his shoulder, a pair of hot, wet lips pressing into his neck. He gasped at the contact, electricity dancing up his spine as a hand slid down the back of his pants, going places he did not want it to go with Hiroko standing right at the end of the hall. "Love…" He half whispered. "You're mother…"

"Can't see us because there are no windows here. She's standing in the light, that's the only reason you even know she's there." Kanda husked into his skin, drawing a line of goosebumps all down his left shoulder. "Now, remind me why it was you didn't tell me you had moved your things to the guestroom?"

He let out a little whimper as the lips on his neck went back to what they were doing before, the hand in his pants moved slowly forward. "I had forgotten that _Sable_ brought them _in_ for me." His left hand came up to gently rest on Kanda's head. Every time his lover closed his teeth he got closer and closer to a sensitive nerve, and Allen came closer and closer to giggling and screaming at the same time. "You should _stop that_ before she gets _curious_." Yet even as he spoke he leaned into Kanda's teeth, drawing a sound from the back of his throat as his knees threatened to fallout from under him. The arm around his shoulders pulled tighter and the hand in his pants slid into the junction were his leg connected to his hip and pulled him close as well.

"Did you hear me, Whore-chan?" Hiroko asked. Allen had almost forgotten that she was there.

"Yes! Thank you!" He pressed his right hand over his mouth when his lover bit especially hard in the place that made him twitch. His left leg gave out entirely and he had to fight to catch himself as Kanda started moving back toward the guestroom. "I found him! Thanks!" He pressed his fingers to his mouth again, stumbling backward as Kanda did. "Love… stop so I can _waaaa_…"

The older Exorcist grinned and nibbled again, amazed at the sounds Allen could make without trying. They were sounds that reminded him of the night he had at last gotten Allen to sleep with him; though it had been is own injuries that stopped them before then, whereas Allen's condition had stopped them now. The situations were similar and yet very, very different.

When they came into the guestroom the door closed behind them with enough force to shake the wall beside it. Allen gave up being quiet. He wailed at his lover to leave his neck alone, but the presence of lips on his skin made him simultaneously plead for more. Kanda had always known Allen to be over enthusiastic about the speed of their encounter, but he had never seen him beg quite as hard as he did when he touched that place on his neck. So he gave it one last, extra hard bite before he let him go on the bed, clamoring immediately up beside him, lips hungry for his lover's.

Allen wasn't aware of the words falling ever so steadily from his lips, nor did he fully comprehend the growling sound Kanda made when he pulled him down into a strong, almost violent kiss. He felt Kanda's tongue flick across his lip and he widened his mouth to it, inviting him to take what he wanted, and to do so quickly. It was not a romantic kiss, or a passionate one, and when they broke apart he found himself looking at the ocean colored eyes of a man that did not call him beautiful and did not pause to caress the side of his face with his hand, they were eyes overcome with yearning.

But even as he watched, even as he pushed Kanda's yukata to the floor, he saw the light in those dark eyes change. He could see that Kanda suppressed the part of him that wanted simply to go for it, to pass the customary touching and licking and sucking that they did beforehand, and seeing it made Allen wonder if Kanda _ever_ let himself go.

"Love," He husked, working at his pants buttons with one hand and running his sore left down Kanda's smooth back. "If you try to make this another lesson, I swear to God I'll tell Lenalee every detail of our sex life down to the color of your p—" He was cut off by a kiss that was less rough but still equally harsh, and this time Kanda's hand came up to pull his face closer.

"Che, I'm not going to, Moyashi." He breathed. "But I'm not going to mindlessly fuck you either."

"Why not?"

Kanda smiled at the disappointment in Allen's eyes. "Because I'm not mindless and you won't let me touch you for a week if I do."

The British boy laughed. "Right. We've both seen how celibate neither of us can be. You know very well that I'd be ready for another go tomorrow. Tonight. This afternoon." He played with the ends of his lover's hair, frowning while his other hand pulled their bodies closer. "Can you go back to licking me now?"

Kanda smiled at him, at the stealthily raised eyebrow. "As soon as you get out of those pants."

Allen lifted his hips into Kanda's, eliciting from him a slight strangled sound of enjoyment. "Help me with my buttons." _God,_ He thought desperately, _Whoever invented buttons was a sick, twisted person with nothing on their mind but how to keep there clothes on._ When he fell back again he was surprised that the older man did as he was told, rocking back on his knees as his hands came down to pull at the fabric with a force that slid the little silver fasteners out of their holes without even trying. Allen almost protested at his speed when he yanked the material downward, pulled it hurriedly over his hips and down to his thighs. After a moment of struggling to find the right angle, his garment went sailing across the room toward the door, far, far away from any of Kanda's clothes.

By the time they hit the floor, Allen was thinking about what came next.

But the Japanese man didn't start licking right away. Instead he pressed his palms firmly against Allen's shoulders and kissed him softly on the mouth before sitting up again and reaching back behind him for something Allen couldn't see. "Another reason not to lose control of myself," He hand came back again, and between his long fingers was a familiar bottle of golden liquid rested. "Is that I get to taste more."

Allen felt his jaw go slack as Kanda flicked the top open. "Love, you're not going to—oh, ok – you are…" He leaned back as a cool string of honey fell from the bottle and onto his skin, just beside his navel. He shivered when his lover lowered his head to greedily lap the nectar from his flesh, swirling his tongue to get every sweet drop. Allen heard himself gasp as he fell back onto the pillows, suddenly aware that really the licking was pointless; he was as ready for anything after all of that biting and kissing on his neck and shoulder. He felt another drip on his chest, two more slightly lower. And it killed him to know that a hot, wet, tongue was going to be there only moments later.

Kanda held the bottle in his left hand, supporting his weight on his right, trying to ignore the hands that had fallen to his hips when Allen realized what he was doing. Faintly he could hear Allen making small sounds of discontent, the fingers against his skin dug into his flesh every time he dropped a small mount of honey and every time he bent to remove it – it was only the blush on Allen's cheeks and the needy panting sound he made that kept him from asking if maybe something was wrong. He dripped a small golden circle into the hollow of his lover's throat and licked it away as slowly as he could make himself, Allen's heart beat rapidly against his lips and the hands that he had managed to control for so long left the comfort of his waist and drifted into Kanda's hair, pulling him down as his hips lifted from the bed to grind his pelvis into the man above him.

"Kanda…enough…I'm sticky…" He said breathily, "Stop holding back and do what you _want_, dammit."

The man above him moved the bottle out of sight, putting his weight on his lover's thighs as he sank lower, bringing his lips eagerly to Allen's. "Che, but I love hearing so say those things, Moyashi. And I love making you wait," As he spoke he wet his thumb in the honey, then moved his hand until he found his lover's erection, "It's only been two days."

Allen made a strangle sound of disagreement. "I hardly even remember what happened…" His voice trailed away into a moan because of Kanda's thumb gently smearing the honey of the head of his erection, sending shivers of excitement and pleasure running up his spine and down his legs. _"God, Kanda…_ you don't even _like_ the taste of sweet things."

"Please, just Kanda." He moved his thumb again. "I may not like sweets but I like the taste of you."

Allen didn't argue, instead he whimpered loudly.

The smaller of the two lifted himself again, beseechingly. He did not verbally ask anymore, he simply ran his hands down his lover's shoulders and across his chest, spreading his fingers out to feel more of that soft, tight muscle, even under the hand that screamed in agony at being held at that angle. It didn't matter; the warmth against his pain mattered much more than the ache in his wrist.

But then, with a hurried kiss, the chest above him was gone and he was left with nothing but a few strands of hair tickling his skin. His hands fell at once to the his lover's head; it took all of his will not pull on those amazingly soft locks when his lover's mouth closed around the top of him, sucking and caressing his sensitive flesh to remove the thin layer of honey he had placed there. Kanda mentally smiled at Allen's voiceless gasp, his sad attempted not to buck into his lover's mouth. It was perhaps one of the greatest feelings, knowing that he could make Allen forgot how to properly use words; he dropped the bottle and leaned on his left hand so he could bring his right to help him stroke his lover's length.

It was only when he heard a pained exclamation of pleasure that he decided it was time to trade in the honey for something a little slipperier.

Kanda's name was a plea on Allen's lips. It was the only word that did his yearning justice. This wasn't the same as what happened at Christmas and it wasn't the same as what they had done in Hitori's bedroom – there was less reverence in their actions, they were hungrier, but he felt more than just the fire of need between them – he felt a heat that willed him to embrace his lover, even if it hindered his actions. Yet, when he pulled Kanda into a kiss his right hand sank to his lover's thighs, played there only for a moment before moving to his phallus. After perhaps two strong movements of his hand he felt Kanda's mouth gasp against his neck, shivered at the sensation.

"Moyashi," The Japanese man hissed into his skin. "If you do much more of that I won't be hard enough to give you want you're asking for." As he spoke he moved his hands to the second bottle he had brought to bed with them, opened the lid and poured a liberal amount into his palm, wetted his fingers the best he could without looking at them. Instead he kept his eyes focused on the quivering gaze of his lover, holding those eyes with the same strength as the arm that had moved across his back. "And I _know_ you wouldn't want that…"

Allen shook his head and closed his eyes, opened his mouth to speak. Kanda didn't give him the opportunity. He leaned down and kissed him as he slipped his first finger slowly in – Allen tried to gasp but Kanda's mouth stopped him, the hand that had been teasing Kanda drifted away to his shoulder, slid up his neck and rested delicately on the side of Kanda's face. When they broke apart he renewed the kiss with that hand, pulling his lover closer as a second finger pressed into him. He did not know who controlled the kiss; he only knew that Kanda's tongue was making his mouth feel wonderful and that he wanted more of it.

Kanda was breathing hard when they pulled away, very hard; he almost could not will himself to finish with his hand, what with Allen kissing him like that. He pressed further rather hurriedly, but he did not worry about pace when Allen pulled him down again, hard, his lips no longer seeking the other's mouth but instead hoping for the delicate skin of his throat. Kanda let him have it until he found the side of his prostrate, which made the contact on his skin waver and vibrate with a sudden, high sound of pleasure.

The side of his mouth lifted in a small, nearly nonexistent smile. Sable really was right about one thing. Sometimes, Allen really did scream like a girl.

Allen wasn't sure if he felt bereft at the loss of the pressure within him or glad of it – he knew what was to come with those fingers gone. He was surprised though, that when he was finished coating himself in oil, Kanda pulled back and sat between his legs, took a firm hold of either of Allen's wrists to pull him upward, balancing him on his lap gently.

"Love…" Allen gasped when his hands were guided around Kanda's shoulders. He gripped him fiercely; looking down at his lover's flushed face worriedly. "What are you doing?"

"Che," Kanda grumbled from beneath him. "Just trust me."

Allen's face was apprehensive, but he didn't argue when Kanda moved his legs to either side of his hips, lifting Allen with careful, warm hands. He knew what was happening – knew that if they did it right this would most likely be the loudest sexual experience his life – but he wasn't about to tell Kanda that. Instead he blushed and helped Kanda lower him slowly, gently, inch by inch, onto him.

Kanda made a low, reverberating sound as his head fell forward onto his lover's shoulder. He had no leverage at that angle specifically, but it was for the best – if there had been a way for him to rock himself higher he would have done it, and the young man above him would have been worse for ware because of it. Allen leaned back into him, shifting his weight to his knees so his lover could move more freely – the movement made both of them shudder profusely; Allen felt the lips against him quiver as Kanda breathed a hissing sigh into his skin.

"Alight?" Allen whispered to him after a moment of stillness.

The Japanese man thrust his hips slightly in answer, driving a number of surprised sounds from his lover. The heat was almost unbearable, the fingers on his back bit into his skin with their nails; but it wasn't enough to keep him from moving again, this time with more purpose. He knew from the way Allen's back arched and the way his head lulled backward that he was hitting the correct place every time he moved. It wasn't going to last very long, but while it did it would be worth it.

The British boy had no way of telling Kanda that he was doing a fantastic job – his mouth refused to function for anything but whimpering; he had the sinking feeling that if Kanda kept it up he wasn't going to be able to breathe much longer. The world was going to melt around them and it would be nothing but the skin on his palms and the boiling hot wave of pleasure running through him.

Every movement of Kanda's hips made him louder, and the sound of his voice made Kanda close his lips softly over the nearest available nipple. His left hand curved around his lover's waist to steady him while his right came down to stroke his erection. Allen rocked against him with the rhythm he had established, his hands moved to Kanda's neck as he moaned pleasantly, the hand against him and Kanda's presence within him driving him closer and closer to climax with every beating of his heart. There was no way for him to say the words his mind thought to form; he was too lost in the slowly increasing pace to do much more than pant. He helped Kanda to lift him before falling to meet his lover halfway.

They repeated the motion again and again. Allen's head lulled forward as he gasped his lover's name, rolling his hips. It took only a few moments for him to come too close to release to focus on rhythm, or on actually forming Kanda's name. The hand against him gave a strong, well timed stroke that pushed him over the edge of climax, drawing his muscles like a bow against the pleasure that ran rampant through his body. He heard Kanda moan beneath him before he climaxed as well, his mouth pressed open against the skin of his shoulder. He could feel the man beneath him panting, felt his own lungs burn from lack of air and sagged around the man that held him, letting his now tired and sore back bend forward with the force of gravity.

"Ai lobfu." Kanda mumbled into Allen's hot skin, closing his eyes while his lover slid off of him and onto the mattress. He did not let his face or his hands leave Allen's body for even a moment.

His smaller companion laughed as he pulled him into a tight embrace. "I lubfu too." He mocked. When Kanda pulled away to glare at him he giggled madly before yanking the older boy back into his chest. "I think you overused my vocal chords a little…" He cleared his throat. It wasn't a lie, he definitely had a hoarser quality than he had before their activates had begun.

Kanda smirked at him, ran his lips gently across Allen's only to pull away after a few seconds of contact. "Che. It's not my fault you can't keep quiet."

"It's not like you can either."

"Have I ever once screamed your name like you just screamed mine?" There was a keenly raised eyebrow, an evil look that warned Allen that, although he was satisfied well enough for the moment, Kanda would be glad to do it again if he gave the right – or wrong – answer.

"Not… that I can recall."

"And do you know why that is Moyashi-kun?"

Allen leaned away from those still lusty eyes and into the pillows, feeling himself blush. "I don't hear much of what falls out of your mouth at that point… so…"

His glare was nearly murderous.

Allen moved his hands from his lover's shoulders – where they had ended up as he reclined, and instead put them on his chest. "It's not like I pay attention what _I_ say either! I wouldn't know that I scream your name if you didn't tell me I did! Why are you looking at me like you want to do that all over again with a belt this time? And why are you…so…close…" He didn't push back when Kanda leaned over him, blinking with heavily hooded eyes. Instead he pressed himself back with a tweaking-smile, knowing that even if he _was_ satisfied he wasn't about to turn Kanda way if he offered.

Kanda was just about to express that that was indeed what he had planned when the door opened in a rush, a sword point entering before a furious Hiroko could follow it in less than a moment later. Allen only had enough time to rip the gray blanket from beneath him and throw it around his waist before Kanda slithered between him and the fabric, turning to face his on coming mother. The British boy was far too distracted by their shared toga to hear the curse words flowing freely from the Japanese woman's mouth.

"_If,"_ She seethed at the pair of naked boys on the bed. "You so much as got that blanket sticky..." Her eyes narrowed on both of them, but Allen felt as if most of her impossible rage was directed at him. "I'll cut you into so many pieces, the Order will have to identify you with dental records."

_I've heard that threat before…_ Allen thought. _Not that it matters._ "Okaasan…"

"Che," Kanda interrupted. He glared back at her with equal intensity. "Then leave, Okaasan. Otherwise this blanket is going to get a lot stickier."

Her eyes burned with anger as she slashed her blade through the air. "What the hell are you saying?"

He did not smirk but Allen could hear a note of amusement in his voice. "Because if you stand there we're going to do that again with it around us so you can't see and if you leave we'll throw it on the floor where it won't be soiled any more than it is."

"Ka-Kanda… she doesn't look happy…"

"Shush."

She breathed for a moment, seeing the intensity of her son's eyes and the fear in Allen. She was stuck between maiming that sweet, terrified looking young man and asking him if he needed a hug after whatever had made him scream so loudly. As she watched he pulled Kanda's arm in front of him, clinging defensively to the older boy and leaning sideways to look over his shoulder. She lowered her sword.

"Whore-chan, you're washing it."

"Me?"

"Yes. Consider it mother-daughter-bonding time." She sheathed her blade, taking a step back. "And I mean today. Understand?"

Allen nodded. "Er… _wakatta…_I think." He smiled. "But… I'm not a girl." He said quietly. She almostkicked him. Instead she turned away, disappearing through the door in a wave of hair and yukata, slamming the door shut on the way out. Allen looked around Kanda's shoulder and into his face, lifting his eyebrows in question. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No." Kanda che'd at him and turned back around to face him; his hands came down on the pillows to either side of Allen's head, which made him frown a little.

"Wha-what are you doing?" He asked softly, a light blush spread across his nose and reddened his cheeks, which made the corner of Kanda's mouth turn up in a crafty smile.

"Well, if I don't do you now it means I lied to my mother."

"You sly bastard."

He chuckled before kissing Allen forcefully on the lips.

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"My God, don't they ever stop?"

Sable snorted at Hitori, almost inhaling her tea. "That's like asking if the sky is coffee brown."

He blinked at her, not understanding.

"Both answers are 'no.'"

"Ah," He nodded.

"They take breaks. But basically…" A low moan drifted down the hall, followed by a high pitched wail. "This is their hobby. If it's not akuma or Innocence, it's a roll in the hay."

"Wow…" He shook his head, "And I thought my life was boring." He put down his last three cards and grinned at her. _"Yatta!_ Tonk."

"You ass. I'll deal." She took the deck from him, a sudden thought creeping into her mind, a dark, Allen-like grin coming with it. "Would your mom kill me if I suggested…" She shuffled once, knocked the deck on the ground before splitting it again. "A game called 'strip poker?'"

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**My gosh… listening to that must have given Sable impossible metal images… poor girl… but at the same time, I want to cackle at her suggestion. Kanda's gonna kill her…**

**Yatta! Indeed. Another one done. Thoughts? Feelings? Kind of feel like the smut was… off? Yeah, me too. Mostly because I wasn't really in the mood for writing it. My brain was onto… the next chapter. Which is going to be dramatic if I can do it right :D**

**W00t! Love (or lobf) for all of ya'll. Sorry this took so long again!**


	53. Assumptions

**This chapter is actually really long. And a lot of stuff happens in it. And I wrote it in a slightly different order than I posted it. I am sorry that the poker game is a mighty sad disappointment. Truth be told, I realized when this was 5k words long that the stuff I was thinking about last chapter won't happen until next chapter. Which is… umm… sad for everyone.**

**Disclaimer of Dsmut: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I think Rhode would be less creepy.**

**WARNING: Man-on-Man, YAOI, violence. Cursing?**

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Assumptions

Allen almost didn't hear the phone ring. Almost. When he comprehended what it was he chose not to pay attention to it. He was sore. He was on Kanda's sweat slicked chest, holding him close, spent – the ringing phone wasn't going to get him out of bed, not now. Not after he'd made a mess on Kanda's stomach twice, in his mouth once, and what felt like six times on the sheets around them. Not when he hadn't been able to push himself up to get clean and he had to wait for his lover to wipe him gently with a warm, wet towel. Not when he'd only had two mouthfuls of Kanda for breakfast.

And not when his arm was throbbing again.

"Moyashi," His pillow rumbled beneath him. He felt the hand that had been slowly running back and forth through his hair slow a bit with the word, just enough to make him look up at the pair of tired, glowing blue eyes of his lover.

"Hm?"

"We should tell Komui what's going on with your Innocence."

His fingers gave a sudden twist that made him grimace. "Love, is that really your idea of pillow talk?"

The Japanese man's hand stopped mid stroke and came down the side of his face, his expression was worried sprinkled over with a dash of amusement. "No. It's what I think is important. Pillow talk would revolve around how beautiful you look when you want me to shut up and hold you in my arms for a while."

The British boy squeezed him with the arm he had around his ribs. "Alright. I'll tell him today when we call. I don't think it's serious though. At least not in the great scheme of things."

Kanda's dark eyebrows arched up his forehead in disbelief, "You couldn't fight a Noah yesterday and you don't think it's important? How dense do you think I am, Moyashi? Of course it is important; don't even try to say things like that to make me not worry."

"I'm sorry." Allen frowned at him. "When you worry about me, I get worried over you."

"_Baka,"_ Kanda glared at him, pulled his head closer with the hand on the side of his face. "I wouldn't worry if you didn't pretend all was well."

A light, half-timid knock sounded at the door, which made them both turn and wait for it to burst in without further warning. It did not, however. There was only the sound of silence around them, and in the distance, someone talking in a hurried, hushed voice to someone neither of them could hear. The phone had stopped ringing.

Kanda took a moment to sit up properly and throw his hair over his shoulders; Allen untwined himself momentarily from his lover's arms and scooted away perhaps six inches before turning his attention to the sheet they were under. It took perhaps a half second for him to decide that it didn't matter if anyone saw them shirtless in bed together so long as they didn't see anything else important. After that, he turned to Kanda and gave a curt, even nod.

"What?" The older Exorcist's voice was bitingly cold.

The door slid back a little and a half-shut Hitori eye peered in, his long dark bangs hanging down to obscure his vision from any potential sexual acts the two might have been committing. "Oi, Nii-chan," He said quietly, not opening the door any farther. "You have a phone call from some whiny guy named Komui. He said it's about some kind of corrupted Innocence and Nee-chan's General being here. Sabe's on the phone with him now."

"Nee-chan?" Allen asked, pointing at himself. The one eyebrow he could see of Hitori's lifted in a smirk of amusement.

"Better than _imoto,_right?"

Allen could only guess that that was the _little _version of sister.

"Che," Kanda cross his arms in front of his chest, glaring. "I'll be there in a moment." His voice was decidedly angrier than it had been when he had asked what the person on the other side of the door needed. When the door closed he was out of bed less than an instant later, pulling yukata on inside out and searching fruitlessly for something similar to pants to put on beneath it. Allen watched in thoughtful silence until his lover turned back to him with an expression that bespoke of much pain and suffering to come.

"Love, is something wrong?"

Kanda knew he didn't want to yell at Allen, but his words came out harsh all the same. "Didn't you see?! He wasn't wearing a shirt! What reason would my little brother have to wander the house half-clothed?" He threw Allen's pants at him, harder than he hoped to. "Come on. If Sable thinks she can come to Japan and cheat on my _best_ friend with my_little_ brother, she has something coming."

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Dawn brought with it a few snow flurries that were late in coming. Lavi watched it fall from inside, not actually seeing the flakes as they cascaded slowly towards the earth. He found himself thinking about Sable, of all people, who he had not seen or spoken to since she had left for Japan as an awkward third wheel with Allen and Kanda. He wondered what she would do when he told her that Lable was a thing of the past, that he was with the man she called _Uncle_, and that he doubted that any number of curse words, beatings, or random kisses would get him to change his mind.

In fact, the only thing that he could think of as a valid argument was the fact that she had boobs. And in the long run, boobs weren't worth it. Not to his heart at least.

A few bits of snow were sticking to the windowpane, refusing to melt away on the cold glass. They were pretty with the gold light shining on them from beneath the clouds, though he kind of wished the snow would lie flat; when it gathered in the corners more than the middle it made the window look almost round, but with a square frame. The pattern reminded him of some kind of ancient architecture that he had no reason to think about when he could be contemplating more important, more pressing matters.

Like what he was going to do if Lenalee got up before Tyki showed.

"Oh well," He sighed, rolling away from the window to face the wall and pulling the covers closer. "Maybe I _will_ be an Exorcist today after all."

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Hitori hurried back to the living room, trying to be as stealthy as he could. Part of him wished that Sable had indeed picked her own room – it would have made being discovered far less likely. He had been played out of his slippers and his shirt and his belt but he still had a hair tie, socks, pants, and undergarment to keep him going. And it wasn't like Sable hadn't lost any clothes.

When he came in she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, shuffling while she talked on the phone, jacket, shoes, socks, and hat cast aside. And she knew, if he won the next hand, she be losing more apparel than she ever had in her life. She wasn't bothered by it though. She wasn't going to feel awkward about a little nudity, not when it had been her suggestion, and the more naked she got the less Hitori seemed capable of concentrating, which was so very straight of him.

Maybe she would lose the next hand and let him see her shirtless. With a mother like Hiroko, she'd be willing to bet he didn't even know what a bra was.

Secretly she hoped to get him completely naked. Not because it would humiliate him and she was sadistic (well, that was part of it), but because she could use anything she saw as a reference. Kanda was basically just a taller, slight more muscled version and Lenalee's artwork could use more detail in that department last Sable had seen. She had a serious habit of making Kanda look as skinny as Allen was, which was not the case – the same as how she drew Lavi as being a good half foot shorter than the Japanese Exorcist whenever he made a sudden cameo. Artistic license did not stretch quite that far in Sable's brain.

Her mind was on such things as this when the phone – which she had taken from Hitori when he volunteered to go retrieve his brother – made a sound that indicated the man on the other line had noticed that she wasn't listening.

"Sorry Komui, I'm kind of thinking of other things." She said with a sigh. "You'll just have to tell Kanda when he gets off of Allen."

There was a silence so thick she thought she could have cut it with a knife.

"Oi," Hito said quietly from across from her. She hadn't even known was there nor could she recall when he had gotten back. "Deal again."

When he said it, the corner of her mouth turned up in a maniacal grin. Wordlessly she shuffled one last time before dealing them each five cards. She picked up her hand and smiled; Hitori picked up his and made a face that eerily like death-glare Kanda. That meant he had at least a pair. Which was fine. She had four of a kind. By the time he asked for another card there were footsteps coming hurriedly down the hall – too many to be a single person walking. He didn't really care though – he was too busy focusing on building a full house based around three sevens.

"Love! I seriously don't think they're—"

"I don't give a damn what you _think._ If that whore even breathed on him…"

"Sable isn't like that; she wouldn't do that to Lavi – or Hitori."

"Che." With that simple syllable Allen Walker and Kanda Yuu barged into the living room. Kanda was wearing his pink yukata over a pair of Order issue pants, Mugen slung over his left shoulder, an obi knotted hurriedly at his hip. Allen was slightly more dressed looking, though his shirt was buttoned crooked and his hair was more or less completely disheveled. Sable mentally noted that he might do well with a trim. The two were just in time to see Hitori lay down his hand and point vehemently at the girl he was playing against.

"Full house. Show me!"

The blonde grumbled for a moment before putting down her cards. "Four of a kind. Blegh."

"I win!" He grinned, a single thought drifting from the back of his mind to the front and back again, a thought that made Sable want to laugh and hit him at the same time: _if you even grace an opai…_

"You _whore_…" The word was a low, dangerous curse on Kanda's lips. The sound of Mugen sliding easily from its sheath made the girl look up at him with curious little frown on her lips.

"Hm? Oh, Komui's on the phone for you." She said casually, offering up the receiver. Komui said some that she couldn't quite hear and Kanda looked down at her with the air of a man preparing to do something very violent. But she wasn't too worried; Allen was hanging off of his arm and Hito was scratching his head, preparing to ask a question as to _why_ Yuu suddenly agreed with his mother's evaluation of his friend. "He sounds worried."

"_You_ _fucking bitch!_" He swung his blade when the hand that wasn't holding the phone made its way to the buttons of her collar and began to slowly but surely undo them. What the hell was she thinking?! This_girl_ could not betray his friend with his brother and not expect death as the result! She was stupid if she didn't. And to have enough arrogance to continue undressing when he and Allen found them – it was too much, it was too far, it was more than enough. He was going to hack her limb from limb and burn her still breathing body for doing something like that.

"Love!" Allen's right hand caught his wrist half way to her face – or where her face had been. Hitori's back was there now, his arms wrapped around the stunned girl who was still blinking up at him with the phone extended, not yet understanding. "At least _look_ at what's going on! It's just a friendly game of strip poker!"

"_Friendly?!"_

"Yes! Friendly! Like I've played on the train with _lots_ of men! Sable wouldn't do that to Lavi!"

Hitori and Sable both looked at him, his arms never leaving her back, her hand never falling to her side. "Do what?" The said together. Allen continued to hold Mugen up as he spoke, Kanda did not seem to mind.

"Betray him. When Kanda saw that Hito was shirtless he assumed that he wasn't shirtless because of innocent reasons. He thought that you had gone back on what you and Lavi have with his younger brother. But that's not what's going on, is it?"

She blinked at him, trying to remember what he was referring to. After a moment her face brighten, memories coming back. "Oh! You mean what happened in Sweden?" When he nodded she snickered. The snickers soon turned into a full out laugh that made her arm sink to her side, Hito let go to look at her expression better. "You mean… Lable… oh _God_ we never told you guys…" She wheezed, holding her stomach for a moment until she had regained her composure. "We weren't, aren't, and never will be together. We made up the story to keep you from murdering him."

Mugen shook a little as Kanda almost let his arm down. "Then why was he in your room?"

She giggled again, this time grinning. "Because you guys are too damn noisy and he couldn't sleep with all the moaning and screaming."

Allen looked up at his lover and Kanda's arm gradually came down so that his blade was pointed at the ground. "It worked, didn't it Love? You were so disgusted that you left him breathing."

"But that doesn't explain why you're playing _strip_ poker with my brother."

"Oh, that's simple," She waved the phone at him, having almost forgotten that it was there. "The SAUK club needs a naked reference."

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Lavi sighed at the note he had written, hating himself for making it. It was impeccably cute, impossibly cheesy, and astoundingly odd, but none of that mattered when he looked down at the incriminating signature and the tiny, little words _I love you._

_Dear Ty-chan,_  
_I'm sorry that I wasn't here when you showed up; Lenalee, Crow-chan and I had to head up to  
shee the flowers on the hill while it was still snowing. If yhou still have a headache, try warm  
milk instead of water XD. Not to worry though. I'll be back shoon, and then I can help with that.  
I was actually hoping that you'd be here before Lenalee got up – but I guess things happen. I  
miss you, even though it hasn't even been a day._

_Anyways, I'm rambling. Stick around after you read this. I promishe to be fine._

_I love you,  
Lavi:D_

He had placed a darling picture of himself, Lenalee, and Crowley next to the first line, looking friendly, which was cute and innocent like none of the other pictures. On the second and third lines there was a distinct illustration of Lavi holding Tyki by the hair, Tyki's face lost in shadows between the younger man's thighs. That still made him giggle. The fourth line was punctuated by an oversized chibi Lavi head, tears streaming down the side of his face, headband tilted slightly, lips pouting, hands folded beneath his chin like a cushion, dark shading all around to show his loneliness. There was a little, Tyki shaped plushie tucked under his left elbow, just so that the head and arms were insight of the reader. He wished he had colored pencils. It would have been perfect.

"Lavi, how much longer are you going to be?" Lenalee asked from behind him. He clutched the note to his chest and turned to look at her, horror widening his eye and stopping his voice in his throat.

"Gah!—Er…I was hoping to add just one more little thing…" He said, leaning back against the desk he had been using. He had a habit of standing while he added the little pictures in the margins, which meant he leaned backward over the top of the desk when someone caught him at it. He prayed she hadn't seen the little picture that made him want to squee. "It will only take a minute…"

Her lavender-gray eyes narrowed dangerously and she flipped one of her pigtails over her shoulder, leaning closer. "You've gone through twelve pieces of my paper, broken two pencils, and you're _still_ not done? What more can you need to put on there? Pictures?"

It was a question. Not an accusation. He let out a slow, shaking breath out as he leaned forward; pulling the less-than-crumpled paper away from his chest he smoothed it against his arm. "Just one. I promise I'll make it fast."

"Well…" She stood up a little straighter, scratched her lip for a moment. "Can I see when you're done?"

She was very surprised when a burning blush spread across his face as if he were very, very embarrassed. "No. Forget it. Here's your pencil." He offered her the utensil, growing pinker and pinker by the moment. What on earth would he do if she saw? First he'd watch her face light up, then he'd watch her blush at him, then she'd hit him with something. Or kick him. And tell him his pictures were inappropriate. But she didn't take what he offered; instead she narrowed her eyes at him again.

"Lavi. Let me see the letter."

"No." He found himself leaning back again, even though she wasn't leaning forward.

"Lavi, I'm not kidding. Let me see." Now she was leaning forward, very close; he put his right arm back on the desk and pulled the paper back to his heart.

He shook his head, not willing to let her know. "It's personal, Lenalee. You can't look at it if I say you can't."

He gasped when her right hand came down on his shoulder. "What could you possibly say in there that's so important to keep from me? Show me what it is." He made to scoot away from her but she planted a booted foot between his knees, making the act impossible without tripping. She could see the indecision in his face. _"Now."_

It took all of Lavi's will not to cry when she was making that impossibly scary face at him. "Why?! Why do you want to read it?!"

"You wouldn't care if you didn't have something to hide."

"Something to hide like what?"

He thought that she might have growled at him when her left hand came up to take a firm hold of the top of the paper. He took a step back that he didn't actually have room to make and slid the desk a good six inches, provoking a loud, teeth jarring shriek from the floor.

"I won't know until you _let me see!"_ She pulled.

Truth be told, Lenalee was worried that he might have said something to his lover about Innocence or where it might be located. She wouldn't openly accuse Lavi of making such an obviously stupid mistake, but she would assume he'd made it. And if he had, she'd yell at him for it.

And his blatant refusal to let her see made her wonder if maybe, just maybe, he had done it and knew he was being stupid. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so fast to offer back her pencil.

"No! Lenalee! You're going to rip it!" Lavi protested, stepping back again as she stepped forward.

"I won't rip it if you let go of it."

"What's gotten into you? What do you care what I say to Ty-chan?" The hand she still had on his shoulder fell to his wrist, and pushed, she stepped forward at the same time, pulled with the opposing hand. His right arm twisted at an odd angle and slid behind him, forcing him to lose his balance and fall. He stepped sideways, intent on rolling away rather than bashing his head and jamming his wrist on the oaken furniture.

Sadly, when he moved to cross his left leg in front of his right his foot caught on Lenalee's forgotten calf, which made saving himself impossible. Instinctually he took one more attempted step back which forced the desk back again, this time farther than his body actually moved.

Lenalee didn't even have time to comprehend that Lavi was falling before he hit the floor. And when he got there, he made a distinctly unpleasant sound; the note tumbled from his left hand completely forgotten.

"Oh, Lavi, I'm sorry," She said as soon as she had recovered. She had never imagined that the apprentice Bookman would go that far to avoid her preying eyes. He looked up at her almost distantly, right arm tucked beneath him, face less than normal colored, blinking up as if he couldn't breathe. "You're not hurt are you? If you're hurt because I wanted to read your letter…"

He gave her an odd, grimacing smile before he rolled onto his left side, and sat up, cringed more when he gently pulled his right hand around to his left. "Oh it's fine. I think you only broke it."

"What?!" She was kneeling beside him in less than a second, timidly reaching out to touch his wrist.

He hissed and pulled back, glaring. "What are you thinking?! I heard it snap when I landed on it!" He took in a shaking breath, seeing the concern in her eyes, the fear, the guilt. It was her way, in the end, to blame herself for whatever went wrong. He made his face soften. "Sorry. I shouldn't yell at you."

She shook her head. "No, it's ok," She tried to smile even though she felt oddly like crying. "I shouldn't have been so persistent. Is it your wrist? Or your hand?"

He gently pushed his jacket sleeve away so she could see the already swelling line just bellow his hand. The flesh was bruised though not yet purpled, and when he tried to make a fist only pointer and thumb managed to curl even slightly. He frowned at it, more disappointed in its uselessness than in the pain it caused to try and move it. He wouldn't be able to hook his fingers around his hammer's handle like that.

Or run his fingers through that soft dark hair.

"Shit." He said softly. "Why couldn't it have been the left one?"

Lenalee tried to laugh at him. "Because you were holding your note to your heart."

He grumbled at her. "I was just trying to keep you from seeing what I already drew." She didn't respond, instead she turned to the bed and pulled his suitcase from under it, hoping to find something to bind his arm with. "Being I'm not sure what you'd think of… seeing a little chibi-style me… like that." He watched her open his suitcase and pull out one of his few white buttoning shirts, the kind that he seldom wore for fear of getting them dirty.

"Like what?" She asked before tearing it in half. She didn't even bat an eyelash. "What would be so horrible that you don't want me to see it? You saw what Sable has in her room, things like that don't bother me."

He looked away while she used the first half to cushion his fingers and stabilize his wrist gently. "When a man really loves a man…" He said softly. When she tired a knot in his once-shirt he knew not to continue that way. "Fine just look at it. It's not like I can draw the last thing anyways." As he said it she motioned for him to lean forward, the other half of his shirt folded into something of a crooked looking triangle, the corners in her hands to go around his neck and shoulder. "And I'm sure you've seen worse."

"I'm sure I've drawn worse," She smiled, her face only inches from his as he hands worked to keep the fabric even. "So don't worry."

The redhead smiled back, but his face fell a moment latter when the door burst in dramatically. A disheveled looking Crowley stood in the threshold, vampire teeth bared, a salad fork in one hand, a bread knife in the other, white strip of hair standing straight up by his forehead. The two younger Exorcists turned in disbelief and fear, trying to imagine what on Earth would drive the normally quiet Crowley to do something so loud and violent.

He looked at the two of them, leaning together, Lenalee's hands intertwined behind Lavi's shoulders. He knew suddenly that he had made a mistake. The sound was not an akuma; it was young love, blooming in the light winter snow. "I-I'm sorry!" He stammered, stepping back. "S-sorry!" He repeated, turning to run back down the hall he had come from. Someone said his name, but he wasn't going to do anymore than he already had.

"Crow-chan!" Lavi called, attempted to rise. Lenalee's hand on his shoulder stopped him though. He looked at her with a wide, uncertain gaze and she shook her head with a delicate smile.

"You stay here and be sure that your sling is good for now. I'll get Crowley to calm down and then take you to the nearest physician." She said sternly.

Just as he started to nod another voice interrupted, this one from the wall behind Lavi. "Or…" Lenalee watched the body of the Noah of Pleasure slide through the wall as if it weren't even there. "I can take him."

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"What?"

"That's no way to greet your superior."

"Oh. Right. What the hell do you want?"

"And after all of the nice things that Sable said about you and Allen…"

"Get to the point. If it's a mission tell me."

"Yes, yes, always ready to go, aren't you?" Komui cleared his throat before continuing in a more serious tone. "The corrupted Innocence that you recovered in Sweden has an accommodator." Kanda almost responded to that, but he wasn't sure how to, so he waited for Komui to continue. "But equipping it its current state is suicide – or worse. So I wanted to ask you, how was it that you defeated the machine that contained it?"

Kanda was quiet for a moment, remembering that he had been impaled by a dragon-like claw – he hadn't had anything to do with that things destruction. "Lavi did it. Ask him."

"Oh! That's right! I just found the report."

"Che."

"Secondly, General Cross seems to be wandering around in Japan somewhere, so if you see him, drag him home with you."

"Hm."

"That's all."

"In that case, I should tell you about Moyashi's Innocence."

There was silence from Komui's end of the line for a moment. "What about it? Has hunting done anything?"

Kanda was very glad that Allen wasn't in the room at that moment. After the misunderstanding in the living room Allen had gone to find Hiroko and wash the old blanket that they had soiled, Sable had gone on what she claimed to be a walk and Hitori had closed himself in his room with a huff, mostly because he wasn't sure about being labeled as a naked reference. He seemed very embarrassed by the whole ordeal. Now it was just Kanda and the phone, and he could say everything that needed to be said without worrying his Moyashi.

"He fell ill when we first got here. His fever was so high we had to pack him in snow." He heard Komui make a short sound of shock. "We were attacked by a Noah yesterday and he recovered enough to fight, but his arm would not respond when he tried to use it."

"A Noah!"

"Yes. No one was killed and there was no serious damage, but I have not seen him evocate since." He took a deep breath before he said the words that had been eating at him for a long, long time. "It might be best if you took him out of the field for a while."

"Ka-Kanda?" Komui's voice was completely shaken, but there was a shred of a smile in it. "Are you… worried?"

"Do you expect me to say that I'm not?"

The Chinese man sighed heavily, giving the distinct impression that he had dropped his head into his hands. "Keep a close eye on him. I don't want to pull him back unless it's absolutely necessary. He believes, after all, that he has to hunt them. He should until he is satisfied."

Kanda nodded even though there was no point in it. "I will call if anything else happens with it."

"Ah, one more thing. Did the Noah happen to realize that you were related to anyone in that household?"

Kanda fell quiet. "Yes. He knows at least everything that Hitori knows."

Komui licked his lips and pressed the receiver tighter to his ear. "That changes things. You need to get you and your family back to the tower as fast as you can. Allen's hunting takes second priority."

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"Is that a shirt on your arm?" Tyki asked when they had passed into the street. It had taken the better part of a half an hour to convince Lenalee to let them go, and to hold Lavi's Innocence while he was gone. Tyki had watched him hand it to the girl – indifferent. He understood why the boy would leave it behind, but it kind of hurt to think about it.

"Yeah. Lenalee scared me a little and I fell. The only thing we had to bind it was the stuff in my suitcase. One of my last good dress shirts…"

The Noah put his arm gently around his shoulders and pulled Lavi's uninjured left side into his right, bending enough so he could speak to the ear that turned to him in question. "Good thing she didn't find your rope." Gently he let his lips touch that sensitive skin, just enough to warm it. "She might have cut it up and made it useless."

"Ty-chan," Lavi stopped walking, turned instead to face the man who still had a hand on his shoulder. They were taking backstreets to get to the nearest doctor, being main streets were a bad idea for a wounded Exorcist without his Innocence. There was no one near them. Not a soul for at least two streets in either direction. "I missed you."

The older man's face broke into a weak smile. "I've spent every moment we were apart trying to figure a way to be sure you never miss me again, Lavi." He kissed him lightly before the boy could say something sarcastic or argumentative. "And the only thing I could think of was to never leave you again."

"I'd like to pee on my own sometimes, if that's not too bothersome."

"I meant leaving you to go back to the Ark."

"What are you saying?" Lavi questioned. "Didn't I tell you that coming to the Order is suicide?"

Tyki shook his head before pulling him closer. "You don't understand. If I don't go with you, I don't have long to live."

"What?" Lavi was unaware that the fingers of his left hand tightened on the fabric of Tyki's jacket. He could feel tears burning behind his eyes.

"I can't stand the thought of killing people – killing Exorcists – when I know that you don't want me to. You're one of them. You'll know those I kill. I might even be told to kill your friends. I won't do that to you." He touched the side of his face with the hand that wasn't occupied with his shoulder. It made him want to cry when Lavi leaned into the touch. "I would rather go back to the Order with you today than I would go kill tonight with Rhode."

Lavi used his unharmed arm to pull the Noah into an embrace, smashing his tearstained face on the man's jacket. "They'll kill you, Ty-chan, I know they will."

"I have to take that chance."

"Why?" Tyki rocked on his feet when his lover pulled him yet closer. "Why can't you just tell the Earl and all of the other Noahs that you're done, you give up, and it's not your war? Why do you have to basically commit suicide to be with me?"

To his surprise, Tyki found himself laughing. "We are his sacrifices; it is only fitting that escape would mean death."

"Don't say things like that, Ty-chan."

"Why not, Lavi? It's the truth."

"Because I don't want to imagine losing you!" Lavi was surprised at the anger in his voice, the force he used to hold them together. "I don't want to imagine knowing you're not there, not feeling you, not crying because of you. I don't want to think about what I would do without…without…" He couldn't go on. Tyki could guess that saying it made him imagine it all. He simply closed his mouth and shut his eye; Tyki wrapped his arms around him and held him tighter.

Quietly the Noah shushed him, swaying back and forth on his feet as his hand ran soothingly through Lavi's hair. "I swear to you Lavi, if you take me with you, I will do everything I can not to hurt a soul. If the Order would kill a man offering himself up defenselessly so be it, it does nothing but show the depth of their character."

"Ty…chan—"

"No more tears,_amante_." Tyki cooed, pushing him back to look at his face. "Never." But the gaze that looked at him was not focused and the hand that was closed around his jacket slowly went slack. A deep frown came over the Noah's features as Lavi's legs gave out, his mouth moving without forming words at first, his blinking eye trying to draw him in to focus but failing at every attempt. "Lavi?" He shook him with a tight hand on his shoulder. "Lavi?!"

He watched that loving green eye become sightless as the boy voicelessly whispered his name one more time. The body against his was completely limp, Lavi's head fell back and his mouth stayed open, as if he were unconscious.

"_Lavi!"_

When his scream had died away, a soft, child-like voice spoke ever so sweetly to him from the end of the street before him. "Don't worry Uncle Tyki. He's only dreaming."

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**Sorry to leave you hanging… I didn't actually get to the emo part either. Aw well. I guess it happens :(**

**LOVE FOR YOU ALL! More soon!!**

**Also, Tyki uses contractions here because he's not polite-to-the-extreme-black-Tyki. He's still-polite-yet-slightly-less-than-black-Tyki. If that makes sense at all.**


	54. Freedom

**Sorry this chapter is really fast. If I were writing a novel, I would have made this take more time Also, I stole PART of how this SPOILER plays out from the anime/manga, but they made it take DAYS longer.**

**Disclaimer of Domthing: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… there would never be a filler.**

**WARNING: Light shounen-ai, that's boyxboy. And SPOILERS!!**

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Freedom

Allen looked at the wash basin with a sigh, trying to understand how this simple tub of water was going to get anything off his very old, very sticky blanket. He had the sheets also, all of it piled in his hands, most of the weight on his right arm. And, if his eyes did not deceive him, the water in that tub was going to do nothing but make the old blanket wet _and _sticky.

Hiroko kicked another small log into the fire and waved her hand over the steam that roiled out of the large metal pot, satisfied. With some lye, a dash of dry flowers for scent, and a good twenty minutes of mixing _anything_ could get clean in there. Or die.

"Oi, whore-chan, don't fall asleep on your feet."

"It's Allen." He mumbled, opening his eyes a little more to look at her. Why was he so tired? How could he even think about falling asleep while looking at that huge vat of boiling water?

"I have to think too hard to say _Allen_ right, so you get Whore. In they go…" They were standing with her on his left at the bottom of a large hill under the cover of an odd, un-walled structure that supposedly kept the washers dry and kept the rest of the house mold-free; Allen suspected that it was all an excuse to make people tromp through the iced over snow. He was too distracted by the chill wind that blew around them to care that Hiroko was reaching over to drop the blankets in for him.

"I've been meaning to ask you," He said when the sheets and blanket were sinking slowly into the water. Hiroko sprinkled soap on the top of the water and began mixing as if he weren't talking at all. "Kanda seems to harbor a lot of dislike for his father. He tells me I shouldn't worry about it but I still do." Hiroko's eyes flicked momentarily to his face before flicking away again, her fingers closed more tightly on the stick she used to stir.

"So he hasn't told you?"

"Told me what?"

"About the mark on his chest."

Allen nodded slightly, just enough for it to be considered a real nod. "So his father did it? That explains a lot." As he spoke he moved his left hand up to his eye, his fingers shook in protest but the made their way to the mark of his curse all the same. "We have more in common than I knew."

"Is that a curse mark on your left eye?"

"Yes. My adoptive father gave it to me when I turned him into an akuma."

"You killed him afterward, right?"

Allen frowned at her. "Yes."

"Good. If you hadn't it would be worse."

He glanced away from her, feeling awkward. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done, but he wasn't specifically proud of it either. And there was something in her voice, something sturdy that made him feel at ease with what had happened. It was hard to explain but, somehow he felt as if he could tell her how he felt about akuma – what drove him to be an Exorcist – without worrying about her thinking he was crazy. She didn't say nice things very often, but when she said cold things they made her warmer.

A comfortable silence settled between them. After a moment Hiroko stopped paying attention the blanket long enough to look at him seriously, to study the distant look in his eyes. When she spoke she tried to remind herself that he would not understand her form of love unless she got rid of a few cuss words. "He – Yuu I mean – doesn't tell people about his mark unless he has to – being he didn't want it. He also doesn't want people to worry. Every petal that falls from that lotus is a fraction of his life; a fact that used to eat away at him when he was smaller." She continued when he looked at her confusedly. "I don't know if that thing on your face works the same way or not, but you seem to deal with it better than he does most of the time."

Allen blinked for a moment. What lotus? His life? Kanda's curse didn't just save him, it also killed him? Why hadn't he said anything? Why had he offered to heal his wounds when they had been found by Rhode on the train? "You mean… the flower in his room…"

Hiroko nodded.

She watched him turn away toward the house without another word. He didn't move though, he simply stood there, looking out toward the trees with eyes that she could not see. "Okaasan," He said steadily, moving so that his left hand was in front of his body, trembling. "I need you to run back to the house and get Kanda and Sable."

"Che! If you need to talk to your man-toy you can get him yourself, Whore-chan."

He grimaced in pain when his arm finally activated – and it looked wrong when it did. The red skin that usually turned to gray metal stayed for the most part, his fingernails protruded crookedly from the tips of his inhuman looking fingers. When he spoke even he could hear the scream clawing at the inside of his throat. "No. I need you to go because I've never seen an akuma like that before." Allen moved as fast as his tired feet would carry him to stand in front of the Japanese woman, holding his imperfect anti-akuma weapon in front of his torso, watching. Behind the trees he could see the soul of an akuma, writhing in pain a terror, crying. It wrenched at his heart to see something so sad and grotesque, and it made his arm shiver with yearning.

"Che! What the hell? _You_ run to the house and get help, useless pansy." She brandished a sword over his shoulder that he didn't even hear her draw. "It's not like you can do anything with that messed up arm of yours – unless you want to bleed with it."

He swallowed hard, flexed his fingers painfully into a fist before releasing them again. "I _can_ try." He said steadily. "And I can't let you kill it. Even if you managed to… somehow…the soul within would be destroyed with the akuma. I can't let that happen." He was painfully aware of how his arm shook as he lifted it toward the trees, as well as the pain that danced up into his shoulder and down his back. "I can't…"

A tree tumbled to the ground not too far in the distance and an eyeless, almost masked looking face emerged from behind it, the akuma it belonged to was nearly the size of the average human being. It turned as if to look at Allen and Hiroko, it's odd, gray-red face splitting with a toothy grin.

"White hair and a cursed left eye, long black hair and a sword; Noah-sama described you both so well." His voice was like four voices echoed over each other, his foot steps like heavy rocks falling to the Earth. "Now be a good pair of Exorcists," He smiled wider, drew from his side a length of purple thread which solidified like metal in his grasp. "And die slowly."

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Tyki felt his heart stop in his chest at her voice. Had she heard? And if she had, what did she think? He swallowed with a dry throat and pulled the unconscious apprentice up to lean against him, good arm draped around his shoulders to help balance. With that finished he let a mask of a smile split his features and forced himself to sink back into a slightly darker part of his persona, the part that would not mind fear in the eyes of the boy in his arms.

"Rhode, how nice of you to interrupt my game this morning, did you want to see how things were progressing?" His voice was perfectly friendly – it was the kind of voice he might have used on Uri no too long ago, mildly condescending, flowing, with slightly more than a hair of love and arrogance. It sounded like a lie to his ears.

"I was bored, mostly." The young girl explained as she came closer. Her feet made little clinking sounds on the cobblestones as she walked into the light, her arms folded up behind her head, a small smile playing on her overly wide lips. "I kind of wanted to see what was keeping us from having fun, too."

"Ah," He tried to grin. "The game you started," He laid his face gently on the top of Lavi's head, his expressing changing to one of mock-sorrow. "As you can see, my heart has been tangled with that of this young Exorcist, and the only way for me to survive is to have him take me to be with the people who hate me most." She smiled at his sarcasm. "Or he can stop working for the Order – which seems logical being he no longer has his Innocence."

She laughed, finally standing just in front of the two of them, looking at the face of the Bookman-to-be who seemed to have fallen into her Uncle's plot so well. "He's kind of cute."

Tyki raised an eyebrow. "I wouldn't have picked him if he wasn't."

Rhode reached out and touched Lavi's wounded arm, softly running her fingers over his exposed knuckles. Tyki tried not to clench his jaw at the contact. "You're really convincing, by the way, with the way you hug him and everything. And how you screamed his named when I made him fall," She giggled a little before savagely closing her hand on the boy's broke wrist, looking up at the man who shared her birthright. "It was so perfect, like a real lover calling out the name that means most to him. I almost believed you."

Tyki gently put his palm on her hand, pushing it away. She blinked at him in silent confusion. "If he wakes with more bruises than he fell asleep with he may suspect something."

She let her hand fall away, but frowned at him all the same. "But Tyki, he's lost in my world right now. When he wakes up he'll know you never loved him."

"_What?"_ There was far more fear in his voice than there should have been.

"His greatest fear, besides _losing_ you," She said indifferently. "Can only be having you betray him. So that's what he's dreaming about. Though that's all the details I know."

There was nothing to be done for the tightness in Tyki's throat, or the sudden shiver that straightened his spine. "Stop it Rhode, or you will ruin the game we have been playing so well."

"Aww," She pouted. "But I already won! I destroyed the guy's Innocence this morning! Unless you got his sooner." She did little pivot on her toes to show her glee. "There's no point in playing anymore! Oh! Oh! I know! Let's kill this one and then go looking for more! You said we'd have fun today…"

He stood as still as stone, watching her twirl, thinking of the things that had to be going through Lavi's mind. What could he do? What could he _not_ do? Killing Lavi wasn't an option – that much was obvious – so what else was there? How could he save them both without openly attacking another of the Noah clan?

**Break him, Ty-chan.** He heard his darkest inner voice whisper. **Because I love him.**

"Kill him? What a waste that would be!" Tyki rolled his eyes expertly. He pulled Lavi's hips in front of his own and sidled around behind him, rested the side of his face on the corner of his neck, breathing in his warm scent and feeling the too-fast heartbeat against his lips. He used his free hand to caress his beautiful red hair. "I wouldn't be able to break him if I killed him."

Rhode lifted an eyebrow as she came to a halt, blinking at him in question. "You want to keep him?"

He nodded. "Out here, if I can. Where he can go about his Innocence-less Exorcist's duties in sorrow, with me here, wearing down his mind with my touch."

"But Uncle Tyki, don't you think that's kinda unfair?" She pouted at him, folding her arms up behind her again.

"Unfair?"

"Mmhmm! Shouldn't everyone get to play with your toy?"

"What…?"

She shrugged. "I mean, if he's out here – already without his Innocence – there's no point in leaving him here. Bring 'im back to the mansion! We can all have fun with him then!" She clapped her hands excitedly, her odd eyes beginning to sparkle with excitement. "And he's the Bookman's underling isn't he? We could make him tell us so much! And you know I can get Millennie to let him stay – being I'm the favorite."

"Rhode…"

"Aw, don't be a hog!" She leaned toward him, still holding her small hands together in glee. "Share! Who do you love more, yourself or your family?"

Tyki felt his heart stop for a second time, his mind stuck between white and black and feeling. He did not move as he fought himself over it, over _him_, over the most important person in the world. He knew that his past self, the one that did not love Lavi, would have agreed wholeheartedly, might have been a bit sad about losing his treasure but still been alright with it. His new mind did not want to agree. He wanted to demand that Rhode leave them alone, stop her game, and never speak to him again – which would be totally unacceptable.

He had no choice. To keep Lavi to himself would almost guarantee his death. And, if it was found that he still possessed his Innocence, make Tyki's betrayal something that could not be argued against.

"That is a _splendid_ idea Rhode." He chimed, smiling, tasting bile in the back of his throat. "Why had I not thought of that?"

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"Hito-to."

"Get the fuck away; I'm not talking to you."

Kanda growled low in his throat. "Hito…"

"Don't _Hito_ me, I'm not talking to you. I don't care."

The older Japanese man turned and leaned his head against the sliding door, a deep sigh moving his shoulders. He wasn't good at this. He wasn't cut out for it. He was a shitty big brother and he knew it. First he had called his brother's friend a whore, then he had talked on the phone for a goodly amount of time without speaking to him, and then – when he had at last gone to tell him that they had to leave Japan immediately, he had made the biggest, stupidest mistake of his life.

He had, circumlocutiously, called his brother weak.

'_We all have to leave,'_ He had said, leaning in the door. _'Because if something happens to me the Earl will come looking for you to make me into an akuma.'_

'_Do you really think I'd be that stupid?'_

'_No, but I think you'd do it anyway.'_

And like hell he was going to apologize for something like that.

"Listen to me, if you won't speak to me that's fine, but don't speak to me while you pack your things."

He heard something thump and something else scrape. What the hell was he doing? Putting furniture in front of the door? That was ridiculous, the door _slid_, it didn't swing open. "Leave me alone. That's how you and Okaasan want me anyways."

"What?" Kanda looked at the door with an accusing expression.

"Oh, like you haven't noticed. I'm not allowed to make normal friends, am I? I'm not allowed to play a _friendly_ game of poker, am I? I'm not allowed to mope in my own room for more than ten minutes without you telling me that I'm not mentally strong enough to let you die if you die. Not to mention that I can't possibly know the meaning of fuck, shit, bastard, whore, slut, bitch, cunt, wanker, bugger, cock, or any other words you find unfit for my vocabulary." There was the distinctive sound of something hitting something else, though Kanda couldn't say what it was.

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm Hitori and are therefore _hitori_ – and boring and childish."

"Hito…"

"See? That's the boring part."

"Open the door. I don't care what you're doing in there – and don't tell him it's your room and you aren't talking to me. Open the door."

After a whole thirty seconds of pretending that he could ignore the demand, Hitori slid the door open and poked his face into the hall. "What?" He didn't have time to dodge when a hand reached in and took him by the hair to drag him out of his room. He screamed in protest until his older sibling pushed him against the wall, released him, and took him forcefully by the shoulders before yanking him into an embrace.

"Oh my God you're hugging me."

"Che."

Hito's mouth refused to stop. _"Why_ are you hugging me? _Why_ are you _continuing_ to hug me? Yuu-nii, are you feeling alright?"

"Listen to me, Hito." Kanda said darkly, refusing to let the smaller boy go. "Let's pretend that nothing happened to me, that I was fine, but that _you_ were killed by an akuma." He felt Hito stiffen in his arms, even more than he had been before. "Do you think I'd be able to say no to the Earl, even knowing what I know?"

Hitori could not recall his brother ever saying something like that to anyone. Ever. He was the invincible Yuu-sama – he had no weakness, no love, no emotions, no heart. And if he did, he sure wasn't going to tell his annoying, feminine younger brother about it. "Who are you and what have you done with my brother?"

Kanda pushed him back roughly, but still held his shoulders tightly in his hands. "You get it, don't you?"

"Yeah…" Hitori sighed. "You're sorry; you didn't mean it, blah, blah, blah…"

Kanda narrowed his eyes at him before letting go. "Now pack."

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Hiroko had never seen something move so fast in all her life – but maybe Yuu. A blade of purple light flashed passed her head, colliding with the basin behind her. She turned at the sound of shrieking metal to see the thread-like material protruding from the side of her laundry basin, having shot through the first wall and into the one on the other side. As she watched the strange purple thread turned to metal, perfectly circular, perfectly solid, as if it had always been that way.

It had ruined her most expensive household tool.

"Hiro—"

"What the fuck you demonic prick!" She pushed the white haired boy out of her way, sending him sprawling in the snow. "That's my only basin! You just put a fucking _hole_ in my basin! How the shit am I supposed to wash blankets when the water runs out onto the ground? You thoughtless bastard!" Allen watched from his place on the snow with blurring eyes as she pulled a sword from her side, brandishing it dangerously at the still approaching akuma. "I would cut the price from your ugly hide if you weren't useless!"

"Useless? Who are you calling useless? Aren't you Exorcist who failed at killing Noah-sama?"

"Che! Don't make me laugh. If I were an Exorcist your ass would be little hunks of metal and plumes of smoke by now."

"Black hair, sword…"

"That's my _son_ you idiot. He's about twelve times prettier than me. I'm insulted that you'd find me _that_ feminine." She held her sword left handed before her, put her right palm on her second blade's pommel. "In fact, I'm pretty damn sure I should cut you some eye sockets in that hideous face of yours – might help with the confusion."

Allen blinked at the two of them, trying to stay focused. Why did he feel so weak? Why did the world swim sickly when he pushed himself to his feet? Because his breakfast had been impossibly small, for one, and because his morning activities hadn't been gentle, for another. He also had not been healthy for a while – still wasn't really – and evocating twice in two days was a surefire way to make him feel horrible. His feet made crunching sounds in the iced over snow as he teetered on them, wobbling dangerously as Hiroko's form danced across the white ground without actually moving.

_Breathe,_ He told himself. _I have to fight this thing. I have to. I cannot faint now. It doesn't matter. I have to save it._

His right foot moved in front of his left. His ears could not hear the words the akuma was saying. His left eye felt as if it were going to pop out of his skull at any moment.

_I have my left arm to save them, not to watch people die._

A scream like none before it erupted from Allen's lips, pulling Hiroko's eyes away from the approaching machine to look at him. She saw his eyes go wide, the left one obstructed by the whirling surface of some kind of contraption. Well, that explained what his curse did, or at least part of it. As she watched he fell to his knees, clutching his upper arm as his overlarge fingers twitched in the snow uselessly. She could see tears running down the sides of his face, clear on the right, seemingly bloody on the left, falling quickly toward his chin. She bit her lip as she watched him gasp and try to push himself up despite how weak he was, despite the way his fingers bent at a horribly impossible angle when he tried.

When a second exclamation passed his lips she decided it was time to stop him.

"Whore-chan don—" But he wasn't there anymore. He was a good twenty feet farther than he had been, at a distinctly different angle, and there was something odd pressing into her abdomen, something cold. As soon as she looked down she realized what had happened. A metal rod protruded from her body, just in the place that she knew had nothing too important in it. She coughed a little, blood coating the back of her throat and finding its way to her tongue; her right hand unwound from the handle of her sword and came to rest on the rod which she tugged on weakly.

After two tried she realized it went all the way through her and partly into the wall of the house behind her. _Well this sucks…_

"Hi…roko…" He managed to say the word, not scream it. Why did it hurt so badly? Why did it feel like his arm was shredding itself from the inside out? "I can't… just watch…" He said more to himself than anyone else. "I have to fight…" As he whispered the words the strange, different looking akuma took a step toward the fallen Japanese woman, lifting yet another odd looking projectile to hurl at her.

"Not an Exorcist?" The creature hissed. "That doesn't matter. I can kill you all the same."

_No…_ Allen's mind demanded. _You can't kill her. She's Hiroko – she's Kanda's mother – she's human._

"I wonder how many threads of dark matter it will take before you bleed to death."

_I have to stop him. Not only because it's an akuma, but because she's human. Because…_ His thoughts suddenly fit together somehow, even though his arm hurt even more than it had in the past. _Exorcists do not just destroy, we protect._

_And I am an Exorcist. We all have anti-akuma weapons to save the akuma, and we all have hearts to save humanity. My left hand for the demons, my right for the humans; why didn't I see it that way before?_

He could hear Hiroko's voice screaming something profane and felt the sensation of something cold against the skin of his chest. And then he was falling sideways into the snow, the fingers of his left hand crumbling painlessly onto the ground, blood pooling around his chest. The world was sinking slowly into darkness but he was too busy thinking to care.

Thinking that maybe, he had ignored half of his purpose all along.

"_Moyashi!"_ Kanda's voice stopped Hiroko from saying the name herself, and the sudden presence of a foreign whore in front of her made her even quieter. She did not know that the two had heard the sounds of the destroyed basin, but she didn't care – they were there to save them.

"Don't move, Hiroko-dono," Sable said breathlessly. "Not until we've killed this thing for good."

Kanda skidded to a halt beside Allen, ignoring whatever Sable was doing to keep the akuma occupied. His deep sapphire eyes fell upon his lover, taking in his pale countenance, his mangled left hand, and the blood – so much blood – pouring from the hole in his chest and back. A clean hole, it seemed, straight through him, made by the thing lying ten feet away in the snow. He did not feel the tears on his cheeks until he crumpled onto the ground, folding his legs beneath him as he reached out to pull the British boy into his arms.

"Love?" The word was so surprised he thought it would shatter his heart in two if he heard it again.

"Sh…" Kanda soothed, pulling his head onto his lap. "Don't speak. I'll heal you."

"No, don't." His voice was a broken whisper – Kanda could see blood behind his lips. "You only…have so many petals…"

The Japanese man swallowed hard as tears fell from his face and onto Allen's. _"Baka_, don't act stupider. You will die here if I don't."

Allen shook his head slowly, blinked with dim looking eyes. "No. I won't." There was so much finality in his voice, Kanda simply stared at him. "I can't die here, I won't die here. Not when…there are people and akuma that need to be saved. You told me before that Exorcists are destroyers – but that's only half true." As he spoke his left arm continued to disintegrate but his face did not register pain or fear. He smiled up at his lover as a string of gore oozed from the side of his mouth. "I destroy akuma to save them – that's why I was born with my Innocence in my hand – but I was born with another hand too. That hand is for you, Love. And Hiroko and Hito and everyone else. So don't save me, Love, I'm here to save you."

A chill wind whipped around them as Kanda pulled him closer, sobs wracking his shoulders. No matter how much it hurt, he wouldn't save Allen if he had the strength to tell him not to. "You're insane, Allen Walker." He said into the growing wind. "Completely insane." He felt more than saw the British boy smile.

"You wouldn't want me any other way."

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Lavi did not know why he was here or what was going on, but he knew somewhere in his mind that things weren't right. One moment he had been standing in the street with Tyki, trying to convince him that the Order was not the answer, and now he was here – at the Order, looking up at an odd ceiling that did not belong in his room. The more he thought about it the more he realized that he should stand up and look around, determine where he was and why he was here and why there was a distinctly creepy feeling about all of it, but he didn't want to. He wanted to go back to that street with his lover and finish explaining what was going on.

"If you keep lying there like that I may lose control of myself." It was Tyki's voice again. He had been speaking every so often for the last ten minutes, trying to get him to stand. When Lavi looked around the room he never saw the Noah, not even a trace of him, all he saw was Kanda's empty room – which made _no_ sense whatsoever.

"Go ahead, lose control." He said indifferently. "Maybe I'll remember something about how I got here if you do."

"Oh, don't be hasty." The man's voice said again, sounding almost as if he were right beside him. "Even if I kill you I won't tell you how I brought you here."

Lavi made to snip at him, just because whatever was going on wasn't funny, but a hand came up from within the bed and clamped down on his mouth, rendering him incapable of speech. For a moment he felt a flurry of panic run through him, until the dusty scent of Tyki reached his nostrils. He relaxed a little, brought his right hand up to hold the older man's forearm ever so gently.

_Wasn't my wrist broken?_

"I never did tell you about Rhode, did I? What an interesting person she is." The Noah let the fingers of his free left hand glide down the boy's spine, which brought an odd, strangled sound to his closed lips. "She and I make a very entertaining pair – when we work together. She can make you believe anything is there – a greenhouse, flowers, candles, strawberries," Lavi felt a tickle of warm breath on his ear as the hand that had been tracing slowly up and down his spine shot into his chest, its fingers twining around his heart. "Even _love_."

_Is he saying that it was an illusion? _Lavi thought determinedly. _It has to be a lie. I couldn't have felt everything I felt then if it weren't real._

His heart strained painfully as the hand that held it closed a little more tightly. What was Tyki doing? "It was such a delicate web to weave, the one that caught you, and it was very fun to weave it. My only regret is that the game had to come to an end so soon." There were lips on his ear – Tyki's lips, a touch that he knew better than the feel of his hammer in his hand. "Now let's take our time with the final act, _amante_. Shall we say…" The hand on his mouth slid to his throat with enough force to keep him from screaming the man's name. His fingers curled into the Noah's skin only to have them passed through a moment later. "One bone at a time?"

"Ty-chan…" He choked. His heart was free by the hand within him moved to his ribcage until it found a favorable hold. "What's going on? Why are we here? Weren't we…in the alley way, going to find a physician?"

The Noah laughed. "Please, Lavi-san, you couldn't have believed it was all real, could you? The two-sidedness, the confession, the _loft!_ Ridiculous. And you _believed_ me when I said I loved you! A Noah falling for a heartless Bookman – the day that happens is the day your Chinese friend forgives me for taking you from her." He felt the Noah pull from the inside painfully, bending his first rib as he hissed against the sensation, "What a failure you are; as a Bookman, as an Exorcist, as a lover, as a friend, all because you see nothing of the truth."

_It's a lie._ He thought desperately. _This isn't real. It can't be real._ "I don't believe you now."

The bone snapped. Lavi let out a muffled scream. He could hear a smile in the Noah's voice when he spoke again.

"You do not have to believe me, Lavi-san. All you have to do is scream."

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Sable was distracted from the very talkative enemy she was attempting to fight when a blast of wind erupted from the direction of Kanda and Allen. Ice and hardened snow lifted from the ground in a circle around them, the razor sharp slivers flew outward in a wave, extinguishing the fire in her hand and making the akuma look in confusion. They stood beside each other, completely transfixed by the billows of air ripping over the snow toward them.

Something green and shiny swirled in the wind as well for a moment, something beautiful that vanished a moment later in a line toward the ground and a sound like thunder. Sable could vaguely make out Kanda's hair, free of its tie, kneeling on the ground, and above him, after a moment, what might have been Allen standing, though his jacket was distinctly different. The air shimmered around them and the odd, Allen-like figure bent to speak in the ear of his lover, his oversized right hand resting on the Japanese man's shoulder. _"Aishiteru,_ Kanda." His voice carried on the wind to Sable's ears and she felt herself smile. "And thank you, for letting my Innocence save me."

Vaguely she thought she saw the other man nod as if dazed. "Allen…" He said the name softly, pushing himself higher onto his knees to draw his lover into his arms. He took him around the waist and pulled them flush with each other, his hands lost in the folds of the boy's strange new cape. "What is this? What happened? Your arm…"

Allen shushed him softly and wrapped his arms – two arms – around him gently, giving him a tiny squeeze. "You'll never see it all if you don't let me go." When he said it the Japanese man stood completely and stepped back, taking in the new form of his lover's Innocence. First there was a strange white shroud where his hood usually was, a silver masking hanging from the back of it, a sweep of black on the left and a sweep of white on the right, only long enough to cover his face to his nose. The shroud hung to his feet, closing around him like a strange white cloak. Then there was his right hand, gloved in white, longer than usual, narrower at the wrist and larger at the palm and fingers, like something from a strange, disproportioned nightmare. And his left hand – that had shattered not so long ago – hung passed his knees at his side, clawed with hardly anything reminiscent of a palm.

The British boy lifted his hand and flexed his odd gray-black fingers. He couldn't get them into a fist. "How do I look?" He asked with a smile. Kanda thought he had never heard a more ridiculous question in his life.

"Like you're about to die." The akuma answered for him.

Allen turned away from his lover and faced the oncoming akuma with a small smile on his face, a look that was made only slightly creepier by the gear that marred the left side of his face. "I'm sorry." He said loudly. It was pointless to speak so loud now that the wind had stopped. "It will be over soon, I promise."

Kanda frowned at him but stepped out of the way all the same. He had never seen Allen make that face before, not like that, not at an akuma. Like…he was almost… happy.

The akuma heaved another of his threads in Allen's direction, but the boy closed the fingers of his right hand around it and cast it aside, completely indifferent. He closed the space between them quickly, Sable, Hiroko, and Kanda watching in half-stunned silence.

"Tell me," He said when he was looking up at the knight-like creature before him; the akuma looked down at him with its tongue hanging forgotten from the side of its fanged mouth. "What makes you different from the others I have fought before you?"

"Heh…" The akuma laughed. "I am level three."

"Ah," Allen nodded, lifting his left hand and turning it so that he could see the red cross emblazoned to the back of it. "That's all I needed to know." His hand shot out toward the machine's face – it didn't even have time to respond to the attack before the tip of an index finger was stuck in its forehead.

It did not explode. It simply sat there for a moment, its arms sagging gently against the ground as its tongue slithered back into its mouth. "Exorcist-san…why does this feel…good?"

Allen smiled as he pulled his hand down, cutting the akuma, and leaving a glowing trail of gold across it. "Because I love akuma."

"Hmm…" The demon hummed as a second line of gold sliced across his shoulders, painting a cross in the air. "Thank you," It mumbled as its body began to defuse. "For setting me free."

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**I'm sorry I spoiled it QQ**

**Don't be too mean to me, kk//hearts\\ And sorry for slightly… odd Allen here.**


	55. Promises

'**Allo, Niamh here. I have come down with the Australian flu it seems (or so says my mother when she called) and therefore did not go to class tonight. So this chapter is dedicated to the germs.**

**On another note, I must apologize in advance for the sad, sad fact that this chapter is amazingly cheesy and far too emotional for anyone's liking. Basically my Kanda-muse and my Allen-muse and my Lavi-muse all got together and had an emo party. I am fully aware that it sucks and I wish that I could change it.**

**Disclaimer of Dgrab: I don't know D.Gray-man. If I did… Lavi would pant more.**

**WARNING: Boy-kissing-boy and young man kissing older man. Cussing. Don't read it if you don't like it.**

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Promises

"Wow Allen! You look like a sad jester!"

"…Thank you, Sable."

"Oh, don't worry about me; I'll just be bleeding to death slowly while everyone moons over Clown-san and his emo-suit." Hiroko chimed in a less than enthusiastic voice. The other three turned to look at her, odd expressions on their faces, but each amazed that she was speaking. "Yes, now please blink at me in confusion. I'll be slowly chewing through my side like an animal caught in a _fucking trap!"_ She screamed the last two words and threw her head forward at them to show her urgency. Hiroko was not a whiner, but she could bitch perfectly well when her life depended on it.

Sable looked at Allen, lifting her golden eyebrows and widening her emerald eyes as if in worry. "You should probably rip that thing out of her, while Kanda and I catch." She waved her hand at Allen, indicating his distinctly different attire. "And then you can try to explain to all of us why you look like a royal jokester – and why Kanda is crying."

"Che. I'm not crying."

"Right, your eyes are just watering uncontrollably down your face. C'mon – grab a shoulder, I'll get the other one." She and the samurai tromped the short distance to the pinned Japanese woman, glaring at each other as they walked. Kanda _was_ crying. He hadn't stopped since he had seen Allen like that, fallen on the snow, and the more he thought about it the steadier the tears came – he figured that they wouldn't stop until he had talked to his lover and hugged him for a few hours at least.

Hiroko watched as Sable came to stand on her left, Yuu on her right, and the still oddly smiling Allen stood in front of her, his strange right hand extending to wrap around the rod that was stuck next to her hip, his expression serious. She could see in his face that something had changed within him – and he wanted to soothe the tears from Kanda's face regardless. His love, at least, was consistent.

Kanda and Sable steadied her gently, hands on her shoulders and sides as Allen gripped the projectile between his large white fingers. When she nodded to show her readiness he pulled as quickly as possible, dislodging the shaft from the wall and his mother-in-law and eliciting a tiny hiss from her lips. She latched on to the blonde woman at her side when her right leg refused to hold up her weight, blood pouring from the wound in her side like a torrent. Slowly Sable lowered her to the ground, Kanda watching as she worked to stop the flow with her bare hand. He didn't dare touch her. He was afraid more that he wouldn't heal her than that he would.

"Love," Allen's voice pulled him away from his quickly recovering mother – recovering and cursing as she did. He turned to see him standing beside him, looking down at Hiroko, his odd white hood hanging crookedly behind him and his akuma sensitive eye shutting down as if there were nothing more to worry about. "Are you still crying…because I didn't let you heal me?"

The Japanese man shook his head and extended his right arm to embrace the smaller boy, who in turn, leaned is head gently on his lover's shoulder. After a moment Kanda placed his chin on the top of Allen's head, aware that tears were still sliding down his face and into that soft white hair. "She told you, didn't she? About the price of healing?"

Allen nodded into his chest, closing his eyes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You'd never let me get hurt again."

"With good reason."

"Che."

"I mean really Love." The British boy said softly. "If I had known, I would have yelled at you in Sweden – not kissed you. And then you offered to help me heal after Rhode attacked – why? How much life could you have in that flower if you were willing to give more of it to stop my pain?" As he spoke the cowl that hung down his back and the glove that covered his right hand disappeared into his left arm, the skin of which was a burned black color, more like hardened scales than human flesh. "Or are you just stupid when it comes to saving me?"

"I suppose I am stupid." Kanda sighed as Allen's left arm snaked around him, pulling him yet closer. "I think it's a combination of two things that make me that way, Moyashi-kun." When he said the name the younger boy looked up at him curiously. "I don't want to see you hurting or dying, I don't care what it costs me to keep you from those things. And secondly," He lowered himself until his face was less than an inch from his lover's and his dark eyes could stare into the confused silver pools that were his lover's gaze. "You're more important than finding the man who gave me this fate. I will die without regret if I die defending you, even if I never find him."

Allen's right hand found Kanda's left and their arms bent between them as he brought the Japanese man's hand to his chest. "You idiot." He rocked on his feet, his eyes burning with unshed tears. "If you die defending me you better damn well regret it! Leaving me here, alone, without you – how could you _not_ regret that if you really love me?"

Kanda swept down on his lover, kissing him intensely, pulling him up when he felt his lips part ever so slightly in response. He was not at all surprised when Allen fought him for dominance; but it shocked him when the British boy gave up quickly, tilting into him with an urgency that told him so much more than words ever could. He tasted of the younger boy's mouth with nothing short of reverence; his hand abandoned Allen's in favor of touching the smooth, warm skin on the side of his face.

His fingers found tears marring that tender flesh.

When they separated he hugged Allen to his chest, feeling as if his heart were falling apart inside him. "I _would_ regret it, Moyashi. I would regret it more than anything in the world, but I would be fine knowing that you lived on without me."

"You stupid idiot. You fool. You…_baka…_" Allen mumbled into his shoulder, shaking. "I don't want to live if you die."

"_Don't_…say that…" Kanda whispered. "Don't even think it."

"But Kanda, please understand. I can't help thinking it ever since I had that dream. I can't live without you. When I think about it, I wonder how I ever did before." He swallowed hard before he went on softly. "You're my other half, Love. How can you expect me to 'live on' if my heart dies with you?"

The dream the younger boy meant was immediately known to the older Exorcist. He shook his head, a fresh wave of warm tears spilling down his face. "That goes two ways, Moyashi. You can't expect me to live without you if you can't without me."

"Yes I can and I do."

"When you say that…I start thinking that maybe you _want_ me to stand aside and let you bleed to death. Which, I might add, is not going to happen."

"No, I just don't want you to kill yourself to make me live."

"But wouldn't you do the same if it were me?"

"In a heartbeat."

"Che."

He let Allen push away enough to draw him into a second kiss, just as desperate as before. He felt Allen's right hand slide passed the fabric of his jacket – which he had not buttoned in the rush to get outside – and touch the bare skin there. He felt his fingers trace the line of his side for a moment before they curled gently around the curve of his shoulder. When he pulled away the British boy had an odd look on his tearstained face, the corners of his mouth drawn up in the beginnings of a grin.

"What?" Kanda asked, incredulous. He found it a little difficult to pull off that expression without feeling silly from all of the tears.

"I was just thinking that, so long as you don't die and I don't die, we'll be fine." His face brightened as he said it, even though more teardrops fell hurriedly from his eyes. "So I promise not to die until the war is over. Not until I've grown old with you. Not until we're both so tired of living we'd rather die together than go on here." He swallowed hard, his right hand drifted over Kanda's flesh absentmindedly. "And if… you _do_ die, I will see the end of this war, holding your memory in his heart like I do with Mana." When he spoke his voice was little more than a sob torn whisper. "Will you promise, too?"

Kanda could not choke out the words without crying harder, so he nodded. After a moment he managed to soothe the aching of his heart enough to find his voice again, "I promise." _But that doesn't mean I won't try to save you._ He leaned down to kiss Allen one more time but a blob of hard and cold ice smacked him mercilessly in the jaw, turning his face away with the force of impact. He was completely stunned for a moment as ice shards splattered both him and his lover in a wet, half-solid mist that made Allen close his mouth and sputter uncontrollably. He turned at once in the direction of the projectile's origin, his hand flying toward his sword without his knowledge.

"It was her!" Sable screamed from the corner of the house. The two had not even noticed that Hiroko and she had moved that far, neither had they been aware of the woman making comments on their confessions and kissing. Which was for the best, what with Sable being something of a fangirl and Hiroko attempting to be nothing but an annoyed mother-in-law. The injured Japanese woman leaned against the corner of the house on one foot, giving them both a little smirk of amusement. "I swear!" Sable said pointing. "She _made_ me throw it."

Allen watched Kanda glare at her, seriously glare death at this blonde girl who had just ruined perhaps the most painful and happy moment of his life. It was so perfect that Allen had to laugh.

Hiroko spoke before Sable could defend herself or Kanda could let go of his lover to maul the blonde Exorcist.

"I hate you ruin your_moment_, you sniveling sluts, but I'm about ready to bleed out or commit suicide after that. We're going inside. Now. Oh, and Whore-chan, do get Hito-_baka_ to close his damn window when he comes in – I know he's out here somewhere watching. I bet he was whacking off to that…_display_ you just put on. Fucking harlot."

Allen wiped his eyes hurriedly and nodded.

"And Yuu," She said more quietly as Sable helped her move from the side of the house. "Wash that astoundingly girly face of yours as soon as you get in; if he knows you were crying over your boy-whore, you might as well kiss any respect he still has for you goodbye."

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It was after fifty-seven broken bones and slowing realizing that even if it wasn't real he still wanted it to stop that Lavi blacked out. He went farther into his mind than even dreams could reach, back to a place that did not have room for thought or feeling or understanding what was going on – it was simply a place that allowed him soothing, dreamless sleep.

But eventually, he didn't need sleep anymore. Then he woke up like normal, with no dreamscape around him; no alleyway, no Order, no Tyki. At least he couldn't sense them with his left eye closed. He seemed to be in a dark room, on a cold floor and, as far as he could tell, there was no one and nothing else with him. After a moment's thought he noticed that his head and shoulders were resting on a wall, his legs splayed out before him, his right bent at the knee and tilted just slightly to the side. His arms were flailed to either side of his torso, palms down, both throbbing with the memory of broken fingers.

The pain from ever injury was still there, even if he had been dreaming. He didn't bother thinking about that – or wondering how much of it bad been real – he simply focused on slowly but steadily pulling his left eyelid up so he could see. The room was square and dimly lit, windowless, with a dim light coming from somewhere to his right. With great effort he turned his head to the side in a feeble attempt to see more of the light, his ribs giving a painful protest when he had turned enough to rest his chin nearly on his shoulder.

A hand, small and childlike came to rest gently on his arm; it pressed back softly and he followed it with his gaze until he saw the face of a young boy. He was perhaps ten years old, with short black hair and eyes as dark as pitch. His face was not overly round, and his wide, curious eyes danced with a light that made him look as if at some point in his life he had been kicked until he didn't want to live anymore.

"Don't move too much." He instructed, placing his free right hand on Lavi's right wrist. Lavi winced. Even though Tyki hadn't broken that in his mind, it was broken now. That said a little for what had been real had what hadn't. "Whode-sama's dweam hasn't wown off yet. If you move too much it'll huwt you, even if you'we fine physically."

Lavi blinked at him, trying to understand. "W-whode-sama?" He breathed. Damn his ribs hurt when he did that.

The boy nodded. "Lady Whode. The one that had Lowd Tyki Mikk bwing you hewe." He let go of Lavi's shoulder and sat back on his knees, pulling at the collar of his red cotton shirt as he did. The candle, which Lavi had not seen because he was so distracted by this child, sputtered with his movement and cast his face in rippling shadows. "I'm Cole. I'm not eithew of theiws."

"Lavi." He said, trying to smile. What the hell had happened? He couldn't remember anything that he knew was solid, anything he knew to be true, not when he was sitting here, talking to a boy who seemed to be affiliated with the Noah clan by some unfortunate circumstance. "Why are…" He coughed, which made his eyes close against the pain. "You here?"

"Ah!" The boy chimed triumphantly. "Noah-sama told me to heal youw wounds when you woke."

"Noah-sama?"

"Lowd Tyki."

Lavi felt his heart clench in his chest at that. Tyki? Why would he care about his wounds? He had been betrayed, right? It felt like he had been betrayed. Here he was, in the dungeon of the Noah, and when he looked at it he found that he had fetters on his wrists over his coat sleeves, and a creepy child was offering to heal his injuries – none which wasn't reassuring. With a reluctance that made his blood turn to ice in his veins he decided that for now it would be safe to assume that that was the case; even if he only half believed it to be true.

"How…"

"Don't talk anymowe." Cole shook his head at him, displacing his dark, angled bangs over his eyes. "I can't heal if you awe talking." The apprentice Bookman watched as he held his hands out over the top of Lavi's wrist and closed his eyes, breathing slowly in and out as he concentrated. After a moment there was a strange warming tingle in his wrist, then a feeling of rightness that had not been there for a long while, and lastly the sensation that none of his fingers, and no part of his arm was wounded. It was astounding for him to feel. He blinked in surprise when that pair of small hands moved unwavering over his chest and began repairing the damage that wasn't actually even there.

By the time the fingers of his left hand were feeling normal again, so was the rest of him, and he smiled at the boy who had fixed him as he flexed his fingers against the too-smooth stone of the floor. "Wow, Cole-chan, where'd you learn a thing like that?"

"Oh, it's nothing. When I weached level two I gained the useless ability to heal humans. Uwi-sama made me wong, so I don't wanna fight anymowe." Cole paused at the look of sudden horror on Lavi's face and grinned at him like any normal child would. "Don't wowwy! I might be an akuma but I'm a pacifist. And Millennium Eawl-sama doesn't will me like the othew's. So you don't have to give me the glawe of howwow."

Lavi nodded slowly, trying to calm his suddenly rapid pulse. "So you… don't kill people?"

Coal shook his head quickly. "No! I nevew want to see people die! It's sad."

"I've never heard of that happening to an akuma before."

"That's because it generally does not." This was said by a new voice from just outside the door, and voice that he knew. Lavi's eyes flicked across the dark room to rest on the thick wooden portal surprised that he had not looked at it previously. There was no knob from this side, which was not odd to him, and the thick iron bands that ran back and forth across its surface were stained with ages of rust and grime, but for one dark mark near the bottom that still had the color of old dried blood. He looked away. He didn't want to think about the last person who had been here or whether they had been betrayed as well. He also didn't want to see Tyki. Not when he hadn't decided what to think about him or what to say, not yet. Not when his hands turned into fists merely at the sound of his voice. He pulled his knees up, rattling chains he did not know were there, and wrapped his arms around them, closing his eye and turning his face away from the still closed door.

The door did not shriek against the floor nor did it come open but the Noah joined them in the room nonetheless.

"Cole," The Noah continued. Lavi was vaguely aware that the boy-akuma had stood up and was bowing politely. It made his heart sink into his stomach even imagining it. "Is something of a special case, modified by accident and left to live despite it," His shoes made heavy clicking sounds on the floor and his voice sounded as if he were smiling. "He's such a good boy, even if he cannot be a large help to us."

There was a presence in front of him and he knew that Tyki was looking down at him. He dared not look back for fear of what he would do.

"Leave us." He said curtly. "And leave the things for a sconce outside; there is no reason to keep in the dark like this." When he finished Cole hurried away as quickly as his tiny feet could carry him, whispering a swift goodbye before he heaved open the door and bashed it closed again, making a small sound of straining as he did so. When he was gone Lavi became suddenly aware that his hands were shaking against his calves.

Tyki lowered himself slowly to the stone floor, extending an uncertain hand to the young man who refused to look at him. He hardly graced the trembling fingers of his lover with his palm when Lavi threw his arm out, smacking his touch away, burying his face in his own left shoulder.

"_Don't touch me."_ The anger in his voice struck Tyki like a physical blow. He blinked twice at the redhead who simply hugged himself tighter. It took a long moment for him to find his voice in the cold silence.

"I'm sorry, Lavi." He's voice was quiet. He wanted to hold him and console him. He wanted to explain everything at once. But he knew that trying now would not work because, as much as it hurt to think it, he was no longer trusted. "I never wanted it to end up this way. I never thought that—"

"That Rhode would expose you?"

"What? No that I—"

"That you would have me bound like this without my permission again? That you'd enjoy my pain this much? That you would have to wait this long before you finally closed the trap and brought me here?" Lavi was only vaguely aware of the shaking quality to his voice and the cracking harshness that warned of increasing volume to come. He only half believed the words coming out of his mouth but that did not lessen the harshness with which he said them. "Or is it something else? Did you never think of going as far as you did to win my trust? Or was that your twisted plan to begin with," When he blinked a tear fell from his eye – a tear he hated with ever fiber of his being. "Have a little ass while you finish planning, it makes the waiting easier. Maybe it wasn't like that. Maybe you thought I was easy for you to seduce, so why not have a little fun?"

"No!" Tyki's exclamation was so loud he almost looked at him. "It was never like that Lavi, and if it was it changed long before I ever slept with you! Please believe me!" The hand was on his again, softly, and he could not bring himself to smack it away again. "I never meant to bring you here. Or hurt you I…" He gave a little squeeze. "Love you too much to do that."

Lavi scoffed.

Tyki reached out with his yet unoccupied right hand and laid his fingers on the younger man's chin. He took a gentle hold and turned his head slowly around to face him. He was painfully aware of how the apprentice fought the motion, and even more aware of how he refused to open his eye to see him. His hand spread out across the side of his face so that his thumb could catch a falling tear before it could follow the curve of his cheek to his chin.

"I don't know what Rhode's dream told you but please, you must believe me." He leaned forward slightly, letting his other hand come to rest on the other side of the redhead's face. "I love you. And I will get you out of here as soon as I find away."

Lavi did not look at him when he spoke. "Aren't you telling them the same thing though? Didn't you tell Rhode that it's all a ruse to make me talk? And aren't you telling me now that you're lying to them to keep me safe?" His right hand found Tyki's left and he pressed it closer to his skin. "Who are you lying to? Me or them?"

The Noah leaned forward and laid his lips softly on Lavi's, just enough to surprise him into opening his eye. "Them, Lavi. Never you. Never." The sincerity in his voice and tenderness in his face made Lavi think his heart was going to burn clear out of his chest for even questioning him. "I'm so sorry. I never wanted this. I never even thought it could happen." His lips found Lavi's again and this time the apprentice kissed back for the fleeting moment the contact lasted.

"It's alright, Ty-chan." He tried to smile as he reached for the older man, rattling his chains and pulling him closer by his lapels. "I'm not dead yet. Just keep me that way."

The Noah chuckled lightly as he pulled the smaller man to his chest, laying his face sideways across Lavi's hair. "I will, I swear. I wish I could promise more than that but I can't; even asking everyone to keep you alive is suspicious in some eyes. So you must know, no matter what I say in front of the others or in front of the Earl, I will always love you. I will never lie to you." As he spoke his palm ran up to Lavi's hair and began to move through it, playing with the section just above his neck. "Do you believe me, Lavi? Can you trust me even though I may refute my feelings for you?"

Lavi moved his knees somewhat so he could twine his arms clear around Tyki's back and pull them flush against each other. He heard himself sigh as his fingers curled in the fabric of his lover's coat and the manacles on his wrists clanked noisily. "Yes, Ty-chan. I can see through lies, remember? Well, most of the time anyways." He inhaled deeply, taking in the older man's scent in an attempt to drive the still clinging fear from his heart. "Like right now. Everything you just said sounded and looked like truth to me so…" He smirked, turning his face up to look at the darker haired man who held him so close. "Wanna talk about getting me out of these chains and sneaking away into the night?"

The Noah laughed down at him, a sad smile dancing in his dark eyes. "Are you seriously taking this in stride?"

"Yup! Not much else I can do is there? I don't have my Innocence and just running out without a plan is _not_ a good idea, so I'll just sit back on my stone floor and count the ceiling tiles until we figure something out." He rolled his emerald eye upward as he spoke as if demonstrating. "Though, now that I look at it, they look less like tile and more like really smooth natural granite; I don't think you moved a single slab, you just made it look like you did." He pushed his eyebrows together thoughtfully. "Which would mean I'd only ever get to count to one."

Tyki chuckled and squeezed him tighter, glad to have his old observant friend back again. "Then don't count them, Lavi. Help me think of a way to get you out. I don't want to lose you here."

The redhead's eye came back to him as Lavi tilted his head sideways with a serious expression. "You won't lose me. You couldn't even if you wanted to." His lips brushed Tyki's and the Noah deepened the kiss. For a moment they both forgot the pressing circumstances, the likelihood of death, and simply enjoyed the intimate contact of each other. Tyki's right hand slid around Lavi's hip, up his stomach, and traveled inside of his coat to touch his clothed chest firmly. When the kiss broke his hand stayed there, feeling the boy's heartbeat.

"They will hurt you in order to learn what you know."

"They'll be stupid to try it. Bookmen _secretly_ record the _secret_ history of the war; I'm not talking, Panda would kill me."

"I wish I could protect you, Lavi. I wish I had gone to the Order that day in Durnshire."

"There's no reason to regret anything now. It won't help." He leaned his head gently into Tyki's jacket, fighting the sudden urge to cry at the unfairness of it all.

"I love you, Lavi." The words were so soft; the akuma-boy on the other side of the door had trouble making them out.

"I love you too, Ty-chan."

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"_Sushi!_ And soba and tempura._"_

"Makizushi! And sasazushi! And _rice_!"

"You know, you'd think the two of them have never seen food before."

"And noodles!"

"And look! Unagi… oh, unagi and crab-zushi… why did he not tell us he could cook before?"

"Because you and Whore-chan would both demand that he never leaves the kitchen ever, ever again. And it proves just how damn womanly he is."

"Ei wubf eww, Wubf. An' Ei wubf yo'r cokin'. Adowable apon 'oo."

"He loves you and he loves your cooking. And your apron is adorable."

"Jesus Whore-chan, don't talk with your mouth _that_ full."

Allen swallowed his food and grinned at the fuming Japanese man across from him. They were seated around the table, on the floor, enjoying the food that – despite his reluctance – Kanda had prepared. Hiroko had offered him a simple lavender apron to keep the fish from his clothes and, after both Allen and Sable had groaned about their lack of cooking abilities, he had darned it, tied back his hair, and gone about his business. He hadn't cooked anything for a long time, but he still remembered almost everything. How to roll sushi rice so that it stuck to seaweed, how to keep the cucumber from squishing out the sides, how to shape a rice ball without dropping any on the floor – it was all still in his head from when he was six year old, and no longer in the country that made those foods so well.

He had been mystified by the size of everything in the Black Order's Headquarters, including the cafeteria. He had wandered there alone many times, and he would sit quietly as he watched the very young Jerry prepare whatever food the people came to ask for. After days of watching and being watched the two slowly but surely befriended one another, first with soba noodles and then with actual words of acknowledgement; child Kanda had not been one for long winded conversation, or even small talk, but the cook managed to persuade him. Eventually he became the resident vegetable and rice washer, until he had actually learned to cook.

By then there had been Lavi and a very awkward Christmas. And slightly more than a year later he had gone home; that had been one of the bitterest goodbyes of his life.

"Love," Allen's hand reached across the table and came to rest on Kanda's, his left hand, which clacked slightly when he curled his fingers tightly. "Is there something wrong?"

He shook his head. "Che. No. I was just thinking."

"Were you thinking about how you're still wearing that cute purple apron?"

Kanda glared at him. He had forgotten.

"I mean, as nice as it is I think I like you better without it. In fact…" Allen leaned forward a little more, his voice dropping in volume. "I think I'd rather see you in nothing at all."

"Moyashi," He tried to fight of the blush but knew it was a lost cause. Instead of stewing silently in his embarrassment he skillfully twirled his chopsticks before reaching deftly across the table to close them on a well hidden, very surprised nipple. Allen's left hand held his arm more tightly and his jaw fell open to release a tiny gasp. _"Not_ in front of my mother."

Hiroko, who was leaning somewhat more to the left, balanced daintily on a small mound of pillows, cleared her throat and sipped her tea before she spoke. "Whore-chan, you're either insane or you have a serious itch that Yuu just doesn't scratch. And you might actually try nothing _but_ the apron – those things are backless you know."

"Okaasan!" The exclamation was from her three sons, biological and otherwise, and the sound of fallen chopsticks was enough to make her smile from ear to ear with satisfaction. How she loved to push buttons.

However, it was Sable who spoke before the others could interject their reasons for disgust. "I think they'd do it if it wasn't _your_ apron. In fact, that might make a good birthday present for Yuu-chan!"

"Kanda."

"Is confusing and therefore shall not be used in reference to _Yuu_."

"Sable you always give the most awkward gifts. The ears and tail and that _thing_ you got Kanda…" Allen mumbled, rubbing his chest with his fisted right hand and narrowing his eyes at his lover. "And what did you get Lavi? Rope?"

"Yup. I should have got you two a 'wedding' present but it didn't occur to me. Well, unless you count that bottle lu—"

"_Not – in front – of my – mother."_

"Present?" Hiroko repeated. "Hito-_baka_," She turned to the smaller of the two Japanese boys and pointed a utensil at him. He had been forming his rice into two equal sized mounds next to each other in his bowel, not actually eating.

"Hm?" The mounds were quickly smashed into planes.

"Go get my sewing kit."

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**El fin. For now. Isn't it kind of funny how Hiroko is indestructible like Kanda? Ho, ho, ho, he wants to kick me for even making the parallel. Again, sorry this was… um… yeah… not good. Things will be picking up soon – right after Allen and Kanda have some touching time. And Lavi and Tyki too… though that's gonna be hard to make happen XD**

**Also. I am sorry if I did not respond to your reviews this time. I opened a number and tried to reply but FF was being lame and may or may not have sent my answers. It gave me the "you cannot answer more than once screen" thing though, so I hope you got them :D**

**See you soon//loves\\**


	56. Birds and Sconces

**Yo! Ima, watashi wa genki ni demo, atama ga itai desu.**

**If I messed that up… Hey! I'm feeling better now, but my head hurts.**

**Thank you reviewers! This was a really fast update because I was excited about the first and last parts. Heehee. I love Yullen… A lot like I love reviews! Only 400 some to go!**

**Disclaimer of Dshortness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… there would be no trapezoidal ass shots. Thank you.**

**WARNING: Boy-lovin'-boy. And…stuff. Cursing.**

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Birds and Sconces

Allen made a serious sound of discontent and hobbled sideways before regaining his balance and straightening somewhat, his only protest a silent, disapproving look.

"I wouldn't stab you if you didn't move."

"I wouldn't move it you didn't stab me."

"Yeah well, you better solve this circular conundrum before I start working on your collar, Whore-chan." Hiroko had him standing on a chair in the center of the living room while she sat beside him, pinning them hem of the kimono she had started when she had first heard that her darling son was married. The fabric was a fine, pale blue silk, spun and woven so that it seemed to glimmer as if run through with bits of spider's web or glass. A simple pattern of blue-black leaves ran from Allen's left foot upward in a blossoming shape, interrupted by flurries of small reddish pink and white azalea – or as Hiroko called them _tsutsuji._ For the most part the design flowed across the bottom of the robe, but part of it reached up his left leg and across his back, and bit onto his sleeves. Only a single clump of flowers made it to his chest.

"If I were any stiller I'd be dead." He snipped back, his patience growing short. The longer he stood there the more she poked him with her pins, and the more poking she did the more he wanted to storm away and tell her that the gift was too much and she could keep it.

"As you will be if you don't _shut up_ and _hold still_," She jabbed the last one in and pushed herself away, glaring up at the British boy fiercely, "Because I'm going to make you into my own moyashi shaped pincushion, you glib whacker."

Allen sighed, let his shoulders sag as the Japanese woman stood, his back creaked in protest. Who would have thought that making a kimono fit took so much standing still? "Is there much more?"

"Impatient, Whore-chan?"

He glowered at the pet name as she offered him a hand down from his pedestal. He stepped down without the wounded woman's assistance and she shrugged. "No… I just…"

"Want to spend time with Yuu?" Her voice was factual, even if her expression was severe.

He nodded. Hiroko pushed him gently out of the way and used his shoulder as a crutch to get herself onto the chair he had been standing on. From there she leaned over, pulling three pins from her belt and sticking two in her mouth while the other went into the fabric of his collar. "I think that… after today… the two of us have some things to talk about. I mean, besides what you heard outside."

"Che!" She said from between her teeth. "Like how you love those useless machines?"

"They aren't useless. And it's different than what you're thinking."

"Right." She pulled the second needle from her mouth and slid it into the folded fabric, her dull gray eyes not looking at his face. "Useless is as useless does, as they say. And love is love. You may not have the same way of showing it to everyone, but the core is the same." The third pin went in without him twitching; her fingers retrieved three more from her belt. "I don't think you see it but the way you treat akuma and the way you treat Yuu aren't that different; you destroy akuma to save them, and you've destroyed what Yuu made himself into for similar reasons. Or have you noticed?"

Allen flinched back, more at her words than at the sudden pain of a needle in his skin.

"So you're not that much of a contradiction. You shouldn't worry that much about talking to him."

He swallowed and brought his shaking fingers to his throat as she pulled the pin out, gently pressing the place with her thumb. "I'm not going to get blood on the silk am I?"

"Che! If you do I'll make you bleed enough to make the whole thing stained one color."

When he had his hand in place she gradually lowered herself from the chair and retrieved a scrap of thick cotton from her spare cloth and brought it back for him. Allen unthinkingly tilted his head back to allow her to tie the red, makeshift bandage around for him. It was a tiny wound, it would only bleed for a little, and the large scrap was more than overkill. Neither of them really cared so longs as the light blue of his collar stayed light blue.

Looking at him like that she noted two things she had not noticed before. First, there was a shiny blue ribbon holding back his hair. And second, and more pressing, was the fact that she hadn't once actually tried to kill him but for the time when she had first met him. Which did not count at all. Why was that? Every wife was tested for strength and cunning in the Kanda family, so why had this boy escaped the torment so easily?

_I like him._

"Interesting tie you have." She commented, only half-caring.

"Oh, thank you," He smiled when she pulled away to remount her chair. "Kanda gave it to me for Christmas."

She stopped with one leg on the chair and one off. "What?" Had he said Christmas?

"He gave it to me for Christmas. He kind of stole my old one accidentally when he was wounded and I didn't… er… I mean… anyway… he had it for five days and after that I gave up on getting it back. It looks better in his hair anyways." He laughed a fake laugh that ended in something close to a cough. "What's so odd about Christmas?"

"Just…" She blinked at him, completely perplexed. "As far as I know he hasn't given anyone a Christmas present since…" The words died on her lips. After a moment she shook her head, a small smile curling the edges of her mouth as she lowered her foot to the ground, reaching for the lazy belt that held his kimono closed. "Never mind. I've done enough pinning for today. I can hem the bottom and the collar; you'll just have to wear it again tomorrow so I can do the sleeves and the front before we leave – which is fucking bullshit if you ask me."

He let her pull out the belt before he took to sliding it off gently, trying not to poke himself anymore than he had to.

"Stupid Order. They think they can tell me where the hell I can live? Che! I'll carve whoever's supervising a new asshole for this when I get there." As she spoke she gently took the unfinished garment from him, stretching the sleeves out and laying it carefully across her arm to avoid wrinkling. She continued to mumble to herself while he shrugged off the strange slip-like kimono he had been wearing beneath it and went about looking for his shirt, which had somehow been misplaced.

He thought it was rather amusing to think about – how Hiroko reminded him of Kanda in some ways but was completely different in others. He never mumbled to himself for one, and she cursed more. But they both had strange ways of showing affection. He remembered when he had learned from Lavi that the two of them were best friends (and not believing that _anyone_ could be friends with Kanda), and thinking it odd that the Japanese man brandished his sword at him so often. It had only been later that learned that Lenalee spent time meditating with the samurai – without dying – and it was only recently that he had discovered that Kanda really wasn't mean or cold when he wasn't trying. In that way he was like his mother. When she wasn't annoyed or feeling rude, she could have a completely civil conversation without doing more than calling him a whore and a talkative dickhead.

He made to turn down the hall in search of his lover when her voice stopped him short. "He's outside. Practicing."

"Oh," He turned back again, a small, awkward smile on his lips. He had found his shirt but he hadn't gone through the trouble of buttoning it. "Um…how do I get there?"

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Kanda breathed slowly in and out, reading the wind, feeling the somewhat warm sunlight on his skin. He was surprised that the day had grown so bright and warm after the cold morning wind. He could hear birds chirping, the quiet sound of water flowing over melting ice and snow, the distinct crash of tree branches snapping back when their snowy burdens were at last dropped upon the still cold ground. He could smell wet earth, the smallest hint of grass, the distinct tang of fish from the food he had prepared not long ago, and there, distantly, a swirl of wood smoke from a nearby chimney.

Artfully he went through each of the basic stances and swings, saying them in his mind as he went, speeding up with every turn. The sunlight on his back coupled with the sound of his feet in the slowly melting snow made him feel oddly at home, each moment that no one disturbed him adding to the illusion a little. The corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile; since when was he calmed by the thought of England? Why would he think about that when practicing blindfolded instead of the imaginary enemies he was hacking to shreds?

_Go ban._ He thought fiercely, sliding into the fifth stance he had learned. _From behind._

He performed the move expertly but his mind refused to openly analyze his form. It was still stuck on how the climate reminded him of England in spring.

Eventually he let it go. He let his mind think about England mostly because he was curious what would distract him so horribly from the task at hand. It did not take long for two people to wander into his mind, one that he would admit to missing only because she never bothered him and the other the only person in the order he would rather kill than admit to caring for. Best friends. They were only best friends because Lavi didn't understand when _go away_ actually meant _go away._

_Che,_ He mentally groaned. _I don't miss either of them. I simply want to know that they are both alive._ And that logic, at least, made shaking the nonexistent blood from his sword just slightly more important.

And then there was a footstep. Not his footstep, someone else's. Not too far away either, in the direction of the house. It was times like these he wondered why he made a habit of practicing blindfolded. But whatever. Everyone important knew better than to walk up behind him while he was swinging Mugen around – trying to listen and not think about England – so they deserved a light wounding for being stupid. Or at least that's what he told himself when he pivoted hurriedly and swung his blade downward, aiming to cut the intruder from skull to crotch if he could.

The sound of ringing steel filled the space they occupied when Mugen came into contact with a hastily raised katana that shook for a moment in its wielder's hands. The person smelled like paper and frightened surprise. Their breathing was somewhere between calm and nervous. The angle of the blade against his made him think that they had their weight on their back foot, which was stupid. It could only be one person he knew.

"Che, what do you want, Hito?" He pulled Mugen back and sheathed it without even touching the cloth over his eyes.

A quavering sigh rattled through the younger boy and he put away his blade as well. "How did you know it was me?"

Kanda harrumphed at him and pointed to Hitori's right food, or where he heard that it should be. "No one else would block a downward strike in a way that makes you easy to knock over. And you walked up on me unannounced. _Baka_."

"You sound like Okaasan."

"No I don't. We're nothing alike." He reached up with his right hand and took the blindfold firmly between his fingers before pulling it off over his head, which made him blink in the afternoon sunlight. The day looked just as uncharacteristically warm and cheery as it felt, without a cloud in the sky to mar the golden sun. "What do you want?" He repeated with a glare.

"Never mind. You're busy, it was stupid."

"Hito."

"It was."

"Hito."

Kanda crossed his arms across his still open jacket and sighed at him, narrowing his eyes yet more. His younger sibling sighed and lowered his head in defeat as he spoke. "Will you help me practice?"

"What?"

"Will you help me practice?" He looked up, his gray eyes pleading, his small mouth turned down in a frown. "As much as I hate _kendo_ I should learn it. Tradition and everything."

"Che." Kanda turned away from him, glowering.

"_Please_ Yuu-niiiiiiii." He pouted up at him, doing his very best impression of a small, sad animal. "Yuu­_-sempai?_"

But his brother wasn't looking at him. His deep blue eyes were looking out toward the house, a small smile playing on the edge of his lips. There was only one person who could make him have that expression, one person that could distract him from Hitori so easily – and Hito didn't really care. Sure, he wanted to have Yuu say yes and help him, and sure, he wanted to do so now and not later, but he also wanted to see Kanda make that expression more often. So he stood aside and let his brother be transfixed by the white haired boy he knew to be jogging up to talk to them.

"Never mind," He said before Allen could be within earshot. He was smiling as he spoke and it was odd to find that the expression wasn't forced at all. "You two have fun; I'll go see if Okaasan needs help with anything." He turned to go, but not before Kanda could catch by the arm.

"I'll help you after we leave."

Hitori blinked at him. "Huh?"

"Che. There's a lot of travel between here and England. We'll have time." He let go of his brother's arm and glared at him. "Don't look at me like you don't understand me."

"S-sorry." Hito stammered. "It's just… wow Yuu. I never thought you'd be…nice."

"Che."

The younger of them took that as his cue to go. He walked hurriedly back toward the house, murmuring a rushed greeting and farewell to Allen has he passed. The British boy did not notice the rather speedy way Hitori began and ended their meeting, he was too busy watching Kanda's eyes watch him to see much else.

After all, his shirt was still open.

"Hello, Love," He said brightly, raising himself up on his toes to leave a small, half-innocent kiss on the samurai's lips. The sunlight shone silver from his hair, made his metallic eyes glimmer like mirrors as he smiled, the red curse mark on his face flared as if it were freshly cut into his skin. When he grinned Kanda could see a tiny flash of teeth behind his lips, but that did not distract him from the open shirt he wore and the pale, pristine skin beneath it. He felt a tiny lift in his lips at Allen's lack of shame. He had to repress the urge to reach out and push the shirt all the way off – it was more or less pointless anyways, being open like that. It was distracting. Very distracting. In fact, he was suddenly aware that Allen had been speaking for a good ten seconds without him actually hearing a word the boy was saying or even hearing his tone of voice. And it was Allen's fault for not covering all of that seductive flesh – or at least that's what Kanda told himself; his self control was not at fault in the least.

_Shit._ He thought when Allen finished as if in a question, looking up at him with an expression that demanded he touch him. Touch him and give him some sort of answer. But what had he said? _I can't tell him I didn't hear a word of it. If I ask what he just said, I'm a dead man._

"Kanda?"

The word goaded him to take action.

"Kanda, why do you look like you're either going to molest me or find a frozen stream to leap into?"

Action. He needed to do something.

"_Baka_, your shirt's undone." He tried to glare as best he could manage without letting his eyes wander.

Allen nodded very slowly. "Yeah…I know."

"Che, trying to get sick again, Moyashi?"

His lover's shoulders sagged as he sighed at him, but his expression remained completely amused. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

Kanda looked away, admitting his guilt.

"I asked you if I should button my shirt or if you wanted to…" He bit his lower lip and shifted his weight, appearing to have lost whatever courage it had been that made him able to say it the first time. "Talk about some stuff. And then… touch each other. A lot."

Kanda looked at him again and raised an eyebrow in curiosity, his arms unfolding so that his jacket fell open as well. "In that order?"

He shrugged. "Well…order isn't really important. So long as we talk eventually – Ka-Kanda! We're _outside!"_ The older boy took him forcefully by the shoulders and hooked a leg behind him, tripping him unceremoniously onto the ground. They both landed with a soft thump, Kanda's lips immediately stopping Allen's protests, the British boy's hands gliding into his jacket of their own will and hiding high up on his shoulders, between his skin and the fabric of his greatcoat. The contrast of the cold, wet ground soaking into his shirt and the warmth above him only served to drive him closer to his lover, who in turn pushed himself up on his palms, breaking the kiss.

"So?" His voice was a whisper. "What's wrong with outside?"

"I'm getting wet…"

"Already? I haven't even started."

Allen's mouth fell open and Kanda laughed at him, dropping himself to his elbows. His right hand brushed the bangs from Allen's forehead delicately and his fingertips continued to pay with them even after his lover's face was clear, stroking back and forth while he separated his weight between his left hand and his hips.

"What did you want to talk about?"

"Now?" Allen's tone was uncertain. "Here?"

His lover's right hand stopped moving while he glowered down at him, the long pieces of his hair that did not go into his pony fell down the sides of his face. "Moyashi. Talk."

Allen sighed at him. "For one, I can't _believe_ you said that. For another, I wanted to explain what happened with me and that akuma and my arm." As he spoke he flexed his hard fingers against Kanda's skin, still yet unable to entirely feel the contact on it. He could move it though, which was good. "Because… I don't want you to think that there's still something wrong with me."

"Che." The man above him rolled his eyes and took to touching his hair again. "There is something wrong with you if you can try to be serious with me lying on top of you in the cold."

"No there isn't! This is important!" He floundered about for a moment but there was no way for him to displace the older Exorcist without first pulling his hands out of his coat, and that didn't seem like a good idea. He managed to move just enough so that the bare skin of his stomach found Kanda's; the contact almost made him forget what was so important after all. "I love them but that's nothing new. When I was little, after Mana, they were my only reason for fighting but now…" He slithered his right hand out of its sanctuary and touched the side of his lover's face with it, his eyes never leaving his dark blue irises even for a moment, "I see that there's you. And Okaasan, and Hitori, and Lavi, and Lenalee, Crowley, Komui, and everyone – I never fought for any of them before, but now I do. Even though I love akuma enough to save them, I love people enough to save them as well. Does that make sense, Love?"

"You sound like a martyr."

"No." He shook his head, his hand following the curve of his lover's skull until he found the tie that held his hair up. With two swift tugs he had it free, cascading around them like an ebony waterfall. "I won't die. Who would I save by doing that? Besides, if I fight for everyone, surely I have to stay alive for you."

"Hm." Kanda lifted his eyebrows at him, leaning closer as his right hand fell away to tug at the ribbon in Allen's hair. "So your right hand is for humanity and your left is for the akuma? If that's the case what do I get? Everything that's left?"

The boy beneath him pulled his head down gently and kissed him shortly before he spoke. "Yes. And my heart."

Kanda laughed before cheing at him chidingly. "If you were any sappier I'd swear you were a woman."

"And if you had any more hair I'd swear you were a man."

"Is that a challenge, Moyashi-kun?"

"Did it sound like one?"

Allen made a moaning sound of discontent and approval when Kanda first pulled the cloth from around his neck and then attacked with his mouth, sucking and nibbling mercilessly while Allen's fingers clenched at his skin and pulled his face closer. He felt fire run down his side in a line of goosebumps that made his left hand twitch in appreciation, his left leg moved slightly to the side, his knee coming up to rest on his lover's leg and pull him closer. A broken gasp hissed passed his lips when Kanda changed angles, gathering a bit of new flesh between his teeth with bruising force before soothing away the pain with a soft sweep of is tongue. He felt as if he were melting.

"Ka-Kanda… when did… where did… _ah… _that _hurts_… but don-don't… don't _stop…_" He was vaguely aware that his right leg had migrated as well, almost as if he were unconsciously making room for his lover to lean into him more freely. He didn't specifically care that they were outside anymore – it was nearly the farthest thing from his mind at that moment in time. "You're going… leave marks…"

He pulled away enough to see that he was indeed leaving bruises up and down the side of Allen's neck, each one darker than the last. "Oh well," He shrugged before going back to his work. He only made two more small prints and Allen was moaning his name softly, gasping tremblingly as his head fell farther back onto the still half-snowy ground in invitation. It almost made him laugh.

After a few moments Allen managed to pull himself back to his senses a little and stop Kanda's slow destruction of his dignity. His right hand pulled the Japanese man up for a kiss he theoretically was going to control, but his lover forged ahead, driving his will out of him with a soft twirl of his tongue a skillful brush of his chest with the hand he wasn't leaning on. Since when did Kanda know where to place his tongue to make him not want to fight any more? And since when did he know how to do that to Allen's neck? And this morning, the first time, how had he known the correct angle to hold Allen up without asking?

It wasn't as if Lavi was around to ask either.

"Love," He tried to sound serious; his right hand caught Kanda's face when he pulled away to go back to his throat. "Seriously, when did you start being _this_ good at this?"

The corner of Kanda's mouth turned up in a fiendish grin. "Che, are saying that I was bad?"

"_No…"_ Allen shook his head quickly while trying to ignore the warm fingers traveling lazily over the skin of his chest. "I'm saying that as good as you've always been you've been… really, _really_ amazing lately and…" He was blushing. He could tell by the way Kanda was looking at him that he was blushing. "I just wanted to know what brought about the change." He glanced away, knowing that if he continued to look Kanda in the face, one of them would do something to stop his talking. "I mean, you aren't talking to Lavi and you aren't talk to me, so who else is there?"

"Che. That's hardly everyone."

"Well, you'd die before you asked your mother…"

The older Exorcist shifted his weight to his right elbow and took to tracing the other side of Allen's chest with his left hand – which he knew was cold. "I'd have to kill her after I did."

"So…?" Allen persisted.

"You're forgetting someone." He smiled. "And I'm not telling you who."

Allen's face fell and he pushed lightly on Kanda's shoulder when he tried to lean back down to touch him again. "Why not? You know that I learned pretty much everything I know wandering around with Cross, that's no secret. So why can't you tell me?"

"Che." Kanda put more weight into leaning himself downward until Allen's right arm couldn't hold him up any more; he fell the short distance between them, bringing their faces very, very close together. "I never said I couldn't, Moyashi. I said I am not going to." And with that simple explanation of nothing, he attacked again.

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"Yeah, it's pretty and creepy at the same time, if that makes any sense at all."

"And he destroyed a level three with it?"

"Yup. Just _woosh_, cut it in half with a fingertip. The thing thanked him for it too."

"Did you see anything else strange when it happened?"

"Oh sure, I wasn't focusing on throwing fire at it or anything, I was totally looking for oddities in akuma behavior. Watched it dance a jig before it collapsed. Completely abnormal."

"Sable-chan…"

"I'm kidding. The only strange stuff was that Allen had been dying beforehand and then he wasn't, and then the akuma thanked him for destroying it. It didn't explode either – just kind of… melted." She shrugged even though the man on the phone couldn't see her. "I think he re-synchronized with it at a higher rate than before. At least that's how it looks."

There was a moment's silence and the sudden feeling that Komui was completely unaware that he was taping his pen in thought. "It's not unheard of that parasitic Innocence will act without the accommodator's will, but you say it _shattered_ before that happened? I don't understand. What do you mean by shattered?"

"It was powder. Shattered; smashed, broken, splintered, destroyed, blown apart, exploded, ruined, wrecked, crushed, demolished; see devastated."

Komui groaned.

Sable had to fight the urge not to giggle. "It was floating around in the wind that enveloped Kanda and Allen, and then it did something funny and I couldn't really see either of them and then he was fine. And it was fine. And the hole in his chest was gone like it had never been there in the first place. It's like… they were both remade when it happened. Allen and Crown Clown, I mean."

"Crown Clown?"

"Yeah. That's what my shard calls it." _Lovingly._

"Hmm… well, I guess that I won't be able to learn more until you get here. And please, make that as soon as possible."

"Right. As soon as Kanda finishes _practicing_ and Hiroko stops sewing, I'll be on everyone's ass about leave."

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Tyki had not wanted to leave but he had been unable to stay any longer. Lavi had smiled and waved goodbye, willing him not to see the pain on his face, the worry, and praying that someday soon they would both walk out of here without even a scratch on them. But now, with the Noah gone, he was left to ponder everything that had happened and to worry about his choice to trust the older man.

Because it still looked like he had been betrayed.

And what was the difference between being betrayed and appearing to have been betrayed? If Tyki said the horrible things he had said he was going to say, and if he stood by and watched Lavi be hurt, wasn't that the same as doing it himself? Wasn't _that_ a form of treason?

_No._ Lavi thought desperately. _I can't stand the thought of him not meaning those words. I can't. I won't think about it. Even if it _is_ a lie, even if he's still leading me toward my doom, I don't care – I can't live if he's not on my side._

And there was everything in that dream. It had been so real. Everything. It had looked like Tyki, felt like Tyki, _smelt_ like Tyki. Just like the one who had just reassured him of his love a few hours before. How did he know which was real?

_Stop it. You'll drive yourself crazy._

He was glad that it wasn't dark in the room anymore; he would have thought of nothing but that horrific dream and the likelihood that Tyki was lying to him. He shivered.

The dank air was getting to him. The older man had lit a sconce by the door, which served to supply him with a bit of illumination at the cost of the less than pleasant smell of burning pitch permeating throughout the room. And it smoked every so often, which did nothing good for his lungs. After a while of trying to breathe normally and attempting to think of something _besides_ how he wasn't actually sure if trusting his lover explicitly was a good idea, he slid sideways across the wall and onto the smooth cool floor to rest his head on it even though he knew it couldn't be too clean.

If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that it was a window back in Sweden.

He missed everyone. He knew that he hadn't been gone more than a day because he wasn't hungry yet, but he still missed them. He hadn't seen Yuu in a long time. Or Allen. He wondered if Allen had grown any, or if Kanda had trimmed his hair, or if either of them had thought about calling him while they were away. It was a rare thing for Yuu-chan to call another Exorcist, but he had called before, claiming that it was some purpose _besides_ finding out if he was still alive. It made him smile to remember the first time it had happened, when they were both perhaps thirteen, and the Japanese Exorcist had claimed to have found extra clothes in his laundry that he had thought were Lavi's.

'_You left your stuff in my room again, baka usagi.'_ He had growled over the phone. _'I told you that don't care if you fall asleep here as long as you don't leave your shit. Che!'_

'_Is it underwear?'_

'_Yes! How the hell can you leave without them?'_

'_Oh. I got you those for your birthday, Yuu-chan! I didn't forget them!'_

'_Don't fucking all me Yuu-chan! Omae wa daikirai zo!'_

The sound of his own chuckle brought him out of the memory and back to the moment at hand. It didn't feel like five years ago. Six. Whatever. It felt like yesterday. He knew that if he let himself, he could relive the moment exactly, but that would take time – and he didn't want to do that, not when he was here. Here was not a good place to stop paying attention to _now_, that was for sure. Not when the door was bound to come open eventually.

And, just as he thought it, the door did come open. Hurriedly he pushed himself up from the floor until he was leaning against the wall again, staring fearfully at the wood and iron portal is it swung noisily on its hinges to admit three people. The first two he marked as akuma, the silent demeanor with which they walked coupled with the way they watched their companion gave them away rather easily. They were plain looking, both men whom he would have passed in a crowd while thinking only of how unimportant they were. But the last man in the door, he was different. Dark skinned, broad of shoulder, thick in a way that reminded him of a tree trunk or an ogre.

When the man looked at him with colorless eyes and twirled his lollipop between his teeth Lavi found that he was staring only at the seven cross scars on his forehead and the lopsided way he grinned.

"Who…?" He didn't finish the question. The shorter of the simple looking akuma took him by the right arm and hauled him to his feet. He pulled away from it, a sudden wash of fear coming over him. What was the Noah's power? And was he going to use it? If that was the case he wasn't going to stand by and let this stupid machine hold him still.

The Noah took two steps forward before punching him forcefully in the stomach, driving the air from his lungs and rendering him in capable of doing much more than wheeze. After that the akuma had no trouble holding his arms at bay while their human companion pulled Lavi's head up by the hair, his expression unreadable.

"Skin Bolic." He said in voice as low and raspy as any Lavi had ever heard. "Do you like sweet things?"

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Kanda pressed Allen back on the fabric of his coat and tried not to smile at the expression the younger boy was making.

"Love, we cannot do this outside."

"Oh? Why not?" His left thumb bumped into Allen's nipple as he spoke whisperingly into the soft flesh of his neck. "Birds do it all the time."

"That's _so_ not a reason." He had protested for a number of minutes while his lover took of his coat, exposing himself to air, and flung it down on the soft wet earth before rolling him grudgingly onto it. His back wasn't getting wet anymore but the cold wetness of his shirt still clung grossly to his skin. And now Kanda was shirtless, leaning into him, slowly chasing the fabric of his shirt over his shoulders and partly down his arms, biting and licking and touching the newly exposed parts of his body. He wasn't in control at all. "And it's supposed to be my turn…" He half moaned, "You just did…me this morning…"

"Mmhmm…" Kanda agreed, following the curve of his left shoulder with his lips before coming back to speak into his ear. "I think I can have _moyashi_ twice in a day," He licked expertly around the shell of Allen's ear, making him blush. "Besides, it's not like you're fighting me very hard for not wanting to do this here. Now. With me taking you." The words were very quiet, his left hand drifting down between them to touch the crotch of Allen's pants. The white haired boy made a choked sound of surprise. "See? You're enjoying yourself. Or you're very good at faking it." He stroked through the fabric of his lover's pants, gently pressed his earlobe between teeth and tongue before speaking again; Allen shook like a leaf beneath him. "You want this, Allen. And I want you. And it's your fault for not closing your shirt when you came to talk to me."

"I did that on purpose." The younger Exorcist breathed, "I didn't think it would work this well though."

"Work?" Kanda chuckled, drawing back to kiss his lover's lips. Allen's arms curled around his neck and his hand slid away from its teasing, coming instead to caress the tight skin of his lover's stomach. When they broke apart he smirked down at the British boy in his arms. "If it had worked you would be lying on top of me, _baka_. Not the other way around."

"Yeah…" Allen smiled back at him before Kanda turned his attention to removing his shirt. _That's what you think._

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**Oh, kick Niamh for ending it there. But don't worry! I'll have the next part up soon XD**

**Thoughts? Feelings? Ideas? Did it feel like it tied for the second longest chapter ever? Because it did. :D //loves\\**


	57. Letting Go

**Longest ever. Love readers reviewers. **

**I no own – did Kanda hair down lots.**

**Warning: Man-sex.**

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Letting Go

"Here." The Noah of Pleasure handed the akuma-boy a piece of paper that had been folded neatly, printed with a spot of dark wax in a very old style. "Take that to the woman it's addressed to – if you don't find her in the town I told you about, search anywhere you know Exorcists to be. When you find her, tell her what you are after she reads it. If she sees fit to destroy you, do not fight."

Cole blinked up at him, taking the letter in his small fingers. "But…won't Uwi-sama be mad if I explode?" He tucked it into shirt pocket, his frown deepening. "And who will heal Lavi-san if I don't? I… won't…see him again if I do. He's so nice fow an Exowcist." His face fell further, his lower lip sticking out in a pout. "I wanna talk to him mowe."

Tyki patted him affectionately on the head, a sad smile curling his mouth slightly. "I know. But in this world no one, not akuma nor Noah nor Exorcists nor even normal humans get what they want all the time. Whether you see him again or not will be Lenalee-san's decision; regardless of which you will treat her with utmost respect, I might add."

"Mmhmm!" Cole enthused, tucking the note in his pocket. "I'll tweat hew like I do Noah-sama!"

"Good. Hurry along now. I don't know how much time we have to save him."

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Eight hours. Lavi had been gone for eight hours. And Lenalee couldn't find him anywhere. He wasn't in the hospital and none of the local doctors had been visited by a tall redheaded boy with a broken arm. So where was he? He and Tyki couldn't have gone that far, could they have?

Unless…

She compulsively hugged herself as she walked, not willing to think about that yet. For all she knew the Noah knew a better doctor in the next town and they had gone there without saying anything, even if it seemed unlikely.

Because a lot of things seemed unlikely, yet they were nonetheless.

_How long should I give him?_ She thought as she turned down the street toward their inn. _A day? A few more hours? Until nightfall?_ The thought was very unpleasant to her. She would have to call her brother and explain that she had lied to him, that Lavi and a Noah named Tyki Mikk had been seeing each other before his disappearance and she had let them do it. It wouldn't matter that they had seemed to be in love with one another. It wouldn't matter that Tyki hadn't been the one to break Lavi's wrist. It would still look the same.

They would assume that Lavi had betrayed the Order.

His Innocence weighed heavily upon her.

"Come back, Lavi," She said softly, pausing on the street corner. "If you don't, they'll think you crossed the line."

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When the obstructive fabric of Allen's shirt was out of the way, Kanda sat back, straddling his hips to look down at him in the sunlight. His skin was perfect. There wasn't a scar from the whole that had been ripped through his chest, not even a blemish. The line that had bespoke of his accident with Mugen was gone also, leaving nothing but his memory to serve as a reminder of how close he had come to dying. Kanda's hands ran tenderly over his lover's chest and down his stomach, slowing when Allen's fingers found his forearms.

He was momentarily pulled away by the strange new appearance of Allen's left arm.

He had never been revolted or curious about the limb previously; it was simply apart of the white haired boy like Mugen was a part of him – only more physically. Now though, he couldn't help but think about all of the trouble and all of the pain Allen had endured because of it, and he couldn't help but want to make himself and his lover forget that trial.

"Does it hurt?" He asked seriously. The British boy beneath him shook his head gently but still tensed when he took it into his grasp, pulling it up toward his face as if to see it more clearly. The fingers were longer than before, the texture of his skin more like bone by his knuckles, but it was still a hand. Softly and unthinkingly he leaned down enough to lay his lips on the darkened flesh of its back. "Good."

"Love," Allen's voice was very quiet, as if frightened someone would hear. "Weren't you a lust crazed lunatic a moment ago?"

The Japanese Exorcist laughed before leaning down to touch the side of his face, and then kissed softly down the line of gradually purpling bruises on his neck. The fingers of his right hand twined with those of Allen's left and he pushed the limb down next to his lover's head, allowing it to bear a little of his weight while his left hand moved swiftly to Allen's hips. "No," He said between kisses. "I'm never lust crazed, I have self control."

Allen grunted in disbelief while his right hand slid slowly down Kanda's side until it found his belt, which he took firmly in his grip and pulled forward, forcing the older boy to slide fully onto him, hips grinding together. Kanda made a slight sound of surprise when a pair of willing lips pressed into his, a hungry tongue sweeping across his mouth to demand entrance. He gave it this time, enjoying the feeling of Allen pressing up on him with all the strength of health as well as the flurry of excitement that went through him at the slight moan in his lover's throat. He deepened the kiss, letting his tongue play softly back as the hand on his belt let go for a moment. He was just about to break for air when the hand that had left his belt came back again, this time slipping inside of his pants.

Kanda pulled away sharply, gasping at the sudden brush against him. Allen smiled as he wrapped his fingers around him and had to fight off a chuckle when the Japanese man slumped forward, just catching his weight before he could collapse onto his lover. The smaller boy moved his hand expertly across Kanda's skin as he moaned deeply, his mouth finding Allen's ear as he swallowed despite the sensations running through him.

"What are you doing?"

Allen tilted his head back and squeezed ever so gently with his fingers. He grinned at the sound that elicited. Like Kanda liked it and didn't want it at once. "Nothing, just checking your self control."

Kanda lowered his mouth slowly to the exposed throat before him and spoke to it rather than to his lover's face. "Would you rather I abandon it entirely, Moyashi? Because you're—_hyn—"_ He panted into Allen's flesh, fire searing through him from the contact against him and the nearly silent snicker seeping through the flesh against his skin. Allen didn't understand how hard it was to _not_ grab his hand, rip off his pants, and molest him without pace or caring. He was having fun – too much fun – and he needed to learn that some fun could not be had at his lover's expense.

It was time for a lesson.

Allen let out a tiny shriek of fright when teeth closed painfully on his shoulder, and the hand that had been holding his lover up took a hold of his hand had pulled it away from its ministrations. Before long his entire right arm was numb from the pain of Kanda's mouth against him, and the fingers on his wrist bit into his flesh with a force that made him smile; it had worked. _Besides_ talking to Kanda about what he loved and how it loved it, he had also wanted him to let go, to do what he wanted without regard for Allen's wishes, and this had seemed like the only way to go about it.

And it had worked.

When Kanda rocked forward to change the way he held his weight Allen unconsciously lifted his hips to meet him, straining against the confines of his pants. He did not say anything though. Instead he let his hands be held at bay while his lover lapped at the bite mark he had made, then the curve behind his ear, then the line of his chin, rocking forward every so often whenever the notion seemed to suit him. When Allen's hands were moved above his head and held in a single grip he did not even grumble in protest – he simply opened his mouth to take thirsty kiss Kanda aimed to give him. He felt himself shaking and he couldn't say why he was. Perhaps it was the cold under Kanda's jacket, or the sweat forming on is skin or the sensation of fingers ripping away his belt – it didn't matter, he was still shaking.

The Japanese man noticed what he had decided to do when the leather of his lover's belt landed somewhere near by on the ground, alerting a feeding sparrow to their presence. And the body beneath him wasn't acting adverse to the idea at all, that would make life easier. When he sat back again he gently coaxed Allen to tilt up with him, bringing him into a hurried kiss that nearly bruised his lips it was so forceful. One arm wrapped at once behind his lover's shoulders while the other hand cupped the base of his skull; Allen's arm instinctually curved around him, drawing him in until they were so close Kanda could feel Allen's heartbeat against his skin.

When Allen pulled away to breathe the sky was spinning. The air in his lungs almost burned. His face turned sideways while he tried to catch his breath, leaning more on his lover than anything else, half ignoring the fact that Kanda still had air enough to continue caressing the un-bruised side of his neck all the way back to where his fingers still touched the base of his skull. It was there that he stopped and moved back to look into his Lover's face.

"Moyashi-kun," His voice was low and determined, like that of a man speaking his last words. Allen blinked at him with heady eyes and smiled from the corner of his mouth, perhaps he had been caught. "I'm going to teach you one of the hardest lessons I know."

"Kanda," His voice was breathy, but he still had enough strength to rock forward into his lover without collapsing into a panting mess. "If anyone needs to learn, it's you." He smiled at the strange expression that got him. Lingeringly the fingers of his left hand turned against the skin of his lover's back, they worked to soothe the tension there as well as to distract from the words that slowly but surely were coming out his mouth. "You always slow down and wait for me, you always back down when you think it's too much, you never let go. You focus so much on being sure that touching lasts forever that you never… stop looking at me like I'm something breakable and soft. I'm not breakable and soft. Whatever you _want_ to do is fine – you won't kill me."

"Moya—"

"No, you don't get to rant yet. Honestly Love, after two days of not touching you, I'd rather that you perform every sexual fantasy you ever had than sit here and reign yourself in like you're afraid of me. We love each other, don't we? So why don't you just…let go. I want you to let go, even if you're scared to, even if it's awkward or creepy or _mindless fucking_ as you called it. You're allowed to grab me by the collar and shake me like I did in the room if you need to. So… if you want to, would you _please_ go back to bruising my neck and stroking my…um…_me _now?"

Kanda kissed him softly, tilting over him so that he fell back on his lover's coat, strong arms guiding him back to the cold earth. He reached up to hug the man that lay against him, surprised by the tenderness with which a hand slipped down his back, across his ribs, and down to the buttons of his pants, burning pleasant fire as they went. And all the while Kanda kept bringing him back into the kiss, keeping him from speaking, rendering him incapable of breathing in anything but panting gasps of desperation. The hand that had pulled aside his pants drifted inside of them, wrapping strongly around his budding erection and stroking it firmly, forcing a muffled sound of yearning to break passed their sealed lips. His fingers clenched on his lover's shoulders in response to it and his legs pushed his hips upward, begging for the pressure against him not to let go.

And then it was gone and the mouth above him was breathing hotly on the side of his face in a way that made goosebumps rise all down his neck, and his pants were next to his head, rumpled and wet from when Kanda had first tripped him. He was vaguely aware of a palm pressing on the flesh of his chest; his thoughts far too intent on the way Kanda was changing angles to care over much about the electrical shocks searing from his nipples. And then there was another pair of pants on top of his own, and something cupping his manhood with a gentleness that made him whimper wantonly and pull at the shoulders he could still touch.

The sunlight on Kanda's bare legs seemed to heat his blood passed boiling. Allen was moaning softly up at him – saying his name mostly – seeking release even if it had not been over long since he had started their little… outdoor adventure. It made him smirk to think about it. Here he was, doing what he wanted to do, without asking, and Allen didn't seem to be minding – yet.

"Are you sure, Moyashi?" He was surprised to find that his voice caught in his dry throat. "If you tell me yes I won't ask you again." One of the hands on his back slid onto the back of his neck and pulled him down so that he was looking into those clear silver eyes and seeing the pure trust there, and the willingness to give whatever it was he needed to give.

"I love you, Love." He broke off when Kanda's thigh brushed his, stealing his words. "And…" He made a slight moaning sound when his lover did it again, this time on purpose. "I trust you. I do. Don't—_hah—_do that when I'm—" He moaned wildly and thrusted his hips at the hand that was against him, wet with what he did not know to be lotion. He wasn't thinking about that though, it wasn't important that Kanda carried lotion for his knuckles in the cold, and it wasn't important if the fingers against him were moist so long as they continued to provide him with that splendid, impossibly hot friction. He was fine but that he hadn't finished what he meant to say in the first place.

Kanda smiled when Allen glared up at him – or tired to glare up at him – and decided that maybe he should finish the sentence his lover had started. "Trying to reassure me?"

The white haired boy tried to nod but Kanda pulled away from him again, so his head fell back against the ground and he growled in frustration, the hand he had left on the back of Kanda's neck fisting in his hair. Kanda was moving around again, but he wasn't looking at him, not when he was being mean like that, and smirking like he wasn't dying for it like Allen was. _Prick,_ He thought venomously, _If I didn't love you so much I'd shove you off and steal your clothes and make you explain why you're naked to Ok—_

With his work finished, Kanda finally had Allen's legs wide, his knees bent properly, and his held tilted just so he couldn't argue. He lay back down across him and ever so slowly, but with enough speed to be sure that his lover wouldn't have the slightest idea what had hit him, hooked a hand under Allen's hips and sank down on his erection, grimacing at the horrible job he had done preparing himself for this.

But that was fine. He wanted to do this because, honestly, he had never tried. And the shocked expression that pulled Allen's eyes open made every moment of discomfort completely worth it, as did the tiny scream of pleasure that erupted unhindered from his lips. His fingers tightened on Kanda's skin and his pelvis rolled forward as if of its own devising and the older of the two moaned down at him half in appreciation and half in distress. Everything had gone so well, and the fact that Allen could not yet close his mouth from the shock roiling through him made Kanda smile into the burning hot flesh of his lover's throat.

"Are you ok?" He whispered. Just his breath on his lover's skin made him shiver. It was too much for Allen. What was Kanda thinking? Something like that – out of the blue – was a good way to horrify him and stimulate him beyond comprehension. Even now he struggled to gasp out the words that he needed to say.

"Kan…da…" His fingers made lines down to his lover's hips despite not having the strength or will to look at them. "Move."

The Japanese Exorcist smiled crookedly. "Didn't want to if it was going to be too much," He kissed lightly at the heartbeat against his lips before shifting up to move more efficiently. "Ready?"

There was a tug at his hips and a moan that might have sounded affirmative. So he did.

It was very different this way, different than he thought it would be at least. First and foremost was his slowly dissolving ability to think beyond his own need, which was undiminished by the lack of characteristic pleasure he was getting. But, as he moved first forward and then backward again, his lover raised none too gently to meet him and he found that not having been even remotely satisfied beforehand did not make this more difficult to endure, it made him more clearheaded. Allen bucked up sharply, driving him on with a hiss.

That one motion made Kanda's world shrink to nothing but the two of them, no longer clearheaded. He leaned back into the sensation, his palms gripping at Allen's shoulders as he thrusted, hitting the same place again. The boy beneath him made a small sound in the back of his throat, a sound that only added to the building ecstasy in his loins and made him growl in response. The hand on his left hip slipped down the inside of his thigh and to his erection, caressed with an earnestness that somehow managed to fit the slowly increasing tempo he had established. He wondered fleetingly if this were Allen's way of getting his turn, but then that idea was gone in a wave of bliss. He rocked forward and back again, harder, the hand against him faltering with the motion.

Allen was very, very close. Just where he wanted him.

The British boy thought he was either going to scream or cry. Kanda's mouth on his swallowed the sound that managed to escape his lips, which in turn vibrated through his throat and into his chest, making him moan softly back. He lifted himself to meet his lover's movement, the hand that still remained on Kanda's hips pushed him up in order to bring him down again, driving Allen nearly passed the brink. But he couldn't lose himself yet. Not when his lover seemed so far behind.

It took all of his will to keep his hand from faltering again. Kanda moved as if he knew it was nearly too much, but he did not let the heat fall between them, instead he kept the intensity, holding Allen at exactly the point he had made it to and no farther, waiting for himself to catch up.

After three times hitting the place within him he moaned out a hardly distinguishable word, arching back into Allen raised and ready hips. Allen's voice lifted in a scream of desire as his lover moved with him, at last increasing the pace and allowing him to pound upward, filling him with searing fire that threatened to release him at once. He wouldn't though, not until Kanda was breathing erratically, his face flushed with want.

That happened only a few moments later. With his right hand he abandoned Kanda's hip to pull him down into a warning kiss; words failed to express how much he enjoyed the moment. It was Kanda who kept their lips together in the moment that ecstasy took him, though his tongue stalled when he was lost in Allen's pleasure, the smaller boy's release carrying him over the edge and into oblivion. He shuddered and gasped when the moment sucked him in and held him, waves of pleasure soaring through him in a torrent that forced his mouth from his lover's in a racking cry. He trembled until his chest fell the last few inches between him and Allen, and the contact of cold and sweat slicked skin against him prompted him to wrap his arms around his lover even before he could comprehend that he was tired.

It did not matter that he was tired, he was happy.

When he tilted so that Allen was safely snuggled between his arms, breathing rapidly, it occurred to him that they were still on his jacket, looking up at the late afternoon sun.

Allen seemed to notice at the same time as he did.

"Love, I'd like to ask you if that was even remotely close to what you _actually wanted to do_," He looked up through his silver lashes when he paused, which drew Kanda's eyes back to his flushed, contented looking face. "But I think I'd rather take this time to tell you that we're still outside. And not very far from the house."

Kanda chuckled at him before placing a delicate kiss on the corner of his mouth, pulling him closer. "Che. You're on the forest side. If anyone walks out they won't even see you."

"That doesn't mean I want them to see you."

"Oh?"

"Nope. You're my naked samurai, and as such should only be available for private, closed viewings."

"If I didn't know any better I'd think you were being possessive."

"What's wrong with being possessive?"

The Japanese man shook his head as if in disbelief. "I had my suspicions at Christmas, but I never thought that you'd admit to it."

"Admit to what?"

"Being possessive of me."

It was Allen's turn to laugh under his breath. "How am I _not_ supposed to be possessive? You're attractive – if someone is blind enough not to notice that upon seeing you naked, I think something has to be wrong with them."

"Or they're related to me."

"Yes, well…" _Same difference, _His mind finished for him.

The arms around him curled tighter as Kanda laid his head comfortably in the crook of his neck effectively rendering him incapable of looking over his shoulder at his expression. "You are right about one thing though, we are outside. And both of us could do with a bath."

"And so could your coat."

"Shit."

Allen reached up with a straining right arm until his fingers found the fabric of his pants, which he pulled closer and began to untangle one handed, not bothering to sit up as he tried. The entire backside was soaked through, and he knew that putting them on was going to be an unpleasant experience.

"Get up, Moyashi." Kanda growled from behind him, taking the pants in his hand.

"Why?" He asked, sitting. Kanda pushed himself entirely, ushering Allen off as he took the side of his coat in hand and chased his naked lover into the half-melted snow. "What are you doing?" Kanda did not answer at once; instead he shook the dirt and debris from his article before taking it by the collar and holding it almost indifferently in his left hand while he dropped Allen's pants back onto the ground. Allen was just seconds from demanding to know why Kanda would do such a thing when the heavy garment plopped down on his shoulders, surprising him into silence.

For a moment he turned away from his pants and instead blinked at his lover.

"Che, what?"

"Nothing… just…" He stopped himself short. He wasn't supposed to thank him he remembered, so instead he slinked his arms through the too-big sleeves and let his arms hang at his sides, fingers not quite actually reaching the openings for his hands. "I love you. That's all."

_He looks cute in my clothes,_ Kanda thought – be he dared not say it. The hem of his greatcoat hung to the ground, pooling around Allen's feet and ankles, but the cutest part was that when he bent his arms to retie his hair, he could not actually find his hands within the fabric to do it properly. "Come on, Moyashi," He yanked up a pant leg and fought with the other before bending to retrieve their other abandoned clothing and his small, depleted bottle of hand lotion. "Let's go – and button that up this time, if Sable will go for a fully clothed Hito for _references_, I don't know what she'd do with a half-naked you."

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He was going to fall apart at any moment, just shatter into a thousand tiny pieces whenever his heartbeat became too much for his flesh to bear anymore. He kind of wanted it to hurry up and happen, because every moment he drew air into his lungs and breathed it out again was dark, unhappy agony.

He wondered if it was a sign when he couldn't see very well anymore.

"I asked you," The gruff voice said again. He felt the angle of his neck change but he no longer felt the pain of having his hair pulled. It was kind of ironic being the man was trying to cause him pain and only managing to make him feel numb. "If you liked sweets."

_That's thirty-two times you've asked, and you're seriously denser than Yuu if you think violence is going to make me answer._ When he didn't respond he was hit twice, once in the face and once in the gut, and both brought blood to his lips. What was this? A 'how to' on making pretty bruises on captives? Or 'how to' annoy your prisoner with uselessly stupid questions? Or was it simply an exercise in taste bud expressionism gone terribly awry? He didn't care anymore, he just wanted to curl up into a tiny ball and lay still for a while – this _Skin_ character could keep his fists and his sweets to himself.

"Answer me."

He was silent. _Like I thought last time, Mugen is one hell of a lot scarier than you are, Mr. Epidermis._

This time he was hit in the back, across his kidneys, which made him gasp. He shouldn't have done that. The force of the blow on his chest had him seeing stars the moment that he was almost completely without air, lungs burning. He could have sworn he heard bones breaking. After sucking in enough air to fill his quivering chest he coughed hard enough to get a mouthful of blood running down his chin, his arms gave out for a second time. He fell a bit until the akuma caught him and dragged him up again, booted feet scraping on the floor. He hadn't been holding himself up for a long time, but the two holding him up had done a splendid job of keeping him teetering on his feet. Now his feet were at the wrong angle; only his captured arms kept him from sinking onto the floor. He wanted to say something profane, but before he could even think about speaking another mouthful of gore followed the first. He tried to spit but managed only to expel it with a small amount of force, sending the liquid mostly onto his coat and partly onto the floor. So much for being a rude prisoner, he couldn't even get blood on his captor.

"Skin-sama," The taller akuma on his left said quietly. "I must humbly remind you that you must not kill the boy."

The large man growled deep in his throat and lashed out at the akuma, hitting it hard enough to send it sprawling into the wall. Lavi's arm was dropped in the process and he collapsed, slipping from the shorter akuma's grasp and hitting the cold stone tile as if he were already dead. The angle made his ribs cry out in protest, but he didn't have the strength to lift himself from them; he turned his head a little before throwing up again, smaller coughs shaking his frame as he choked, sending blood out his nose. There was too much blood on the floor, too much on his face, in his mouth. There was something wrong. Being hit more didn't seem like a good idea.

_Just pass out._ He told himself. _He can't ask you stupid questions if you pass out._

The Noah was yelling, but he couldn't say that he understood the words. He heard chains rattle when a booted foot hit him hard in the shoulder, sending him spiraling away toward the wall. There might have been a sword through his back for all the pain he felt in it. When he landed on his back his left eye came open a little, revealing to him a spinning room and a large puddle of blood in the middle of the floor, lines of which went back to his bloodied coat and face.

_Wow,_ He swallowed hard, watching the Noah take the akuma that had suggested he stop by the head and rattle him violently, screaming harshly. _He has some serious anger issues._

His right arm was starting to go numb.

Tyki, who had simply been passing through, heard a commotion that could only signify that a very irritated Sweet Tooth was in Lavi's cell, doing something less than pleasant. He decided that – for the benefit of all persons involved – it would be best to check in and see what was happening with the poor Bookman and his dear relative; because a broken or dying apprentice would make both him and the Earl very unhappy, though for different reason. Surreptitiously, he poked his face in through the door without opening, trying to look indifferent.

He felt his jaw fall slack at the sight of Skin holding and akuma out by the head, cursing its insolence, its fellow machine watching in muted horror, hand extended. And there, by the wall, was Lavi. His red hair was matted with blood, gouts of which stained his face, oozing from his left nostril and both corners of his mouth. His jacket was torn in numerous places, each one adding to the gore with a wound of its own. There was a small cut on his right cheek that followed the line of his cheek bone, and a long scrape over his left eye that had bled down to blind him. His right shoulder looked displaced.

There was so much blood on the floor, and on Lavi's scarf. Where had it all come from?

He felt anger roil in his stomach and bubble over into his heart before he could think to stop it. And then Lavi's left eye, which was hardly open, flicked to his face. He seemed to want to say something but a deep retch shook him and blood seeped from between his lips, restraining his chin and running down his neck until it soaked into his already reddened scarf. The flow did not cease for two long breaths and the apprentice coughed sickly when it did, fisted hands trying to curl in around his badly beaten ribcage.

"You _fool_!" He strode into the cell, walking passed the still livid Skin and coming immediately to his lover's side, not hiding his concern or his anger. His voice, heavy with dangerous unspoken threats, distracted the other Noah from his current irritant and made him turn to look, lowering the machine until its feet were just hardly on the floor. "You were told to _question_ him, not beat him to death." He knelt with his back to the other man, pulling off his gloves and tucking them into his chest pocket as he reached for his lover's face and drew him up until his head was on his knees. The apprentice stared up at him with his bruised green eye, blinking as if hardly seeing him. "What can you expect to learn from a _dead_ Bookman? And what do you think the Millennium Earl would do it—ugh! Look what you've done: blood on my new pants because of you, Sweet Tooth."

He leaned very close to Lavi as he touched the side of his face with a soft palm, lowering his ear to his mouth.

"Ty-cha…" Tyki laid a soft finger on his lips to stop his talking and just listened to the air in his lungs.

"Don't try to speak," He said softly. "I'm here now. He won't hurt you anymore." It moved labouredly, as if it hurt just breathing. He had to fight the urge not to kill the man standing behind him.

"That Exorcist is not dying, Tyki Mikk."

He turned his head over his shoulder and glared at the giant man with eyes far more defensive than they should have been. "Wrong. You hurt him internally. He will bleed out in a number of hours if we leave him like this." He turned back to the redhead and opened his left hand, grimaced at it. After a moment a large purple butterfly sprouted from its flesh, paper thin wings flicking in the still air. A perfect, larger replica of the one on Lavi's cufflink. With his right hand he reached into Lavi's chest, searching for the greatest danger to the young man's life.

He had killed enough people to know when he found a whole that was not supposed to be there, spilling life blood into places it wasn't supposed to be. He had been right; Skin really had destroyed his insides.

"Tease," He spoke to the butterfly. It twitched its wings as if it understood him. "Fix what bleeds the most, do _not_ eat him." He moved his right hand and replaced it with the tease on his left, tilting forward to speak into Lavi's ear as he did. "That may hurt a bit but I don't know what else to do. Now please," He touched the fetters on his wrists and they fell away noisily, clattering like thunder on the too-smooth floor. "Don't try to speak until we're alone." It was not until he had removed the chains from Lavi's ankles that his companion became suspicious.

He took a lumbering step forward and finally dropped the poor akuma who had tried to stop him before. The demon scampered away to the door and opened it, dashing away without closing it behind him. The other stayed where he was, trying to be obedient.

"Where are you taking him?"

Tyki made a soft sound of disbelief as he pulled Lavi into his arms. He could see that even moving him hurt the boy. His arms hung out from his sides and his head lulled backward; he had lost too much blood for much else to be done but that. "You don't expect him to recover here, in this dark room with this horrid air and these ice cold tiles? Look at the mess you have made on the floor before you make such stupid assumptions. He needs care. Otherwise he won't be fit to speak for weeks – he may not yet, with what you've done." He stepped floatingly around the larger man, towards the door, his burden did not as much as twitch as they sidled passed. "Good day, Sweet Tooth. I hope I don't see you at dinner." And with that lingering comment he exited the one room of the ark that Lavi had seen and walked unhurriedly down a long, bright hallway, lined with wide bay windows that let in the fading twilight. It didn't seem like the sort of place to keep a room carved from solid rock.

Lavi looked out those windows and tried to imagine where on Earth they were. He also wondered if maybe he should worry about the large, stunned Noah they had left gaping at them in the dungeon.

There were stairs and doors and two more hallways before Tyki was pulling open a door and stepping into a room. Lavi did not get to see much more than a high ceiling a red canopy before he was laid gently on a cream white bedspread that was filled with down, the softness of which was all too much like being thrust upon a cloud after that cold tile floor. Every part of him hurt. Every part of him except for his feet. And his mind did not want comprehend what had just happened anymore than he wanted to think about the pain that coursed through him with every rise and fall of his chest.

"Ty…chan…" His lips hardly moved as he said the word, just enough to bring the Noah's curious countenance back into view. "What… took so…long?"

The corner of Tyki's mouth turned up in a sad smile, his right hand touched the side of Lavi's face, tears gleaming in his eyes. "I was writing a letter to your Chinese friend and sending it on its way. Don't speak," He gently covered Lavi's mouth with his fingers to block the coming onslaught, "Don't ask questions yet. Let me get something for your injuries."

"'Kay."

Tyki vanished for a moment, but he continued to speak as he moved away, gathering the things he needed. "This is my room. I don't spend a lot of time here but—" There was water running, most likely from an adjoined bathroom, "It's still mine. No one else comes in unless invited." Footsteps and he was back again, gauze tucked under one arm, bowl of warm water in his opposite hand, washcloth over his shoulder. His hat and jacket were gone and he had rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up by his elbows, he looked like a much displaced doctor to the redhead bleeding on his bed. "You'll be safe."

Lavi swallowed hard and tried to smile at him, but he felt as if the expression were a travesty of what he wanted. "Will you?"

The words made Tyki's face fall. "Will I what?"

"Be safe."

He nodded curtly, not wanting to verbalize an answer. He might suffer the consequences of bringing Lavi into his room eventually, but that small sin would pale in comparison to the fact that he had saved the boy's life – and therefore all of the information that he held. It was a nearly impossible balance, but it was a balance nonetheless.

"You needn't worry yourself about me. For now we need to get you out of that jacket and that button-less shirt you're wearing – whatever happened to it?"

"You happened." Lavi said flatly. He watched the older man gently placed his steaming bowl of water on the white and gold painted nightstand, sloshing its contents a little with the motion. He sat the gauze down beside it only have two rolls fall onto the floor. He ignored them, turning instead to the cloth on his shoulder. "It was the…cleanest thing…I didn't mind…losing."

Tyki frowned at him as he sank the little towel with his fingers. "Innocence hunting?"

"Yeah. Akuma…get…stuff dirty."

That rewarded him with a small chuckle. "Speaking of akuma," He squeezed the extra water from the washcloth and turned his attention to the blood on Lavi's face. "I shouldn't have sent Cole to deliver that letter. You wouldn't have to endure this if I hadn't."

Lavi barked a laugh that made him cringe. "Endure what? Your company?"

"Don't be ridiculous, you know you like my company."

"True. Ow."

"Sorry." He stopped wiping at the blood and instead dabbed at it, which seemed to cause less discomfort to the gash that had resumed bleeding down the side of Lavi's face. He wiped the gore from around Lavi's left eye and down the side of his cheek, rewet his rag before cleaning his chin and lips. Tyki couldn't recall ever seeing someone tolerate his care quite as well as the apprentice Bookman was; with a small smirk and snide remarks. He felt himself smile a little at the tired hands on the mattress that slowly but surely were uncurling from the unconscious fists they hand shrank into. Pain did that, as did anxiety and Lavi had suffered enough pain in all forms to bring tears to the Noah's eyes. Knowing that his hands soothed away that discomfort even a little made him want to grin from ear to ear even while he cried in sympathy.

When the rag had passed over the skin of the younger man's neck he sat it aside, turning his attention to the impossible angle of Lavi's right shoulder and the growing stains on his jacket. This was going to be difficult. Even if it was only fractured it was going to be hell putting it back into place without hurting it worse or causing nearly intolerable amounts of pain. And if Lavi thrashed around too much he would risk causing his other wounds to become more severe.

"Lavi, your shoulder is—"

"I know." He blinked slowly at the stunned man looking down at him – Tyki's face had said what was wrong, as had the now dull ache coming from it. He could just hardly feel his fingers. "Broken and dislocated," He had to pause, which annoyed him. "And it's gonna hurt like a mother to fix it." That was better, even if it wasn't a complete sentence on one breath. "Go for it."

Tyki shook his head in a way that shifted his hair forward, covering his strange eyes and shadowing the scars on his skin from sight. His fingers brushed the side of Lavi's face gently, dancing feather-light across his bruised skin as he leaned closer. He did not realize how close he was until his lips passed gently over his lover's. A thrill of surprise shot through him when they parted at the softest of touches, lovingly taking him in. It was a tender kiss, one that made him want nothing more than to repair every broken part of his lover and then hold him close, calm him and apologize for every wrong he had caused. It hurt his heart to know that he was the cause of it all. When he pulled away Lavi leaned up to follow him until his ribs dictated that such an action was not going to happen and he fell back again onto the pillows, cursing under his breath.

"I don't want to hurt you."

Lavi scoffed. "Gonna hurt more if I c…can't use it." His left hand twitched toward the Noah, who took it in his grip at once, twining their fingers together. "Just… kiss me again while you do it."

"You can't be serious."

"Masochist."

"Lying to make me feel better."

"Stretching the truth."

"Fine." Tyki sighed. He lifted Lavi's left hand to his collar and curled his fingers around the fabric there, padding his palm against the sharp edges of his fingernails. "If it's too much for you, let go of me, otherwise I'll ignore you no matter how much you're screaming."

"I won't let go." And as if to prove it his fingers closed tighter. "You know I won't."

"But I'd like to think that you would."

"Lying to yourself to make you feel better."

"And?"

Lavi pulled him down as best he could, which was little more than a harsh tug that couldn't have moved him two inches. "And I love you. Now kiss me."

The Noah softly laid his fingers on Lavi's jacket and tried not to enjoy the little hiss of pain that elicited. "Yes, Lavi." He sank his hand gently through the redhead's clothes and into his skin, finding the curve of his shoulder as he leaned his forehead softly against Lavi's. "And I love you too."

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**Thanks readers!**


	58. Missing

**Wow. So… I must say… this chapter is lemonless and basically nothing but plot movement. And Hiroko being silly. I bet Kanda gets his worry-warty-hood from her. Hmm… kind of makes me wonder what he gets from his dad XD**

**I almost called this "The Chapter Where Everyone Speaks with Ellipsis" but it seemed kind of lame. Still, it's a warning.**

**Disclaimer of D'squeeness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda's big flowing jacket would just fall off during his fight with Tyki. It's not like he needs it – he never gets hit anyways.**

**WARNING: Um… implied man-lovin'.**

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Missing

"Ah! I'm blinded by the paleness!!"

"What?"

"Nothing, Kanda just walked in shirtless."

"Oh."

"Che. What are you doing sitting there on the phone?" The samurai glared at her, shouldering his sword and tugging his lover toward the guest room, Allen was flailing his right hand as if searching for his fingers within his overlarge sleeve. Sable tilted her head into the receiver and let out a tiny sound of appreciative bliss.

"Aw, Allen's wearing Kanda's coat… that's adorable. Too bad you can't see this; you'd squee yourself into a new beret." Her fingers twirled the phone wire as she grinned at the two stunned young men who had just come in from there time on the lawn.

"_Seriously!"_ The voice on the phone was two octaves to high too be a man. _"You need a camera next time you go on a mission with those two!"_

"Pfft, I need a camera to just walk around the tower and stalk them."

"_Sable-chan!"_

Kanda glared at her more, fingering the hilt of his sword as he did. "Che. Is that Lenalee?"

Sable shook her head, letting go of the wire to point at the top of her head. "Does she wear a beret? _Nooooo_. It's Komui."

"Komui?" Kanda looked at Allen who look at Kanda with an expression that showed just as much confusion as he felt. And he did it while still trying to find his fingers in his sleeve. _So cute…_

"Ooooh! He can't get his fingers out of the sleeves! Heee! This is seriously the cutest thing I've seen in my life. Better than kittens. Or Kanda in cat-ears."

"_Baka onna,_" Kanda drawled, pulling his sword from its sheath. His lover made a slight sound of protest but stayed well away from the blade this time.

"_Hai, kusababa?_"

His knuckles were white on the blade as he turned it. "If you say one more word to that _ecchi_ I swear to God you won't have teeth left for the Order to identify you with."

"Huh?" She blinked at him, completely indifferent to his violent aura of death. "Komui is not a pervert – we just both enjoy the idea of Allen walking around in your clothes. Jesus, Yuu-chan! You'd think were plotting to kidnap and rape him with how you're acting."

"_It's the overprotective instincts of a husband that—"_

"Shut up for a sec." She put the phone to her shoulder as she spoke to the bloodthirsty samurai and his horrified looking lover, aware that with the way he was holding Mugen her leg would be the first thing to go. "Look Yuu-chan—"

"Do _not_ call me Yuu-chan."

"Fine. Kanda-chan. Mary Sue. Whatever. The point is that you need to lighten up a little. Put the sword down, take some deep breaths, brush your hair for a little, and _calm down._ If you're really that possessive of your dear little Allen-chan that's perfectly ok, but you should ask him if he feels threatened before you decide to chop people into wet confetti. I mean come on, it's a _fan club; _we're not serial rapists aiming to put your poor innocent lover up for action."

Allen saw Kanda breathe for a moment, his hands loosening on his weapon before tightening again, his internal self having something of an argument. He did not know the likelihood of a blow up but he decided that it would be better to be safe than sorry.

"Love." He laid his hand softly on the Japanese man's shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze. "Sticky?"

"Che." Mugen was away as soon as the word had been uttered. "Right. _Onna,_ watch what you do – if any of your cult gets near him..."

"Yes, death in painful, bloody ways that will leave us all toothless and unidentifiable and cold. We get it. Move away from the death threats." She waved at him as if shooing a fly out the door. When she thought that he was calmed enough she put the phone back to her ear and mumbled some pleasantry that Komui wasn't listening to.

"_Hallo? 'Mui-san? Did you fall asleep again?"_ The man on the other end of the phone line was only vaguely aware that Sable had returned to her end of the conversation. _"Ni hao? Moshi moshi? Bueno? God dag?"_

"Ehem." He cleared his throat, lowering the other receiver that River had handed him back to the desktop. "I'm sorry Sable. Something come up, I have to go now."

"_Why? What happened?"_

When he spoke it had a distinctly somber quality she was not used to hearing. "Lavi-kun is missing."

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The scream had cracked in Lavi's throat, broken more by his will than the mouth attempting to muffle the sounds he made. The three minutes it took for the Noah to pull and push his arm back into place were the longest of his life, each one taking nearly an eternity in his mind, the last being the most lingering. When they had passed he had nearly passed out from relief – and even then his left hand refused to let go of the shirt between his fingers. For the longest time the two had sat in near silence, the side of Tyki's face pressed to the skin by his temple, soothing words pouring from his lips while his hands gently circled the flesh of his neck and the back of his left hand. The words didn't matter as much as the soft brush of fingers on his skin.

He swallowed in a dry throat and brought his tongue to his lips before he interrupted the sweet nothings his lover was offering. When he did his voice sounded far too hoarse to be his own. "I'm okay." He felt Tyki release his air in a way that suggested that maybe he had not known he had been holding it. "Or I will be."

Tyki pulled away enough to look at his bruised face, the fingers of his left hand curled around Lavi's. "I thought for a moment you had fainted."

"You'd ta—" He coughed for the first time since Tyki had put the tease in his chest, and no blood came up this time. He grimaced through the coughing fit, but when it was over he felt better for it. "Talk to me if…I fainted?"

"Of course I would." His lover smirked at him. "If I didn't who knows what you would dream about? At least with me suggesting things in your ear I would have some say, even if it were only a little."

"That's… kinda sweet."

"Thank you. I have you off your feet for the moment, so I say the little things to keep you that way." He reached down with his right hand and gathered the collar of Lavi's jacket in his hand, raising his eyebrows. "Now, would you rather you take this off the traditional, slightly more painful way, or should I just slip it through your body?"

"What?" The apprentice Bookman's eyes went wide. "You can do that?"

Tyki's smirk grew wider. "Ever notice that when I walk through doors, my clothes stay on? Yes, I can do it."

"That..." He shrugged with only his left side. "Sounds less…painful." That was all he needed to say and then the garment and the shirt beneath it were gone, slipped off into Tyki's hands without so much as making him wiggle. For a moment he stared at the older man as he folded the soiled garments together and dropped them uncaringly onto the floor, his dark hands never once trying to pull the fingers from his shirt. It was still there, after all, being Lavi had never let go. Lavi glanced down at his torso and cringed, blue and purple knuckle prints covered a goodly portion on his ribcage, lighter, less clear marks marred the space between his solar plexus and the curve of his hips. The little tears in his skin made it all look worse than he thought it was, covering unharmed flesh in a thin layer of drying blood.

"I look bad." He grumbled. The Noah beside him laughed softly before gently brushing his washcloth over Lavi's skin in a feeble attempt to reveal what was wound and what was simply the result of another. The redhead's chest moved slowly as he breathed, his lover's touch causing him no small amount of discomfort and he found himself wishing for some distraction to take his mind off of the agony that resulted at the cleansing of a badly broken rib.

Tyki offered the distraction only after the now red washcloth was set to soak in it warm bowl of water. When a distraction was no longer needed.

"I think you'll be fine, at least so long as that idiot stays away from you." As he spoke the Noah eased himself onto the end of the bed, looking sideways at his lover as he reached to touch the only slightly wounded right side of his face. "Do you think you can sleep?"

"Alone?"

The word surprised them both.

Lavi turned his head to the side, not wanting to look at Tyki when he said the words he knew would hurt more than anything he had ever said – they hurt thinking them. He knew now that this man cared enough to save him, to give up his own room and his own bed, to bloody his towels and make that impossibly sad expression of hope even when he felt none himself. It was a hard thing to think about, but he had to tell the man that it had crossed his mind.

"I dreamed that you betrayed me. I dreamed that you said you never loved me. I guess that… I'm afraid that when you leave…" He was silenced when the hand on his cheek slid tenderly to his neck and the man it belonged to leaned in enough to touch the corner of his lips with his own.

"I love you." He said softly, warm breath spreading on Lavi's face. "I love you a thousand times more than I ever loved anyone else." His voice was shaking but Lavi could not bring himself to understand why. "Nothing will ever make me take back those words – nothing – no one in their right mind should even try. You might have dreamed that I betrayed you, but it was only that, a dark dream to be forgotten upon waking." His fingers caught in the gore that still clung incessantly to his lover's hair when his fingers ran unthinkingly through it. "And if you ask me to, I will stay and watch over you until sleep takes you."

Lavi's voice was a soft, broken whisper in his ear. "And when I wake?"

"I'll be here, or nearby. If you call for me, I will come. No one will hurt you; no one will even think to try. If they do, I swear I'll kill them with my own hands."

Lavi could hear that he believed the words even if there was a sliver of doubt in them, a subtle twist of tone that made his reassurance moot. His left arm, the only limb he could say felt fully functional, hooked around his lover's shoulders and pulled him closer, which helped to alleviate the hurt that was growing in his heart.

"Then yes. But I think…it would be a good….idea if you covered…my owies and…wrapped my shoulder before I try." He tried to keep his voice light – if Tyki did not know that his fear was shared he might forget it entirely. "And then, maybe, if we're careful…you can…sleep…beside me?"

"Tonight, _amante_. But I have a dinner to go to before that."

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Cole leaned around the old brick building and bit his lower lip, his little not-heart pounding in his human looking chest. He had never felt so frightened in his life. He had used the ark to get here as quickly as he could, and now he was here, looking at the dark haired girl in the phone booth who fit the description he had been given down to the way she cried into the phone, odd eyes gathering tears without spilling down her face. Her lips formed words faster than he could read them, but he caught the important ones.

_Lavi_… So she knew the redhead. It had to be her! _Missing…_ That made sense, especially if he had vanished suddenly, which seemed likely with how he had responded back at home. _Noah…_ That was bad. She shouldn't talk about the Noahs. Especially not when discussing Lavi.

He looked both ways, scouting for anyone who might be wearing a jacket like hers, and dashed away from the wall, small feet carrying him rapidly toward the girl in the booth. His feet made loud clomping sounds as he ran, fear and excitement bringing him too quickly to the glass door, which he hit his face on, hard.

The Chinese girl looked down at the sudden banging sound on the door, a gasp stopping the words she was speaking so rapidly. A black haired boy, perhaps between eight and ten, sat on the cobblestone sidewalk, staring up at her, a bruise forming on his forehead, eyes quivering as if he were going to cry. She blinked at him for a moment, completely unaware that he was silently fearing for his life, and slowly let the earpiece of the phone fall unheard to her shoulder. It frightened her a little when he flinched back at her hand on the glass and she pulled it back, raising the phone to her ear again.

"Just a second. I'll call you back." With that she hung up the phone and grabbed her golem, tucking it into her pocket where it wouldn't see any of the goings on. She opened the little door and the boy continued to stare up at her with eyes so wide she thought she might fall into them if she weren't careful.

Cole tucked his chin and turned his head to the side, throwing an arm over his face. "Please! Don't kill me!"

Lenalee took a step back, frowning. That was an odd thing to say upon meeting her, wasn't it? "Are you okay?" She tried to sound friendly as she moved forward again to kneel beside him, not daring to reach for his arm to help him up. "It's alright; I didn't mean to glare at you."

He swallowed in a dry throat, shivering in fright. He tried to speak but his mouth wouldn't work properly, not while she was looking down at him in that happy, cheery, nice sort of way. "Awe you L-Le-Lenalee-sa-san?" He felt his face pale when she slowly but surely nodded her head. "Hewe," He leaned on his left arm while his shaking right hand delved into his coat in search of the letter he had for her, and when he offered it to her his fingers were as far away from hers as they could be without actually dropping it. "Wead it, then I can answew youw questions."

The Chinese girl frowned at it, and at him, not understanding what was going on. She took the thick parchment between her fingers and stood up, aware that when she did he did as well, and moved two feet away from her as if in fear. The seal on the note made her heart stop in her chest.

A butterfly.

It took a large amount of will to run her thumb beneath it to crack the seal, and even more to unfold the delicate brown paper to see the elegant words written on it. Just seeing it made her blood chill. When she read it, the feeling only became worse.

_Lenalee-san,_

I hope this letter finds you well.

There has been a slight mishap involving Lavi and another of my kin known to you as Rhode   
Kamelot; she stumbled upon us whilst we were traversing the short distance between your inn  
and the nearest physician. As luck would have it, I was able to convince her that he is without his  
Innocence and therefore no threat to us – but the lie may have come at too high a cost. I  
regretfully must inform you that he is now a prisoner of Lord Millennium and there is little I can  
do to make it otherwise. I will do everything in my power to keep him safe, but one man can only  
do so much when faced with the Will of God.

I do not know how long he can withstand the maltreatments that will undoubtedly befall him, nor  
do I know how long I can withhold my desire to free him, yet I can surely say that either  
circumstance will lead to un-pleasantries for everyone. If either of us breaks, both of us will  
likely die.

I do not ask you to help me, for I know that there is no means by which I can offer to assist the   
Order without laying down my life in the processes, which would effectively make all of my work  
for naught. So please, help him. I will do whatever you ask of me if it will guarantee his safe  
return to those who love him as much as I do. And I do love him. If you have any insecurity on  
that point allow it to be eased. The moment that his letter is on its way I will suddenly find myself  
wandering the hall next to his cell, and whatever sound coming from it – no matter how ordinary  
– will drive me to look in on him and make useless conversation. I love him too much to let him  
be there, alone in the dark, and the nightmares will haunt him if I do not go.

Alas, I must be scaring you. I have digressed from what I meant to say two paragraphs ago. I  
have not come up with a plan as of yet, but one is in the making. My next contact will come  
soon, and you have my word that Lavi will not lose his life in the span of time it takes me  
to find you again. If you so desire, show this letter to those who would think him a traitor and let  
them read: the apprentice Bookman who goes solely by the name 'Lavi' has not turned his back  
on the God that you serve, he has been betrayed by Him into the hands of mine.

Yours at length,  
Tyki Mikk

Lenalee felt her hands shake as the tears that had filled her eyes before came back again with a vengeance. He was alive. Lavi was alive. He was a prisoner, which was bad, but he was _alive_. Relief washed through her, forcing her to take three steps back until she bumped into the glass wall of the phone booth and slid down it, holding the dark parchment in her hands. Every time she thought about it she cried harder until she was sobbing into her knees loudly, tears smearing her make-up and blurring those ever so important words that she wanted nothing more than to read again and again until she had them memorized. He was safe. He was alive.

He was alive and she didn't give a damn that she was crying her eyes out on a street corner, people walking by and looking at her as if she were raving mad. Nor did she care that Tyki Mikk was potentially betraying everyone who trusted him by telling her.

"Um… Lenalee-san?" There was a soft pressure on her knee and she glanced up, the boy that had handed her the note blinked slowly at her, his hand resting lightly on her leg. "If… you awen't going to kill me now… then um… can I ask why you'ew crying?"

She looked at him as if she could not understand what he was saying.

"Lavi-sama is ok, so you shouldn't cwy. Weally. Tyki-sama will take good cawe of him. So please don't cwy." He gently brushed one of the tears from her cheek, his previous fear forgotten. "I don't like it when people cwy. I wanna cwy with them. So please, don't cwy."

She was quietly amazed at his tenderness, and the little glimmer of moisture in the corners of his eyes.

"Ok, Lenalee-san?"

"But who are you?" She tilted her head at him as if perplexed, or noticing him for the very first time.

"Oh!" He sat back on his bottom so that they shared the phone booth. Just like a child he pointed at himself with his thumb, wrinkling the fabric of his red shirt. "I'm Cole. I'm a badly made akuma with no taste for...anything akuma-y. Tyki-sama told me not to fight you if you wanted to kill me, but I don't want that to happen. I like living. And I want to talk to Lavi-sama again, he seems fun." He was smiling at her, which seemed like the only thing to do being he was still around to do it. "And you seem nice too. And you have pwetty haiw."

Lenalee attempted to wipe her face on the backs of her hands before she spoke again, trying to understand. "You're an akuma? But… why are you helping…"

"Because! Uwi-sama has been gone fow a _loooooong_ time, so I don't have anyone telling me what to clean or whewe to stick his clothes. So Tyki-sama kind of claimed me as his, which is good because he's nice. He bwings me candy when he comes back fwom… well, when he came back befowe." His head fell a little, a frown turning his face. "I guess he was seeing Lavi though. So maybe I won't get any mowe."

What on Earth was Lenalee supposed to do? First the letter, and now the barer of good news was a demon disguised as a boy? He did not look like an akuma. He didn't sound like one. And the way he sat in her phone booth, with that longing expression on his face made her think that maybe he was wrong.

"But… why aren't you attacking me?" Her eyebrows pushed together as the hands on her knees pulled the letter to her chest, curling the edges. "If you're an akuma…"

"Bwoken akuma. I don't even have an offensive ability."

"Oh." She looked down at the paper in her hands and reread the words a few times, trying to decide what to do. She was supposed to kill this child-akuma, it was her job, but he offered her an opportunity that the Noah must have seen before sending him – a way to send back her answer. "Then, if you really are broken, what do you do?"

He shrugged, a small smile turning his mouth up at the sides. "I didn't do much befowe, but eawliew I fixed Lavi-sama's awm. Thewe wasn't a lot wong with him weally, but he felt like it, so I fixed that too. It wasn't vewy much, but I won't be able to do it again fow a few days." He looked down at his hands, seeming happy. "But that's ok. I won't kill people so I can heal mowe, I'll just work with what I was given."

"You fixed him?"

"Yup!" He enthused. "I just stuck out my hands and opened at _thing_ that lets me and it happened. He was shocked too."

"Then you want to keep helping him."

"Mostly I just want to talk to him, but I will if I can."

"Then please, take a message back to Tyki for me."

"Ok!"

She pursed her lips, trying to think of the right words. "Tell him that I told my brother Lavi was missing. And that I told him he was with a Noah before he was gone. And tell him that I'll do whatever I can to keep the rest a secret but on one condition – I need proof that this isn't a big lie. I want to know for sure that he's still alive. I don't care how, as long as I know. Otherwise I'll tell my brother everything and he can decide what to do, and if Lavi is a traitor. Furthermore, I will come after Tyki if that is the case. Human or Noah, I don't care; if Lavi's dead, I'll kill him."

Cole nodded, "You'ew scawy… but ok. You told your nii-san that Lavi went missing after being with a Noah. And you won't say anything else if we can prove that Lavi's alive. And if he dies, you kill Tyki-sama. Got it." He pushed himself up, dusting his pants as he did. "Thanks for not destwoying me."

"Um… you're… welcome."

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Allen had the eerie feeling that the moment Kanda had the bath the right temperature, something horrific was going to happen. He kept his mouth shut though. Instead he slowly unzipped his lover's jacket and sat on the edge of the tub, attempting to feel the water with the fingers of his right hand without getting Kanda's coat wet. He sighed, swirling his fingers in the water as he did. He couldn't get it out of his head – what Kanda had done – it ate away at him like some kind of leech on his heart, demanding that he say something about it. Something wasn't right.

Kanda was trying to tell him something. But what was it? Was it the fact that Allen had let him dominate? Or did it have nothing to do with that? Was it his arm? Was it the fact that they had to leave for Europe the next day? All of them? Together?

No. 'All of them together' was his own thought. For as much as Allen and Kanda touched each other, they didn't spend a lot of time alone – _truly_ alone. He wanted a day, or an hour, where he would know that they would not, no matter the circumstances, be interrupted.

"Oi."

"Bwa! I'm _naked!_" Allen turned to the dark haired Japanese woman leaning in the door and yanked his garment closed, which in turn moved him enough to throw his weight toward the tub. He slid at once toward the waiting water. Only a quickly raised hand stopped him from falling into it by pushing on the far wall at a very awkward angle, which – with his hand gone – left a goodly portion of his chest bare, as well as everything down from his mid thighs. "Very naked!"

"Che! If I see something I haven't seen before, I'll shoot it. Where's Yuu?" She said indifferently. Before he could answer though her gray eyes went wide and she opened the door a little more, taking a step inside. "And what the hell happened to your neck? You look like someone chewed on you for a while."

"Huh? Oh…" Allen gently pushed himself back, trying to keep the jacket from slipping anymore than it had. "Just… love marks…Kanda! You're mother's looking for you!" He called toward the window in a voice that was only mildly annoyed. If it wasn't a demon it was a relative. Wouldn't they get to spend the day alone together _eventually_?

"Che. You don't have to yell, Moyashi." The Japanese man whom had occupied his thoughts for the last fifteen minutes came in the door, still shirtless, hair hanging down his shoulders in long blue-black waves. Allen felt himself smile as he pushed his mother out of the way and into the bathroom. It was true that they needed to talk again, and it was true that he had no desire to touch him more than a little, but it was also true that seeing him made the room seem brighter. That seemed new. "What do you want?"

Hiroko glared up at him and he glared back, neither withering under the other's gaze. "Well, you half-naked _bishounen_, I wanted to speak to you both about Hito's circumstances."

"Circumstances?" Allen prompted. He had gathered the material of Kanda's greatcoat more firmly around him, thus losing his fingers in the fabric once more. "What circumstances?"

Hiroko sighed. "As I told you before, in the Kanda family the oldest son learns kendo and carries on the line of the main house. I was an only child, so I was taught how to fight and inherited the family name. When I married Yuuren –" Allen saw Kanda tense for a moment, but knots in his shoulders ran out as his mother continued. "He took it too. We had Yumeko and then Yuu and then Hitori so, according to tradition, Yuu learned kendo and should carry on the family line, but," She sighed again, looking from Allen to her son again before leaning against the wall in frustration. "Neither of you is going to have a baby in the next million years. Which means Hitori should get the training and the responsibility."

"But he doesn't want it." Allen said quietly.

"Shit-faced bastard won't listen to reason. But that's not the point. I don't want to insult either of you by making Hitori my successor. So I was thinking that maybe, I've found a loophole." She looked at Kanda, eyes serious, and intensified her glare by ten fold. "I want you to still take over the family when I kick the bucket, but after that Hito's spawn is the main family, not a branch. Make sense to you? Not insulted? You'd be a sensitive bitch if you are."

Allen looked at Kanda who looked at Allen. Somehow the British boy felt as if he didn't belong in this conversation at all. Sure, he was the _wife_, but how could he be insulted by what Hiroko was saying? He was very happy when Kanda spoke for both of them.

"That makes sense to me. But there's one thing you aren't allotting for," When he said that he looked at Allen, who felt his jaw fall open. What on Earth was Kanda going to say? Children? They couldn't have children. He'd never even _imagined_ children. He was sixteen! "He was adopted."

Hiroko blinked at him. "So… you could adopt some poor kid and make him a Kanda even though he has nothing to do with the Kandas? That's a good way to make everyone you're related to cry."

"But we may not even have that problem. Hito asked me this morning if I'd help him train."

"_What?_ Then you don't care if he gets the family line and whatnot?_"_

"I'm an Exorcist. The likelihood of you dying before me is not exactly all that fantastic, mother."

"Like I give a fuck. If it happens and things aren't fixed, then what? The Kanda family falls apart and every family is a branch family. Smart."

"Then figure this out with Hito first. We're busy."

"Ka-Kanda…"

Hiroko narrowed her eyes at him. "Busy like rabbits. It's a good thing you're both men; you'd have trouble otherwise. Fine. Bathe. But don't make a mess. I'll go talk to your ridiculous brother who best not be touching that slut who was in the living room. If he's going to have children I want them pure." With that slight change of topic she charged out the room, leaving the two lovers staring at the space she had occupied, completely mute.

After a moment Allen licked dry lips and blinked at Kanda, quiet words forming on his lips in the stillness. "We have more to talk about than I thought."

"Che." Kanda groaned at him as he kicked the door closed. His bare feet made little sounds on the hard floor as he passed the space between them, hair swishing like a cape in his wake. When he was close enough he draped his arms around his lover and pulled him close, Allen's arms curled around him instinctually. "I don't want kids yet if that's what you're thinking."

Allen laughed. "Yet."

"I'm not going to say ever. And neither should you."

"I have never even thought about them."

"My mother wants grandchildren. That's why she always talks about not wanting them."

"You know… that sounds familiar. I wonder if it's a family trait."

"Shut up and get in the tub."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ow."

"Sorry."

"Ow!"

"I said I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter if you do it again."

"This is the best I can do. You'll have to bear with it."

"Fine. But you're sleeping next to me tonight... I don't care what plans you have." Lavi shut his left eye as Tyki continued to bandage his shoulder. His smaller wounds had already received a similar treatment, though they had been a great deal less painful and taken far less time. Even binding his ribs had been easier. Now though, sitting up with the back of his lover's shirt in his hand to keep him steady, he thought every bump was going to rattle his arm off. He could breathe better like that, it hurt less, but otherwise he was the most uncomfortable position he had ever been in; his shoulder told him so.

"Like I told you before, I have dinner before bed. But the dining room is just down the hall. If you call for me, I'll hear you."

Tyki felt the hand on his shirt clench tighter. Every time he told his lover that he was leaving his hand would do that, his expression would take on something dark that hurt Tyki in a way he could not explain. He wished that he could take Lavi in his arms and hold him close, but he knew such a thing would hurt him worse. Bruises and scrapes and broken bones did no far well under even a comforting hold.

"Ty-chan…" Lavi spoke quietly, resting his head for a moment on the side of Tyki's shoulder. "Assuming you go to dinner…and come back…what am I gonna eat?" He made a small sound of discomfort when the hands working to fix him pulled a little too tightly. "And…_ow_…what happens when I'm…_I said ow…_healthy enough to go back…to that place?"

"That place?"

"Where I was before."

Tyki tucked the last of the bandage in and laid Lavi back into the pillows, careful not to move him more than needed. There was blood on his cream colored bedspread. And even more on the shams. Some of it was the old brown of dried blood, but most of it was the dark, vibrant tone of fresh – the color almost matched the canopy over the bed. The bruised skin of Lavi's face, which seemed tired when he was reclining, reminded him of ripe plumbs which in turn made him somehow think of strawberries, and strawberries lead his mind back to the fact that Lavi was lying on his bed.

He wondered if it was the dark half of him that could think of such things now, or if he would think of them no matter what.

_Wounded._ He told himself. _We aren't doing anything until he is no longer wounded. Otherwise I'll never forgive myself._

"By the time you are well enough to go back, God willing, you'll be gone from here. If that does not happen, I will do all I can to keep Rhode and Uri from questioning you. They are the ones that can hurt you most."

"Uri…" Lavi blinked slowly at the man leaning over him, feeling sleepy. He did not want to admit it, but his body was about ready to give out on him. His bones seemed to buzz with sleepiness, the muscles in his neck tensed from the sensation and his eyes fluttered when he blinked. He wasn't going to be able to stay up until after dinner. "He was…nice when I met him…with Sable."

Tyki's brow furrowed. "You met him?"

"Uh huh. On the way to…Sweden…on the boat…before…" He breathed deeply and shuddered out a sigh before trying to speak again. What he really _that_ exhausted? _Well, it has been a long day._

"Shh…" There were warm lips on Lavi's forehead and he wasn't seeing anymore. Somehow, while he was talking his eyes had drifted closed. There was contact on his face, brushing back and forth softly, and breath on the bridge of his nose, playing there. It was all so close and yet so painfully far away. "Sleep, Lavi. Sleep and I will bring you food when you wake up. And then you can tell me what happened."

"Don't leave me."

"I won't, Lavi." The lips were back again, this time pressing into his, a hand moved through his hair soothingly, drawing a soft sigh from his lungs. When Tyki said that he would not leave, Lavi felt impossibly safe. Especially with that delicate touch on his mouth, the contact chased away the fear. He could fall asleep like this, it would be so easy. "I'll be here." The words were punctuated by a hand on his chest, pressing his heart. "From now until you're awake."

"Ok…Ty-chan…" The redhead's face turned sideways against the pillows, almost snuggling. "I'll sleep."

"Good." The Noah said softly. It did not take long for his lover's chest to rise and fall in a steady motion; still seeming pained but no longer labored. He felt relieved by it. Just the sight made his heart leap to his throat and make a home there, swelling until he thought tears were going to burn out from behind his eyes and blind him. _No, don't cry._ He thought with a smirk. _You have boots to remove and pants to change and blankets to find; you currently do not have time to cry._

With a sigh he pushed himself from the mattress and moved to the foot of the bed wear his fingers at once began working on the laces of Lavi's boots. _Besides,_ He thought when the first one came off with little effort, exposing an orange clad Lavi foot. _One of us has to be fit enough to clean this up._

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**Oh! Is it sad that this feels short to me? I think it is… I should either try and take more time on each scene or just write novels :(**

**Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it! Sorry that not a lot happened here…**


	59. The Beginning of an Unending Night

**Longishness. Warui, ne? I love readers :D**

**There were I think 3 reviews that refused to work when I tried to answer them. Then my internet died and when I restarted I couldn't find the links in the mess that is my in box. Sorry. But I love you! I hope you liked it! And thanks for reviewing:)**

**Disclaimer of D'tubness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Tyki would never wear that God-awful hat. Or much else.**

**WARNING: Yaoi-ness. Boy on Boy.**

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The Beginning of an Unending Night: Haunted

The hot water was like a soft, gentle blanket on his skin, wrapping around him and drawing him close. There were arms around him also, Kanda's arms, and the slight pang in his heart only got worse as they sat in silence, having already cleaned themselves and decided to soak quietly.

He didn't want to soak quietly. He wanted to talk. But where did he start?

"What's with the expression, Moyashi?" He felt Kanda pull him closer and he leaned his head back to enjoy the motion, sighing at their proximity. He wanted to just stay like this forever.

"What expression?"

"Che. The one where you start biting your bottom lip and furrowing your brow. And this little rush of blood makes your face turn pink." As he spoke Kanda's mouth fell to Allen's bruised neck and gently pressed his pulse for a moment before he laid his neck sideways across his lover's, sighing as well. "You only make that face when something's bothering you."

"It's not bothering me…"

"Right."

"I just…" He could not say it sitting in the water, facing away form him. So he turned in his lover's arms, sloshing as he went, until they were looking at each other. He curved his arms around Kanda's neck and looked up at his confused eyes, trying not to be too serious. "What you did earlier – the sex thing – why did you do it?"

Kanda snorted at him, fighting an obvious chuckle. "I thought you'd like it."

Those words made Allen blush like a ripe tomato. "So… you didn't actually let go, did you?"

"_Baka_._"_ Those deep sapphire eyes narrowed at him and the hands on his back pressed in slightly, as if trying to keep him from falling backward. "I didn't _want_ to let go. I wanted to make you make that little sound you do when everything's exactly how you want it, even if you don't think you want it to go that way."

"Love you're making me blush."

"Oh I know."

"But that's all you wanted?" Allen persisted, his tone disbelieving. When he said it like that, Kanda had to frown at him. "I can't help but think that maybe there's something else, something… you're not saying. Something…that's maybe…my fault."

"Che. It's not."

"It's not? Then there is something?"

"Moyashi." Kanda shook his head, which spread his hair out in the water around them like leaves on the surface of a pond. "You're looking way too deep here. I'm fine; I think you have something bothering you."

Allen frowned at him. Did he? Well, there was that _together_ thing. Was that it though? "We haven't really had a day for a while?" There was no certainty in his voice.

"Had a day?"

"Yeah. You know, some time to ourselves without your mother or Sable or an akuma bothering us. We haven't really done anything…" He trailed off when Kanda's face broke into a maniacal grin. It wasn't a pretty grin like his bright smile; it was a crooked look that made him feel oddly like he had walked into the Japanese man's trap.

"Romantic?"

"No."

"Yes."

"Shut up."

The older of them laughed lightly and pulled the British boy into his chest, that strange, evil smile never leaving his lips. "Do you want to make plans, or should I?"

"What?" Allen stared at him, completely dumbstruck. Was Kanda seriously telling him that they could spend a…_romantic_ evening together without him throwing a fit? And he was smiling like that. He looked almost as if he had hoped Allen would say something so… sappy.

"Do you want to make the romantic plans, or should I? You can't expect to have a day – or a night – if we don't plan for it. Besides, even if that's not what is bothering you, it might help you figure out what is." His tone of voice was not at all creepy or plotting, and the way he ran his hands up his lover's back was perfectly soothing, but his expression defied it all. It kind of worried Allen.

"Um… do you have any ideas?"

"Che, of course I do. Why? Don't you have any idea what you'd want to do after nightfall, with no one to bother us?"

"I swear your libido is worse than mine."

Kanda scoffed. "We could count the stars, Moyashi. We could talk about what we'll do when we get home. We could sit in silence. We could read. Romance doesn't mean we have to molest each other, _baka_."

The fire on Allen's cheeks warned him that he was blushing even harder than before, and yet Kanda was just looking down at him with that same smile, completely indifferent to his embarrassment. "Then maybe you should make the plans."

Before Kanda could answer a loud knock sounded at the door. Allen glanced backward with a glare so intense Kanda laughed at it, half surprised that the boy didn't hiss at it with the way he curled his upper lip up over his teeth and narrowed his eyes. It was so very not nice, so perfectly annoyed that Kanda could not stifle the uncharacteristic giggle that bubbled out of this mouth and into the air. The sound shocked Allen so much that he stopped glaring and looked back at him, nearly frightened.

By that time the door was open and Kanda had himself completely under control.

"Um, guys…" Sable said quietly. She didn't even pretend to close her eyes at them. It wasn't as if she could see anything important – just a lot of Kanda chest, a swath of Allen back, and water. "I just thought you'd want to know that Lavi and Lenalee were looking for Innocence in England and Lavi went missing. Komui didn't tell me anything else, but…" She paused, blinking at the stunned faces that had been glaring at her only moments before. "He was with Tyki before he was gone. And there hasn't been any other word."

Allen felt the arms around him go limp as his stomach suddenly turned over on itself inside of him. Lavi? Missing? Tyki?

"Tyki?" Kanda asked for him.

"You should have seen him…" She trailed off. No, they shouldn't have. She was the only one who saw him on the boat in Sweden when he had done those things in Lavi's room. Only her. Not them. "Oops."

Allen frowned. "There was a dark haired man on the boat coming back from Sweden named Tyki…Mi-something. We played cards a few times before…" Comprehension washed over his face and he blinked at her in amazement. "Was that the person in his cabin? It was… I remember. And you said that he might have been a Noah." He blinked at her and Kanda blinked at him, not following his train of thought. "What's going on?"

"I don't know." Sable said honestly. "But the sooner we get back to England, the sooner we find out."

"If that's all there is to know…" Allen said, tilting his head at her. "WOULD YOU GET OUT! WE'RE NAKED!"

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Lavi's dreams were nothing but darkness for a long time, until he dreamed of people. It was one of those strange dreams that made him wonder what he had ate beforehand, or if he had accidentally drank something he shouldn't have. One of those dreams that people always told him about but never happened to him.

First off, Kanda was there, sitting at a poker table, naked, with Allen hanging off of him, smoking a pipe. Allen was wearing a dress, a white dress, with a little row of yellow flowers in his hair. It was amusing, and the best part was the fact that Kanda was eating an unclothed Lenalee-shaped sucker, completely ignoring the white haired British boy who seemed so content to touch him.

_Wow, I must have problems if I have a naked Yuu-chan eating a naked Lenalee-chan sucker in my head. I've never even seen her naked…_

Bookman was shuffling cards. He held them between his old wrinkled hands before shifting them together, smiling. It was odd to see the old man smile. It was even odder to see him smile from beneath a round purple hat. He did not speak, only smiled to himself as he shuffled his deck of cards.

He dropped two of them and both were the ace of spades.

'Don't look so surprised, Lavi.' It was a voice he knew so he looked to the left, thinking that was where it had come from. 'It's not like every deck is perfect.' The speaker of those odd words was none other than Tyki, though he looked much different than he should have. There were large butterfly wings coming out of his back, black fangs hanging from his mouth, and there, where his eyes should have been, two dark gaping holes, bleeding too-thick blood down his face. Lavi felt himself grow still as a gray hand came down on his shoulder, long fingered nails brushing his flesh.

_Ok. Not a dream anymore. Nightmare._

The Noah smiled with his strange teeth, a forked tongue flicking from behind his lips. 'Play us a dinner tune,' He said to the table. 'Something that goes with undercooked meat.'

'Why?' It was Allen who asked, his eyes drawn away from the cards his naked lover was holding. 'What are we having?'

Pain erupted in Lavi's right shoulder intense enough to bring a cry to his lips that refused to be voiced. He could see Tyki's hand digging into his flesh, ripping it away in bloody hunks. 'Lavi, of course.'

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 

The apprentice Bookman sat up with a jerk, cold sweat pouring down his neck as he gasped in air, wishing at once that he hadn't woken so violently. He fell back on the pillow, breathing hard as his left hand came up to touch the flesh of his shoulder defensively, which only made it worse. After a moment of breathing in the stillness he realized how much easer that had become, as well as how little his arm hurt when he wasn't laying on it.

In fact, it didn't feel broken.

As soon as he had made that observation his eyes turned to the room around him, which he hadn't been able to see all that well before. Beside him, slumped against the mattress, was a tired looking Tyki, brown hair curling wildly around his face in a haphazard way that almost made him look completely uncaring. The pants Lavi was wearing were different – Tyki's pants he realized after a moment, and they were clean. That was nice of him.

The room was furnished like something from an expensive hotel. There was a dresser with a mirror, an upright wardrobe, two bookshelves, a closet, a desk with a chair – and all of it fit the simple theme that Tyki had seemed to enjoy. White painted wood trimmed in gold, thick red curtains covered the wall to his right from floor to ceiling, blocking out whatever light would have filtered from the other side. There were a number of candles on the different flat surfaces, the only electric lights resting on the nightstand beside him and on the desk to his right, neither of which were lit.

In fact, the only light came from a candle on the dresser, which was threatening to go out. The sputtering flame was just enough to see by, and the way the illumination wavered cast long shadows across the room and brought his eyes back to the sleeping Noah. In his right hand, which was draw next to his face, was the green fabric of Lavi's headband, just barely poking from his delicate fingers. The redhead smiled at it, and at the soft way the man's eyes moved behind his sleeping eyelids. There was something so astoundingly human about watching him sleep, something so soothing that Lavi wanted to just sit back and watch him forever. That wouldn't happen though, the room would go dark and he wouldn't be able to see a thing after that.

He reached out with his left hand and ran it gently through those dark tresses, enjoying the way they fell through his fingers. The soft hair moved like liquid in his grasp, falling gently back across the man's tan skin in peaceful little waves and ringlets. It made him smile. But there was something different about the forehead that it landed against, something that caught the breath in his throat and held it. The scars. They were gone. Nothing but smooth, soft, unmarred flesh presented itself to his fingers.

When had that happened?

He leaned forward a little and ran his thumb across it. His ribs felt bruised when he bent them to do it, but not like they were shattering into pieces. When had that changed? When had any of this happened? Was he still dreaming?

"You should still be asleep." The Noah said softly, brown eyes opening ever so slowly. He did not move his face or attempt to stop the hand that had gone back to caressing the top of his head.

"And you should be next to me." Lavi said softly. His voice sounded tired, almost as if he hadn't used it for a long time. "What time is it?"

The Noah blinked at him for a moment before he pushed himself up slowly, cracking a sore back while Lavi grabbed his wrinkled shirt collar, refusing to let go. Tyki didn't seem to care that he did. "Well passed midnight I would assume with how long dinner lasted and how short that candle has become. Cole returned while I was dining and did what he could for your wounds, though I doubt everything is perfect. How do you feel?" As he spoke he let Lavi pull him up onto the bed but paused with one leg still on the floor, having noticed that this side seemed rather full with Lavi so close to the edge.

Lavi didn't even have to try and change the tone of his voice. "As good as I can without you right beside me."

"Don't lie to me."

"I have bruises?"

"Much better." Tyki kissed him softly. Lavi moaned quietly into the contact, pulling the older man closer. He knew it was a stupid idea but he really wanted to touch him like they had before, to see him naked, to run his hands over all of those places he had thought about touching but never managed to explore. It was an odd thing to think that he would do that here, after all he had dreamed and all he had suffered. It did not seem like the sort of thing that belonged here, not when he loved Tyki.

"Ty-chan," He said softly, drawing a second kiss from the surprised Noah's lips. "Please..." There was a hand on the side of his face, following the curve of his cheek below his eye.

Tyki pressed their mouths together again, but he pulled away before the apprentice could get any ideas from it. "Please what, Lavi? Sleep next to you, or kiss you? I'm sure the first is safer than the second."

Lavi's lower lip quivered in the dimness and he gave the fabric in his hands a slight jerk, forcing Tyki onto the bed. "You didn't feed me dinner."

The dark haired man raised an eyebrow at him. "So?"

"So how about some warm milk?"

"What?" The word was hardly out of his mouth before Lavi was pulling down again and shifting to the side, sidling across the bedspread until there was enough room for him to throw his weight up on his left leg and roll over onto Tyki. The larger of the two found himself straddled by the redhead, who was breathing hard, a hand gliding done the front of his shirt until it came to the button of his pants.

"Oh come on, Tyki-chan, I know you've heard the expression."

"Honestly I haven't. And even if I had the answer is still no." The button was undone before his hands gently caught Lavi's wrists and drew them to his lips. "Not while you're bruised up like this."

"Pfft," Lavi rolled his eyes, "As if this is anything. You said yourself that Cole fixed most of it. This is nothing that can stop me from touching you." As he spoke he leaned down and placed his lips lightly on the skin of Tyki's neck, sucking gently when the hands on his wrists pressed tighter. "I'm dying for something besides beatings and questions and the feeling that we aren't together anymore, we're just pretending. So c'mon, be boyfriend-like and let me touch you, please?"

Tyki felt his jaw fall down for a moment at those words before snapping back up again. He pulled on Lavi's arms, drawing a startled, slightly pained cry from the younger man's lips as he turned at the same time, effectively pinning the redhead against the covers. "No, Lavi." His voice was a dangerous whisper, his face little more than a hollow mask in the fading candlelight. "You might want to do that to me here but someone is bound to hear us. I swear to you, in a few days time, when Lenalee-san and I have worked out how we are going to get you out of here, we can try then."

Lavi pouted up at him a little, wiggling his hands beneath their firm confines. "You're holding me down, Ty-chan. That's like saying yes."

The Noah above him scoffed.

"Seriously!" Lavi insisted quietly. "It all says yes. The way you push your eyebrows together like I annoy you, and the way you close your hands tighter when I say something suggestive, and that little twitch of your upper lip like you're trying not to smile. It all says 'take off my pants and suck me' or something a long those lines."

"You have a terrible idea of what goes on in my head, don't you?"

"No, I just like pointing out the friendlier aspects."

Tyki let go of the wrist in his right hand and ran it through his lover's hair, his fingers still found bits of dried gore, but he left them for the most part. They would hurt to pull out as they were, but a nice warm bath would make removing them much easier. It gave him an idea. "I'll tell you what," He said as quietly as he could while still using his voice. The effect on Lavi was obvious from the slight reddening of his cheeks and nose. "Tomorrow – well I guess today – after the sun rises, I will draw up a bath and the two of us can share it. Then, when I am satisfied that you are clean and not dying of bruises, we can consecrate this mattress until nightfall. Which, judging by experience level, knowledge level, and the time it took the first time, would mean… approximately thirteen times – depending on position."

He glanced down at Lavi when he made a disgruntled sound that was all too much like a growl. "Didn't I tell you not to _say_ things and to just _do_ them?"

"Well, Lavi—"

"See, you just _said_ Lavi. Why don't you _do_ Lavi instead?"

Tyki gapped at him. "Because you've been beaten into a bleeding mess! Because I don't want to hurt you! Because I love you, Lavi."

"But don't you want me?"

The older man sighed and let go entirely. It took all of his will to just wrap his arms around Lavi's chest and snuggle his head in the crook of his shoulder, closing his eyes to the sound of surprise the redhead made. He breathed in the younger man's scent and held him as tightly as he could without hurting him. "I do Lavi. I want you desperately, but it would be much safer to wait until the house is empty tomorrow, and much more fun to see you in the light of day." His left hand drifted back and forth over his lover's chest and an arm came up behind him to pull him closer. He let it happen even though it made Lavi grimace. "Now please rest. For my sake as well."

"Had a long day?"

"Extremely."

Lavi shifted a little until his still bruised shoulder was more comfortable, his arms twined around Tyki, pulling him close. When he spoke his voice was very, very soft. "Is that why the scars are gone?"

The man beside him went as stiff as a board before he looked up with his perfect brown eyes and blinked at him slowly. "…My scars?"

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"Kanda."

Silence. The distant chirping of a cicada. Allen scowled.

"Kanda. Wake up."

More silence. Since when did he sleep like a log?

"Kanda, if you don't get up right now, I'm braiding your hair."

"Go to sleep, _baka usagi._" The Japanese man growled, turning over on his side. Allen glared at him harshly, annoyance winning out over the desire to simply call the man cute. Lavi? He wasn't _anything_ like Lavi! Half of him wanted to prove it in a rather sudden way that he was not the apprentice Bookman, but he would refrain from that. There was a reason he was rousing his lover after all.

He leaned very close to him and ran his tongue over the edge of his lover's ear before he spoke. "I'm not Lavi, Love. I'm Allen and I'm trying to wake you up because there is a man standing outside of our room, peering in the window. Now please, wake up before he rapes me."

"What? Who? I'm up." And he was. His dark blue eyes opened like a pair of windows into the night sky, at once awake and functional unlike his brain. It did make sense for him to want more than three hours of sleep because of everything they had done during the day and the enormous amount of stress his mother had managed to put on him. And it also it made sense for him to have Lavi on the brain; it had not been a half day since the news of his abduction had reached him. Now he looked at his lover, whom was sitting in the starlight streaming in the window, eyes lost in shadow.

"Awake now?" The British boy questioned, stealing a glance toward the window. He had not been lying about the man looking in that them – though he had assumed it was a man. Now, looking at the shadow, he could see lines of hair blowing in the wind and a faint glimmer of glass on the person's face. It could have been a woman in an oversized coat.

Kanda pushed himself up, never looking away from the slightly curious look on his lover's face. "Yes. What's wrong?"

Allen pointed. The window was open a few inches and the space allowed them to hear the crunch of a booted foot on the ground when the figure took a lumbering step forward, swaying back and forth on its feet. The way it moved was eerily familiar, but he could not place how he knew it.

"I'll go look."

"Like Hell you will." Allen frowned at him, fingers closing on the fabric of his yukata. It was the only clean thing they could find besides Sable's clothes, and those weren't really an option. It seemed as if the world was against them today – after what they had done outside. First there had been the incident with being unable to be alone in the bathroom and then, when the water was too cool to sit in comfortably, they had found themselves with very little to wear upon exiting.

And by very little, he meant a cum covered Exorcist jacket and the clothes that Sable had washed in the bathtub herself.

He didn't even want to think about it.

"I'm not going to sit here while some guy stalks up on our house. I'm going to—" Another crunch and Allen leapt at his lover, covering the Japanese man's lips with his fingers as he threw them both down on the bed, fearfully turning toward the window as a number of footfalls echoed one after another into their tiny room. Kanda's nails bit into the skin of his shoulders, trying to pry him off, but the British boy would have none of it. He had not woken Kanda in order to have him walk out into the night and be attacked by some wandering peeping Tom, he had woken him so that they could sit silently and wait for the peeping Tom to do something that required violence.

When a pair of gloved hands crept in the window and curled against the windowpane, Kanda felt that he had cause to kill the person breaking in.

He didn't have the chance.

"Hiro?" That was a man's voice. A man's voice that immediately made Allen gasp a little and clamp his fingers painfully on Kanda's face. He wasn't feeling that, he was staring at the outline of a black hat in the dimness. "I hear you in there. I'm coming in. I'm not dead yet so maybe you changed your mind about…" The window came open, throwing silver moonlight on the intertwined boy's, reflecting white from the man's glasses. He kept talking, not quite registering what he was seeing. "Sleeping with…me?"

"Ma-Ma-Ma…" Allen stammered. "How could… when did… you're not…"

"Well, well," He looked down at the stammering white haired boy and smiled, his dark red hair falling down his shoulders in lines. "Things seem to have gotten better in the priesthood if my idiot disciple has found himself a bedmate."

That was all it took. The spell over Allen was broken and he released his lover, who in turn pushed him aside and drew his sword from beside the bed, swinging it in a gleaming arch toward the intruder's head. He didn't care if this man was somehow related to Allen, nor did he care that he had just said something along the lines of asking his mother for sex – all he cared about was the fact that he was there, asking to be slaughtered.

"Kanda!" Allen reached out to stop him but the blade halted without him interfering, held just inches in front of the gold rimmed hat that now protruded partly into the window.

"Who the fuck are you and how the hell do you know Moyashi." It was not a question. And it was not a womanish voice that said it. "And what did you say about my mother?"

Allen caught his lover's knee with his hand but the contact did not make Kanda falter. His arm was sure despite his yukata falling off his left shoulder, his hair flowing out around him like a long ebony cape. In the darkness his ivory skin was nearly milk white, his sapphire eyes like polished bronze shot through with lines of fire. There was no mistaking that this young man was the child of none other than Kanda Hiroko.

"Moyashi?" The man questioned. "And here I thought Mother was going to be the last person to call you that, boy." The man tilted his head back so that his half masked face caught the light, revealing his strong jaw and the small auburn beard growing on it, as well as the gold and black coat that he wore buttoned all the way up around his neck. Kanda froze, eyes wide, comprehension hitting him like a swift brick between the eyes. Komui had said that Cross Marian was wandering around in Japan, but he had never imagined him wandering into the guest room.

And through the window no less.

"I see that recognition has finally struck, Kanda-kun. Now get that weapon out of my face before I break it." The General heaved himself through the window, teetering for a moment when the sword pressed gently against the fabric of his coat.

"Lo-Love…"

"Love?" The General glanced between the two of them. "So you're my idiot _sodomizing_ disciple now, boy? I never would have thought you had it in you." He stayed as he was, one foot on the windowsill, both hands holding him there, Mugen poking him directly in the middle of his chest. His face turned toward the white haired boy so that his teeth flashed white. "Now call off your boy-toy, I'm trying to find his mother."

"My ass," Kanda poked him again. His perfectly calm expression was more frightening than any death glare. "I don't care if you _are_ a General – get out of this window and use the _door_." The hand Allen had on him tensed, squeezing painfully but he couldn't bring himself to heed it. "And even then you're staying away from Okaasan."

"I'd leave that decision up to her, _Yuu._"

That was all it took. Kanda's cool demeanor was lost as he pulled back with his sword threw himself forward again in a perfect thrust, aiming for the other man's heart. Allen acted before he could stop himself, and he acted violently. His right hand, hit Kanda in the jaw, hard, his open fist making the Japanese man lose balance and trip. The blow itself shouldn't have done much, indeed he had only meant for it to distract him, but Allen no longer knew his own strength. His lover had only an instant to look surprised before he was sprawled on the floor, the back of his head smashed against the wall painfully. His mouth opened in an expression of shock and his dark eyes fluttered for a moment before losing focus on the world around him and dimming sickly.

Allen felt the same expression reflected on his own face. "Oh my God," He whispered. "Kanda? Love? Kanda?" He was on the floor beside the unconscious samurai even before his master could climb all the way through the window. He touched his face, felt his pulse, and dragged him back from the wall, feeling the back of his skull with tender fingers. No blood. No blood but Kanda didn't look like he was waking any time soon.

He realized that he was speaking quiet apologies when a loud boot hit the floor behind him and the light flicked on, burning his darkness adapted eyes with its brightness. He made a small sound of discontent as he glared up at the man who had haunted his memories of the past two or so years of his life, and he was unsurprised to see the half-masked man smiling.

"He's going to kill you when he wakes up."

The taller man looked down at him with an awkward, lopsided grin. "Let him try."

"I will. I'll help him. Now get out."

Cross raised an eyebrow at him, seemingly amused. "Say that again and I'll knock you out next to him."

"Get out." Allen repeated. He didn't care if Cross tried to knock him out for saying it, so long as the man got out of their room afterward. "Now."

Cross Marian titled his head back and released a short, barking laugh before he looked back down at Allen with laughing eyes. "Just one question before I find Hiro, boy." His eyes narrowed dangerously behind his glasses and he spoke in a voice that warned of impossible pain to come. "_Who's the seme?"_

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"They're gone." Lavi said simply. His right hand ran slowly through Tyki's hair as he spoke, allowing his fingers to just gently touch the perfect skin on the man's forehead. "Your eyes are normal too. You look…" He paused and the corners of his mouth turned up in an adorable little smile. "Really nice."

Tyki stared up at him, completely disbelieving. How could the scars vanish without him willing them away? They were always there. Always. Hidden beneath the illusion that he created for everyday life.

So how could they go away? How could he hide them without trying? The unspeakable couldn't have happened – not without it being a conscious decision. That was these things worked, wasn't it?

He kept staring at the kind, green eye that studied his face, not willing to comprehend what it all meant. The gentle hand running through his hair fell slowly down the side of his face and caught a tear he had not known himself to be crying. Once he knew an explainable flood was unleashed, tears he could not explain anymore than he could think to try. Lavi pulled him closer and upward, twining his arms around the larger man more firmly as the arms around him gripped in despiration. He didn't care that his ribs hurt, he simply cared that his lover was sobbing into him, shaking.

"I'm sorry." Tyki said quietly, fighting the tears as best he could manage. There was a soothing hand running up and down his spine, soft lips pressing on his ear, and yet he still cried. "I think this new development is a bit much for me."

"Why, Tyki? What does it mean?" Lavi asked softly, not letting go even though his lover had regained the ability to speak. "I know it's hard to see me like this – you wanted to cry when I was falling asleep earlier but you didn't. But what is it that's pushed you over the edge? What's wrong? What does it mean?" He could never remember soothing someone with so many questions, but it seemed to work. Perhaps it was the tambour of his voice, the way it broke between a vocalization and a whisper, or the way he said it all without moving his mouth away from his lover's ear. He spoke again before the older man could answer. "Just as long as you aren't dying it is fine – we've been over the necrophilia thing and you know I wasn't kidding."

When Tyki laughed the sound was as genuine as it could have been through a waterfall of half-felt tears. He pushed back slightly so he could wipe the tears away on the backs of his hands and look up at the young man who sought to comfort him. "I'm not dying it just means that…" And his face broke into a smile so bright Lavi knew he was going to kiss him the moment the words were out. "That I'm becoming more human. If it keeps up, and I make up my mind that I want it, I eventually will not even be a Noah anymore."

"What?" Lavi was perplexed and hopeful. As Tyki's lover and as a Bookman, this was something new and interesting and – perhaps – good. "That can happen?"

Tyki nodded slowly. "It is a rare occurrence because it takes something more important to us that the fate of the world to change us. Something like…" He paused, looking at Lavi in a way that said the word for him.

"Like love?"

"Yes. Like love."

Lavi placed his lips ever so softly on Tyki's, sweeping his tongue in a gentle teasing line until the older let him in. He delved tentatively into the warmth the other man offered and his right hand ran again through those sultry curls, then down the line of his lover's body until he came to his back. He turned slightly and brought his lips back to Tyki's when they broke apart, only moments later he had shifted again and threw his weight a little, lifted his sore leg enough to wind up as he had been before.

For the second time that night, Tyki found himself being straddled against his mattress. There were fingers pulling open the buttons of his shirt and his hands were gliding over bruised flesh to Lavi's hips which, unlike last time, he held in place.

"You're a determined little fellow, aren't you?" He breathed. Just as the words passed his lips the younger started on his zipper, his mouth pressing hotly into the sensitive skin of his neck.

"I love you, you made that face again, and like hell I'm waiting for tomorrow. You tell me something like that and expect me to just sit back and say 'oh, how nice that I mean more than the horrible state of the world to you,' but no. I'm not. Instead, I tell you this: please bite whatever you have to in order to remain quiet while I strip you of your clothes and touch you in very personal places." Lavi leaned very close to the man beneath him, rocking his hips forward as he did, the hands on his sides moved up to his shirtless stomach, clenching. "And you will need to bite something Ty-chan, or risk waking up the house."

"Lavi—"

"What? Can't find anything? Here," He slid forward until his left shoulder was just even with his lover's lips. "Try that. One more bruise won't make that much of a difference, I'm sure."

"You don't have to do this."

"No, but I want to. I want to and you aren't going to stop me." He licked what he could of the neck before him without moving his shoulder from where it was. The sensation was like liquid fire on Tyki's skin. "Alright, dear?"

Tyki ran his tongue over his lips as he brought his arms up to embrace the redhead. A hand had crept between them and it now slid slowly into his pants, playing at the skin on the inside of his thigh. He breathed in quickly, surprised at the warmth against him. "As you wish,_amante._"

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---**Omake! Yullen Special!**--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 

Back in the Tub…

Kanda stood up out of the tub, dripping water as he leaned out to grab a towel to dry off with. Allen was a half step behind him, waiting for his chance to exit the tub and huddle in the protective fuzziness of a towel. Sadly, when he leaned around to see what was taking his lover so long, he saw that there were no towels in the room.

"Um, Love." He poked the samurai gently in the back. "We did at least grab clothes didn't we?"

"I didn't. And you were behind me so. No."

Allen glanced from Kanda's back to the counter top to the line of drying clothes on the floor – all of them Sables. She had taken the time to wash an extra shirt, a pair of pants, and a nightgown in preparation for leaving the next day. Aside from those garments, there was nothing but Kanda's soiled and sticky jacket, lying on the floor.

"This… doesn't look good."

Five minutes later the two of them were staring at one another, the shorter fighting the giggles and the taller wishing for nothing more than something to strangle his lover with. The boy was standing by the door in the girl's pants, the black fabric hugging tight to his legs, stretching perfectly over his backside. The white, wet fabric of the low cut shirt did not help at all – the way the too wide sleeves hung off his arms in billows coupled with the semitransparent material and the exposed swath of chest made him appear as some small pirate to the samurai's eyes. But that was not why he wanted to strangle him he wanted to strangle him because:

"My, my Kanda, you look dashing in periwinkle silk. It brings out your eyes."

"DIE."

And now Allen was giggling. Giggling madly with his hands cupped around his mouth in a desperate attempt to stop the sound from escaping into the air. Kanda glared at him. He had not meant to be so biting in his retort, but Allen knew it was only half serious. Just to be safe though, he approached the smaller boy, who stopped laughing and blinked back, anticipating something painful.

"What?" He asked, stepping back toward the door. He couldn't take his eyes off of the slick, see-through nighty that was clinging so clearly to Kanda's wet chest. That was, until he was pressed against the door. Then his eyes snapped up to those of his lover, half-clouded with fear.

"You're going to pay for that."

"I am?"

"Yes." Kanda cracked his knuckles in front of him and leaned down very close to his lover, close enough for his breath to tickle the wet hairs on Allen's forehead. "Dearly."

The ensuing battle only lasted until Hitori decided to check on Sable's clothes.

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**Sorry about the kind of random Omake. Sailor and I were talking about Kanda in a nighty and then I saw this cute little comic about Allen seducing Kanda and all he says is DIE and ah! It had to come out.**

**I hope you liked it. It was really fun this time around XD**


	60. The Ending of an Unending Night

**OMG IT'S CHAPTER 60!! AHH! RUN!!**

**I never thought it would make it this far :) But look! It has! And it's all because of reviewers! But let's not take up extra time, ON WITH THE STUFF!**

**Disclaimer of Drudgery: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… that tiny little bathing clip in 75 would have lasted 45 minutes.**

**WARNING: Man-lovin'. Cursing. Horrible innuendos. Suggestive language. Mild violence.**

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The Ending of the Unending Night: Honesty

Allen stared up at the red haired man and floundered for a moment, unsure if honesty was the best policy in this case. His mouth fell open and his lips struggled to form words.

"Well… you see… we um…there's kind of a… Hiroko thinks… and we can't…"

"Spit it out kid, or I'll never leave."

"Well, today… I… but he kind of… um…"

Kanda groaned in his arms. Allen turned back to him with a bright expression that fell at the slew of curse words his lover unleashed. Kanda's right hand came up to touch the side of his face as his eyes scrunched closed at the light.

"Love?" Allen asked softly. He pushed the hand away from Kanda's forehead and shaded his eyes with his own.

"Che. You didn't have to hit me so hard, you bastard." The Japanese man croaked.

"You haven't called me that in a long time." Allen surprised himself by saying. His fingers wandered through his lover's hair until they came to the tips where they stayed, resting on the ground. "Are you ok?"

Kanda's right eye blinked open and he looked first at Allen and then at the shadow looming behind him. Cross was very tall from his position on the floor, and the condescending smirk he wore made the acid in Kanda's stomach reach up to circle dangerously around his heart. At once his left eye was open also, but just wide enough so he could glare. "Fine. Now move Moyashi, I am going to kill that man now."

Cross smirked at him. "Try it, Kid-Kanda and I'll make it so you can't sin with my apprentice anymore. Now answer my question, idiot." When he said that he introduced his book ever so gently to Allen's back, just enough for him to know that it was there. "Who's the seme?"

Kanda pushed himself up with a wince before giving up on his murderous intentions to lean on the wall. His skull felt like broken glass, as did the rest of him. "Che. As if you can't tell, you pervert? Why the hell is it your business anyway?" Kanda did _not_ falter under the sudden feeling that the man standing before him was thinking him a stubborn imbecile. "Going to whack off at the mental image because you can't get any real action, eh?"

Allen visibly paled. "Kanda…"

"Hardly," The General sighed. Somehow Allen got the distinct impression that the man's patience was wearing thin. Perhaps it was the way he seemed to sag into himself like a broken doll. "Now tell me. Otherwise I'm assuming it's the one with the sharp tongue and the feminine face."

"And you'd me wroingt." They said together. He titled his head perplexedly at that response. Allen looked at his lover with an expression that said that they had been through this before. "After today Love you_ cannot_ seriously say that it's me. Look what you did outside?!"

"And whose idea was that again? Yours. Unless you meant something different by '_touch each other a lot,' _which I doubt. And if I recall, you were the one making me sore."

"That was _not_ my idea! You were the one leading, you could have screwed me into the lawn without much of an argument from me, and you made yourself sore, idiot. If you had _warned_ me that you were going to impale yourself on me we could have done it _right_. But you had to be all high and pleasuring and _seme_ and bottom from the top!" Allen's hands slammed hard against the wall on either side of Kanda's head, which in turn stopped the argument dead on his lips. His sapphire eyes were wide with unmatchable surprise, his mouth opened to say a word of dissent, his hands stalled just inches from the open edge of Allen's yukata. "Dammit Love, I'm not telling you again! You – are – the _seme_."

For a long moment Kanda stared at him in complete shock. Allen realized that he hadn't actually yelled at Kanda over anything in a long time and the thought made him smile a little. He never thought he'd see the day that he frightened Kanda into silence. He leaned forward until his lips brushed his stunned lover's and, when they responded he parted his lips, inviting the older boy into his mouth with the softest of touches. The fingers that had stopped next to his shirt found their way to his exposed chest with just enough pressure to let him know that they were there. He pulled away only when he felt that Kanda had completely forgotten why they were kissing.

"I'm sorry." He kissed him again, fleetingly. "I didn't mean to yell at you."

The hand on his chest pressed more firmly before sliding further into his clothes and stopping at the curve if his hip. "Che," Kanda said quietly, not really paying attention to his thumb running maddeningly back and forth over that sensitive place. "It's fine. I just… wasn't expecting it. Moyashi-kun."

The timbre of his voice was all Allen needed to know that Kanda was fighting the urge to yell back now that he had control of himself. He didn't though. Instead, when the smaller leaned in to trade a peck on the cheek for his nickname, but Kanda pulled Allen close and smothered his face in a kiss so long and powerful it left them both breathless, the _totally unsurprised _General looking down at them with an amused expression. When the kiss broke Kanda looked up at him with slightly bruised lips and glared.

"Does that answer your damn question?"

He snorted and took a lazy step toward the door. "Excellent job Walker." He slid the door open, took two steps into the hall before turning back to smirk at the confused expression on the boy's face. "You sacked a Kanda. I've been trying to do that for years."

The door closed.

The cicadas took to chirping again in the window, just barely – the night wasn't warm enough for them to be overly enthusiastic – but the sound was enough to bring Allen's bewildered mind back to the moment. "What did he just say?"

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Ty-chan since when do you wear underwear?" The question was quiet in the dimness and Lavi had just enough time to appreciate the horrified expression on Tyki's face before the candle flicked out entirely. He giggled at it quietly. "You're blushing."

"That's not exactly a question one usually asks when they have their significant other pressed to the mattress beneath them." The Noah berated, running his hands up Lavi's back in an attempt to maneuver him in a way that let him look at his face. In the end the younger had to sit up on his hips and hold himself up with his free hand – his right ran back and forth across the fabric that still kept him from touching the other man's skin, as if testing him for sensitivity. "And since we played poker, if you must know."

Lavi cocked an eyebrow at him and slipped his fingers beneath the material that previously stopped him from touching the most intimate of places. "That's odd. I lost that game something terrible. Why would that encourage_you_ to wear more clothes?" He smiled down at him more surely when his fingers found a spot that made Tyki's eyes grow wide. He stroked it again. "It's cute though, whatever the reason."

"I am _not_ cute." He retorted softly. "Cute is a word used for small animals and children, as I am neither I cannot be cute."

"Adorable."

"That either."

"Fiendishly sexy?"

"Hmm… I think I can live with that." His hands slid up to his lover's shoulders and he leaned up into a gentle kiss, a motion that incited Lavi to smile at him lopsidedly and return the gesture. His hand abandoned its ministrations to instead feel the tight muscle of Tyki's stomach beneath his shirt, which tensed in response to his touch. When Tyki's mouth left his he half wanted to pounce on him again, but the soft, lingering light in the other man's eyes stopped him.

"What?" His voice was heady with yearning that he did not even try to repress.

Tyki grinned crooked at him while his hands ran up and down the sides of his ribcage, pausing when he could feel Lavi's heartbeat strongest. "Thank you. For being optimistic," He lifted himself enough to touch his lips to the edge of his lover's mouth just a little, nothing more than a warm press and he was gone again, leaving the younger man grinning. "And for making me forget how hopeless this all seemed at the start."

"You're as depressing as Yuu sometimes."

"I'm as depressing as me?"

"No. Yuu. Yuu-chan. Kanda Yuu. He's my best friend back at the Order but that I haven't seen him in almost two months. You both have that… fatalistic thing going." As he spoke his left hand started on the buttons of Tyki's shirt, almost indifferently picking them open. "He used to be worse when he was younger – I like to think that I kind of helped him with it, at least a little."

The hands on his chest moved just so that the man beneath him could toy absentmindedly with his nipples.

"I do not find myself fatalistic."

"You're you, you wouldn't." He slid the now open shirt away from Tyki's torso and ran his idle fingers across his tan skin. He didn't want to talk anymore, he wanted to touch. "Kind of like how you don't find yourself cute."

"That is completely—" There was a graceful tongue on his throat, slipping lower, and the hand that had been moving his shirt ran firmly over his shoulder, trying to remove the garment entirely. He suppressed a moan when teeth scraped across his flesh in almost painful strokes, followed by the soothing contact of carful lips. _"Different."_ He finished in a whisper. There was electricity spiraling up his spine and out to his limbs, and the wet kisses on his neck were effecting the heat in his loins. The fingers he had left on Lavi's nipples began to move rather violently – it was hardly fair for him not to return the favor when his lover was doing such a splendid job of things.

Lavi heard himself gasp and bit his tongue to keep silent. It took almost all of his will but he managed to speak the words that needed to be said before Tyki lost his shirt entirely. "I think I'm still too sore for… some things. But we can try if you want. Cutie."

"Am not." Tyki said surely. "And if you think we can't then we shouldn't. You know that."

"Doesn't mean I don't want to try."

A harsh pinch and Lavi almost lost out to the whimper. He managed a gasping half-retch instead.

"Hmm…" Tyki mused softly. "If you insist." He pitched them both sideways, bringing his weight around until Lavi had no choice but to either fall over or switch positions with him. In the end Tyki found himself on top of the younger man, whose face was so bright he could see it plainly in the darkness, his hands creeping across tender skin in long, warm lines. He returned the wet kisses that had been placed on his neck with gentle lips before he found his lover's mouth and captured it with his own. There were fingernails running up his back beneath the fabric of his yet to be abandoned shirt and they prompted him to shrug it off entirely; the material made a soft sound when it landed on the bedroom floor.

Lavi pulled him back at once, hooking his arms around the back of the older man's head as he opened up to him, titling his neck as a strangled moan finally broke through his lips. Tyki shushed him softly and tugged open the button of the redhead's pants, at once sliding his hand across Lavi's newly exposed skin.

"You have to be quieter than that, Lavi." He said to his collar bone. "I'm not even touching anything important."

"Yeah well, I only have so much self control…" He let his hands fall and forcefully grabbed Tyki's belt loops so he could drag him upward, pinning his hand against his hip and grinding their pelvises together. He felt himself shudder. "And I want you so bad…"

"Badly."

"Jerk-face, don't correct my grammar." He yanked on Tyki's belt loops again, lifting his hips into the motion. He could feel the other man's willingness even though the fabric of his still present trousers and undergarment, and it drove him mad with desire. The hand that had been pinned next to him a moment before was mysteriously tracing fire down his stomach, slowing near his navel before migrating up again. "Ty-chan…"

The Noah leaned down enough to toy with Lavi's right earring for a moment, twisting it between his teeth as he chuckled. When he spoke his breath brought goosebumps to the warm flesh under his palms. "You should have a high command of language as a Bookman, should you not? Come now, you can't reprimand me for keeping you in line with it." He ran his tongue over the edge of the younger man's earlobe and felt his entire side tense, fingers clamped on his hips. He liked that response.

"I know how to tell you to take off your goddamn pants, so I'm good." Lavi breathed. He arched his back away from the mattress once more, willing Tyki to take him seriously this time. "And leave my ears alone. You're driving me insane…_ah… I lied…_" He was being bitten but he didn't really care about the pain; he cared about the feeling that all of the tension in his shoulder was running out of his arm through his fingers. It was like something Panda would do with his needles, only with a twist of bittersweet agony on top of it all. "Just keep doing that…_I'll… _just fall asleep… slow…."

"Slowly. And no you won't." Tyki rocked forward, forcing another small whimper from his lover's throat. "If you fall asleep I'll tie you to the bed frame and you won't get a bath tomorrow."

"What happened to nice, gentle Ty-chan?"

"I'm feeling gray."

And somehow, Lavi knew exactly what that meant. He took the older man's shoulder in his left hand a pushed back slightly, aware that his hands were shaking, aware that there would be fear in his eyes, and acutely aware that it might all lead the man above him to lose the bit of humanity that he had regained. When those strange, half-yellow eyes met his he knew he was right, and he knew that he didn't care. Even if he wasn't yet enough to make Tyki human, even if he wasn't completely sure of how that worked, he still felt the impossible urge to let the Noah who loved him understand that it would be alright.

Even if he was gray.

"I love you." He said seriously. "And whatever you're thinking right now is fine, just take off your clothes, rip off my pants and have at it."

"Lavi…"

He closed his eyes, not wanting to look at the scars on the other man's forehead. "Seriously. I don't care if you're feeling gray or black or white or purple – you have my permission to do with me as you will." The corner of his mouth turned up in a sly, devilish grin. The expression seemed half out of place. "Just so long as I get off at the end of it."

The apprentice Bookman was very surprised when he was being kissed tenderly in response to that request, and his pants were sliding down his hips without being completely undone. It didn't matter; they came off anyways, for such was the glory of being thinner than the owner of the garment. It made a thrill soar through him at the feel of course fabric on his legs, and then that was gone as well and there was skin against him, making him pant. When the lips against his finally moved he had hardly enough time to catch his breath before they were back again, a fierce tongue sweeping into his mouth and stealing his air. There were fingers caressing his erection with enough force to make him forget that he was supposed to be kissing back; his head fell against the misaligned pillows and his hands drifted down his to Tyki's elbows unthought-of.

Tyki was thinking far too hard to care that Lavi had closed his eye to him. Instead he cared about running his tongue in a delicate line down the younger man's chest, and finding the places that made him arch his back and fight his moans. There were a number of places along the line of his ribcage, and a few that Tyki dare to try for fear of the deep bruises that marked them, bruises which became even worse over his stomach. He wondered if maybe Lavi had simply taught himself to ignore such injuries, or maybe if they didn't matter when there were hands keeping him from thinking about them.

It amazed him how quiet Lavi had become over the last few moments, as did the boy's willingness to meet his palm halfway. He heard his name said softly, just loud enough for him to hear it, and paused with his tongue just inches from Lavi's navel to look up at him, perfectly lost in the moment. He didn't want to ruin it all with the pain that might come from trying to increase his pleasure, but Lavi had asked him to try. So he would try, and stop if it was too much for either of them.

"What'er you—" Lavi glanced fleetingly just before Tyki shifted into a kiss, the hand against him gone to rifle through the contents of the nightstand beside them. He smiled into the contact; fully aware of what that had was searching for. He moved his hands to his lover's hips and rocked him forward urgently, desperately, and the movement coincided with the discovery of a certain little jar that Lavi still had not seen in the light of day. The kiss broke and he smiled at the unsure look in his lover's eyes. "Yay!" It was a quiet exclamation of enthusiasm and it was enough to make the Noah smile.

"You did say we should try."

"Uh huh." Lavi pulled him forward again and narrowed his eye at the feeling. "Right now."

Tyki grinned at him as he attempted to work the jar open one handed. "Patience, dear, is a virtue. This shouldn't take too long or be too uncomfortable; it wasn't so long ago since our date, after all."

"Don't explain the science Ty-chan, just get the damn jar open."

"I'm trying."

Lavi sighed in exasperation. "Give it to me." Tyki was surprised when a hand ripped the container from his hand and the fingers on his hip moved to its lid, unceremoniously turning the two apart. "And don't lie about the uncomfortable part."

He took first the lid and then the jar and sat the both gently on the nightstand before sinking his fingers into the slick substance inside. "I'm sorry," He gently kissed Lavi's cheek, then his chin, and finally his mouth. "I could tell you that its going to feel terrible and you're going to hate it, would that be better?"

"Stop talking and do it." Lavi instructed, kissing back. His hands ran gently up the older man's arms and paused at his neck, his fingers lost themselves in the other man's hair. The redhead was keenly aware that his lover's hand was traveling swiftly lower, blindly moving where he wanted. He could almost forget where they were with the anticipation running through him, Tyki holding himself just far enough away to allow himself access, and the burning feeling in his chest that used to always come with tears. He would not cry now though, he knew, because it would ruin the moment. He would wait until it was over before he let the tears go.

And then he forgot about the concept of crying. Tyki was lapping soothingly at his collar bone and a slicked finger was slowly exploring the flesh just outside of him. He let his hands wander the line of Tyki's chest, feeling his muscles tense beneath the smoothness of his skin. Anyone else would have had a hard time imagining the details of his chest in the dimness but Lavi had seen it before and that was all he needed; even when he blinked he saw every wrinkle and blemish and every inch of perfection.

Two fingers and there were teeth gently nipping at his throat. Ironically that tiny distraction was enough to keep him willing. He smiled at the ceiling, palms smoothing Tyki's hair; _I really do like it when he hurts me… Maybe that's why..._

"You have too many wounds for me to taste all of you." Tyki interrupted softly. When he spoke his voice reverberated through his lover, causing him to draw in a little air. "But your expression says that you don't specifically care."

Lavi let out a tiny yelp of satisfaction when the questing fingers finally prodded the perfect place within him. "I hope… my expression says… _ah_…" The presence within him was gone and he was being swept away by a kiss so deep he thought he was going to lose himself in it. Tyki's tongue played softly on the inside of his mouth; Lavi's right hand pulled his face closer and his left drifted down his side until it found Tyki's hip and pulled closer. The older man did as instructed and slid forward and into him, kissing again when he felt a suppressed shudder ripple up his lover's spine, a high whimper coming with it. It was not a sound of rejection.

He fell back a little when Lavi arched into him and took a firm hold of his lower back to lift him closer. He almost lost contact with the smaller man's lips but managed somehow to keep them together, and also to keep his sanity.

That other voice was back.

**Do it hard. Make him beg you to stop.**  
_No. I know him well enough to know that he won't want me to stop._  
**All the more reason to take what is given.**

_Stop it._  
**But why? You know as well as I do that you like the feeling of him writhing beneath you. And you like it when he cries for your sake so…**  
_I said no. Since when do I think of myself as another person anyways?_  
**Since you stopped caring about the world as much as you started caring about him.  
**_**The one we want to love forever.**_

"Ty-chan…" Lavi's voice pulled him away from his inner argument. He had not noticed that he had stopped moving, nor had he been aware that Lavi did not want him to. "Anytime you're ready…"

"I'm sorry,_amante._" He lifted his lover again and moved forward, Lavi pulled him into the motion, his other hand still on his lover's shoulder. He noted then that the wrappings he had done on his chest had started to unravel, and the ones on the boy's shoulder were more or less pointless now, not that bruises really required such precautions. He tried to ignore them while he moved, making the body beneath him shiver, the fingers on him bit painfully into his skin. Lavi's face tilted back away from him; his mouth opening in a silent exclamation that he didn't understand the meaning of.

_I love him too much to do what you want me to do._  
**If you loved him that much you would tell him the truth. Or hurt him.**  
_Stop it. I can tell him later, when we're both safe._  
**And hurt him when?**  
_When he asks me._

"Harder."

The word surprised half of him. He pulled Lavi closer, noticing how he moved as if he enjoyed himself, how his breath had changed rhythms, how everything felt so pleasant even if his mind would not allow him to focus for even a moment. He looked at the unadulterated delight on his lover's face and pulled back before ramming forward again, driving a cry from the younger man's lips. He did not give warning that the sound was too loud, he simply pulled back and moved forward again, with more force, aiming for what he knew was there.

When he found it there was no hiding of their activities. Lavi arched into him and he moaned back in response, driving forward with the urgency his partner demanded. There were legs hooked around his back, helping him thrust, and the impossible warmth around him drove all other thought from his mind. In a matter of moments he had lost the ability to fully focus on Lavi's upturned face and the room was growing small around them, the darkened corners drawing in close to the bed until there was nothing else.

There was only the bed and his lover, and the sinking feeling that the voice in his head was dissatisfied.

The broken scream that left Lavi's throat was all the warning Tyki received before there were tight muscles wrapped firmly around his length and he was teetering on the edge of oblivion. It took only a few moments for him to fall over it, the darkness pulled in one more time as he finally released with a groan, his own voice breaking as his back arched away from his lover's chest. His shaking hands almost did not catch him when he fell forward again, the redhead beneath him panted up at him with an expression that was too serious for what had just happened, and the sight of tears in the corner of that sparkling green eye made him pause.

He pulled away enough to slide onto the mattress beside him, strong arms turning Lavi until he lay on his left side, right arm hooked around his lover, face at once buried in the curve of his neck.

"Why are you crying, darling?" He cooed, running his fingers slowly up and down the apprentice Bookman's spine. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Lavi lied tiredly. "Leaky faucet again."

"Oh."

"Just…stay close, Ty-chan."

The Noah pulled him closer before placing a soft kiss on the top of his head. "I will my dear. As long as you hold me."

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"_GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU FUCKING MAN-WHORE!"_

Sable's eyes flew open with a suddenness that could only be cause by a screaming woman in the middle of the night. With a tiny yawn she pushed the book off of her face and sat up, glancing around in time to see the light in the hall flicker on and a very familiar shadow form against the wall.

A shadow that was wearing a sideways hat, and appeared to be rubbing the side of its face. "Hiro, you never change. We both know that kicking me out is your way of inviting me in…" He took a step toward the door, which got him no less than a swift kick in the gut. Sable blinked as the red haired general hit the wall that his shadow was playing against, a grimace on his strong features and a hand on his ribs. For a moment he sat there, looking up at something, dreamy eyed. "Violence is the fighter's way of making love…"

"Cross?" Sable rubbed her eyes and blinked. Sure, she had realized it was him a few moments before, but it still seemed like she was dreaming. "General Cross Marian?"

He only had time to glance at her before a sword was thrust through the wall above his head, a flurry of curses accompanying the weapon. Hiroko yanked it out of the wall and tried again, a bloody battle cry on his lips.

"Okaasan!" It was Allen's voice attempted to call a halt to the violence but it was Mugen that stopped her blade from hacking the masked man in two. The silver haired boy stood behind her while her son crouched at her feet, katana lifted over his head in defense of the one man he wanted to kill at that moment. "Please… don't be violent for a moment…"

"Shut up Whore-chan, you have no idea what I have against this man."

Cross laughed from behind Kanda, not even bothering to push himself up. "He has a little more than you."

"Yuu. Move."

Kanda raised an eyebrow and shoved his mother back so that he could stand with his sword and death glare ready. "What do you have against him?"

"Eleven years of hounding for my ass, forty-two million yen of debt, and seven bottles of rather expensive sake – now move or I'll take his payment out of _your_ hide." She jabbed at him as if to prove her point, but he blocked it easily, swung haphazardly at her shoulder in a way that let her stop him with know problem whatsoever. "I said move."

"Look." Kanda said stoically. "I'd like to hack him into pieces too, but Komui-san ordered us to bring him back to the Order."

"Alive?"

"Yes. Alive. What good would a dead General be?" He was surprised when she pushed back Mugen enough to sheath her blade and scowl at him, crossing her arms across her loosely tied yukata. "So stop trying to kill him until Komui sees him."

"Only that long?" She and Cross said at once. Kanda moved away from the man he was defending to shoot him a look that would have molded cheese or rotted meat given a few moments.

"I should hack you to pieces for even _trying _to whore yourself to my mother, you bastard. Now get your ass off our floor and act like a proper person."

Allen blinked at him. Who was this and what had he done with Kanda? For one he had just _stopped_ his mother from killing a man who only moments before was invading their personal space, and now he was _reprimanding_ him rather than killing him on the spot. This was not the natural order of things. He was supposed to beat both Kanda and Hiroko off of his master, promise to pay all of his debts, and then silently seethe at the older man's back, planning his eventual demise. On top of it tall, Hiroko was supposed to be begging to get into bed with Cross – that's how all women worked, there were no women capable of turning down his laziness, bad drinking habits, and his charm.

"Um…" Allen started, but there was really no reason to start. General Cross pushed himself up from the floor and leaned heavily on the wall, eyes never quite leaving the Japanese boy with the katana in his right hand, robe open and falling down his left arm. It was a look that made him instantly angry. Hiroko, however, was the one to respond to it.

"What?" She asked harshly. "You look like you've seen a ghost Mari-chan."

"Don't call me that." His eyes flicked to her before flicking to Allen and then Kanda, taking them each in slowly. He never seemed to notice Sable in the dimness of the living room. "It's eerie how much he looks like you, Hiro. I'm just wondering when my idiot disciple and I grew such similar tastes." He looked to Allen this time, raising an eyebrow and smiling crookedly out of the side of his mouth. "You must admit, you did pick a rather feminine fuckbuddy."

Allen felt the heat in his face and knew that he wasn't blushing; he was ready to strangle the man before him if he said one more word along those lines. It was different than Hiroko said it because she still meant well – and she never said it in the wee hours of the morning with ogling eyes. "We're not _buddies_ Master, we're lovers."

Cross barked out a laugh. "Right."

"He's not lying." Kanda broke in. "He's my wife."

The sound the General made was so loud; Hitori must have heard it in his bedroom. "You're telling me," He pointed with his left hand at Kanda, his right had yet to leave his stomach, "That _he_," His finger moved to Allen. "Made _you_ fall in love with _him_?"

"Yes."

"No." Sable interrupted. She was at the end of the hall, leaning on the wall with her hands folded nicely against the fabric of her silky periwinkle nightgown, her blonde hair hung down passed her shoulders, gleaming gold in the dimness of the hall. "What happened was, Lavi, Lenalee, and I decided that we had the perfect plan to make these two stop killing each other. So what we did was simple – Lavi wrote Kanda this God-awful poem about how Allen wants to be held by only him. Then, after Allen delivered it to him, Lenalee slipped Allen a letter that Lavi had written as if he were Kanda. It was pretty masculine, well worded, Kanda-y – something about holding him close and protecting him… hmm…I can't say I remember. Anyways, it's not important. What _is_ important is that we tricked the two of them into falling for each other enough to stop breaking things – the touching, the caterwauling, and the bondage was all their idea." She sighed and her green eyes studied the tall man before her, lingering on his spectacles. "Any questions?"

Allen and Kanda stood in stark silence for a moment, staring.

Those words had come to mean so much to Allen – _I want to __care for you. I trust you. I want to spend time with you. I want you near me. I want nothing more than to__wrap my arms around you and keep you safe._ – those words had come to be the core of his heart over time. He felt his face fall, felt tears burning in his eyes that he could not explain. What did it matter if Kanda had not written it then? He felt that way now, didn't he? Even if it had been a lie in the beginning, the moment Kanda had started caring the lie had vanished, replaced by an emotion that was nothing but true.

Right?

He faintly heard the sound of a blade sliding on wood before he felt the presence of a warm, soothing hand in his, tugging slightly. He realized at the contact that he had been holding his breath and the air rushed out of him in a shaking wave when the fingers closed more tightly. His silver eyes turned to his lover and were amazed to find something besides murderous intent there.

"What did it say, Moyashi?" He asked softly. "What did it say that meant so much to you?"

"Love…" He didn't care that they were standing in front of Cross and Hiroko and Sable – all he cared about was the man whom had reached over so gently to touch his hand and had instead touched his heart. He took the two steps between them and hugged Kanda, wrapping his arms tightly around his narrow hips and burying his face in his right shoulder. "It said that you cared for me. That you trusted me. That you wanted to spend time with me. It said that you wanted me near. And that you wanted to wrap your arms around me and keep me safe." He looked up at Kanda to see a soft smirk playing on his lips. "What?"

"For one, how stupid were you to think any of that was true?"

Allen gaped at him.

"At the time, I mean." Kanda finished. "Che, stop looking at me I like just killed a kitten Moyashi, I feel that way now."

"Which is all that matters." Sable chimed as she leaned away from the wall. "Now, General Cross Marian, Allen, Yuu-chan, and Hiroko-dono, I think we should all go to sleep for whatever is left of the night, being we_are_ leaving for England tomorrow."

"I know something else I'd rather do…"

"Fucking man-whore."

"Hiro, please?"

"As if I'd let you get that overused _toy_ near me…"

"Oh but it's a fun toy, Hiro. I'm sure your son appreciates it."

"_Damare!"_ Kanda said loudly.

"Not your plague ridden lump of pseudo-cock he doesn't, and nor do I."

"Plague ridden? The only disease I have is my want of you, and the only symptom is the insatiable desire to feel you from the inside."

"Moyashi-kun, do you mind if I let go of you to kill him now?"

"Mari-chan," Hiroko said with finality. She stepped closer to the General and took him by the right hand, which seemed to surprise him. Her gray eyes glimmered dangerously in the light from her room. "You see this? This is your right hand. You can call it Migigawa, being you don't know what that means. And do you know what it can do for you?" She turned his wrist painfully, somehow managing to flip him around and pin him with his arm out behind him faster than Allen's eyes could follow. She was so much shorter than Cross he was amazed she could keep his arm at that angle without being hit in the face with his hand. "It can play with your toy for you or I can break it off. Get it you sleazy douche bag?"

"…Yes."

"Good."

Sable turned away, rubbing her forehead and shaking her head in despair. _See? This is why I dislike het…_ "Goodnight! Everyone!" She called over her shoulder. "And it's nice to see you again General Cross."

"Again?" Allen asked. Cross turned away from the wall when the glowering Japanese woman let him go, twisting his right hand with a wince. "Never mind, don't tell me. Sleep first, stories in the morning." He untwined his arms from around his lover and took him by the hands, looking up at him with round eyes. "And we can both kill Lavi when we get back ok?"

"Che," Kanda smirked at him. "And then thank his corpse."

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**El fin for now! The horrible almost-irony of that last line makes me really sad on the inside :( I hope it wasn't that bad for you guys.**

**Thanks for reading! I'm so happy to have reached 60! :D**


	61. Illusions Worth Keeping

Quietly Allen lay in his lover's arms, unable to sleep

**BWA!! It was supposed to be done DAYS ago!! But… but… I have no excuse for not doing it, really…**

**LOVE YA'LL!**

**Disclaimer of Disillusion: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Mimi would have stayed around forever. And joined the SAUK club.**

**WARNING: Shounen ai. Language.**

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Illusions Worth Keeping

Quietly Allen lay in his lover's arms, unable to sleep. It was still bothering him, that thing that he couldn't name, and the fact that it was bothering him made him feel horrible. It didn't matter how he thought about it, he couldn't find the reason why his stomach hurt, or why his hands felt cold when he touched Kanda's skin. The Thing (as he had come to call it) was chewing away at him, eating his resolve, slowly driving him mad. The fact that he didn't know what it was made him feel even worse.

All he knew was it had to do with Kanda. And what had happened in the hall only served to prove it.

For a split second he had feared that maybe, just maybe, Kanda didn't really love him. And in that moment he had felt his world fall apart and break into pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle with no picture on it, or a jar with nothing in it to spill. It had felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest without anesthetic, the blood had run out of his limbs to save him, horror that had shot through him had threatened to make everything else seem completely trivial. He had been so lost and confused until… until…

Kanda had brought him back to the moment.

He snuggled closer and the arms around him curled up behind him, Kanda's chin rested on the top of his head as if the Japanese man were completely content to use it as half of a pillow. That hadn't changed. And knowing that it hadn't changed made him feel inadequate somehow, and it made him feel pain. He had thought in that moment that he meant nothing to Kanda, but that wasn't true and it did not hurt to think about it now, what hurt it was realizing that he had doubted his lover for even a moment.

How good of a lover did that make him? A wife? A friend? He was the trusting type, he always had been, so what had made that one moment so different? Because in that moment he hadn't even trusted the one person who would never betray him.

The more he thought about it the more he didn't want to think about it, and eventually his brain ran in sick circles that ended with him wanting to cry. Kanda meant so much to him, he could never admit to feeling so utterly unwanted by him for fear that his doubt would come between them. But not telling even for a moment was like feeding The Thing inside of him. Feeding it and watching it grow.

He breathed in his lover's scent, trying to drive away his thoughts with the action. Every part of him wanted to be closer to his lover but he knew it wasn't possible without taking off their clothes, and Kanda would think him insane if he did that. So instead he breathed him in, closing his eyes to the darkness while his hands clutched desperately in the fabric of Kanda's yukata. He smelled soapy, and a bit like something that he could only describe as _Kanda_, and maybe a little like food – or perhaps that was wishful thinking. But whatever he smelled like it didn't quite chase away the feeling that he had missed something important. Kanda's neck was warm against his forehead. His skin was smoother than silk under his hands. The air passing through his lungs was slow and steady, his heartbeat strong enough for Allen to feel in his fingers. And he loved it all. Everything about him. Down to the way he sighed in his sleep and pulled himself closer.

He remembered when Kanda had held him through the night in Lloyd's inn. He remembered crawling into his arms on the train with less than innocent intentions. He remembered discovering that Kanda was a closet cuddler. He remembered holding him close not too long ago, crying, and trying to explain that life wasn't worth living without him.

And then he remembered telling him that the akuma came first.

'_So your right hand is for humanity and your left is for the akuma? If that's the case what do I get? Everything that's left?'_

He felt his mouth open slowly as he repeated the scene in his head, heard the words, watched his lover's face. There had been something sad about him, something that needed protecting, but Allen had not seen it then.

'_If that's the case what do I get? Everything that's left?'_ What horrible words those were. What a horrible meaning they had… _'Everything that's left?'_

And his answer. His idiotic, ridiculous answer. '_Yes. And my heart.'_

"I'm so stupid." He said out loud, in a normal voice. The man beside him stirred only slightly before he heard the sound of a kiss in his hair. The action completely surprised him.

"Che, like an ox."

Allen tilted his head up to see Kanda's deep blue eyes looking down at him, a small grin playing on his lips. He had that glowing, light look that made him feel warm inside, the look that willed him to sigh in contentedness and grin himself well into the following two days. "How long have you been awake?" He asked in a softer whisper.

"I don't sleep well when you don't, Moyashi." His lover responded with a tired looking blink. "So I just close my eyes, slow my breathing, and wait."

Allen frowned. "You shouldn't do that. Just sleep without me."

"I don't have a choice. If you want me to sleep, you need to tell me what's on your mind." When he spoke Allen could just barely see the yearning in his expression, the slight lift on an eyebrow that meant he was serious and fearful and loving. His heart ached looking at him.

_There's so much love in him._ He thought with a twitching lip. _He hides it well, but now that he loves me it is all I can see when I look at him._

His eyes were burning with tears that finally spilled down the sides of his face in slow silver lines that made Kanda's expression go from hardly fearful to completely concerned; his dark eyes gleamed with it. "I'm just stupid is all. I didn't see it until just now how stupid I am. I…" He swallowed hard but it didn't matter, the words still came out in a rush of sobs. "I told you before that you get what's left of me, right? I was thinking about it and that was so… _idiotic_. I don't want to give you what's let of me; I want to give you all of me. You should come first. You should have my heart before any akuma or any person gets one of my hands." He was quivering all over when he pitched forward, pressing his tearstained face against Kanda's collar bone. "I love you so much but I don't feel like it's enough. They're there, taking me away from you."

"Moyashi-kun," The arms around him squeezed so tight he thought his ribs would crack.

"I guess in that way I hate akuma, which makes me feel bad for them and love them more. But you…God, I hate myself for not seeing it sooner." He crushed his face against Kanda, his breathing erratic, every part of him wanting nothing more than to find a way to be closer. "And the worst part is that you give yourself so well. You just love me unconditionally, with all of you, without even blinking, and it makes me feel terrible. I want to love you with all of me. You should get all of me. You should never feel like you come after anything else. You should never, ever have to settle for the leftovers.

"And, on top of that, when Sable said that thing about the note… for a moment I thought that maybe, if what made us fall for each other was a lie, everything else was a lie too. I never want to think that again. I never want to insult you by thinking it. You're so happy to have what's left of me and I'm dumb enough to wonder for a moment if you really feel love for me. How useless does that make me? How stupid? God Love, I wish I knew how to fix it. I wish I knew how to go back and change everything.

"But I can't. And I'm just stuck here, trying to love you with hands that don't understand and a heart weak enough to forget every pledge you've ever made to me."

"_Baka!"_ Kanda said it as if it were the ugliest of curses. Allen expected him to be angry and yell at him, push him away for being so selfish. But it didn't happen. Kanda laid a fearless kiss on his lips while his hands moved to wipe the tears from his eyes, Allen hugged him close, wanting nothing more than to have the contact last forever. When they broke away the hands on his face stayed as they were and the Japanese man titled his head up so that he was looking into those dazzling dark irises. "Che, I'm going to talk for a long time, so if you have anything else to say I suggest you get it out of the way now."

"I love you, Kanda Yuu."

"Good, that will make this easier." Kanda cleared his throat and when he spoke again it was hardly more than a whisper, and his forehead was pressed against Allen's ever so softly. The British boy had the feeling that that simple contact was more intimate than the kiss from moments before. "You are stupid. Very stupid. At this moment in time, I think you're the stupidest person I know." His hands held firm when those words renewed the stream of tears in Allen's eyes and he refused to let Allen go or speak, or even to let hug him more surely. He simply kept him where he was with his fingers there to wipe away the tears. "Listen to me. Do you know why you're so stupid? Do you know what makes you so dense?"

After a moment of silence Allen decided that maybe he was waiting for an answer. "No." The word was broken in a throat made raw from crying.

"You worry too much about the little things—Ah! Don't talk, I'm not finished. For one, I could have told you yesterday that you were regretting the way you worded that sentence on the lawn; I knew what you meant though. Besides, I don't want your arms if other people need them, they'll start hating me like you hate akuma. Because I'll keep you from them." Kanda couldn't resist the urge to run his lips for a moment across Allen's, which got him little more than an undignified whimper.

"Ka…"

"Stop. You have an impossibly big heart Allen Walker, big enough to hold the world if it would let you. The fact that I even have a tiny little place in it is enough for me to live with, so long as it's the most important place. Understand?"

"No."

"_Aho."_ Kanda frowned at him again. "I know that you love akuma and people and I know that you love me. Of those things, which is the most important?"

"You are. Obviously."

"Then I am satisfied. I don't think I really need to tell you that I want to protect you and spend time with you and everything, I sleep next to you every night don't I?" His left hand, the one that was farthest from the mattress, wiped away one last tear before it moved first to Allen's neck and then his shoulder, where it soothingly began a pattern of slow circles. "Alright, Moyashi?"

This time when Allen reached out to curl himself yet closer Kanda lay on his back to give him a better pillow. He put his head on his lover's shoulder and sighed into him, still feeling less than perfect but far less hopeless than he had moments before. The gentle sweep of a hand across his back made him feel so much closer to his lover, like he could just melt into him completely, without having to think about anything but the press of another body against his.

"How come that makes me feel better when it should make me feel worse?" He asked in answer. "I mean, you just told me again that you don't care that my hands aren't for you, I should still be bawling my eyes out."

"Che," Kanda half-groaned at him. "I care; I just don't hold it against you. I love you, I'm happy with you, and I'm the most important thing in your life – it would be silly to ask for anything more from you. Now go to sleep. No more talking."

Allen felt himself smile as his eyes closed gently, his sleepiness catching up to him now that his heart was feeling lighter. "You're happy. Hmm… that makes me glad…Love…" He nuzzled against him and the soothing hand on his back came to a gentle halt at the base of his spine. He could feel Kanda's heartbeat in his face, the warmth of his skin against his hands, the slow movement of his chest as he breathed; he could feel it all and honestly say that he didn't care about much if anything else at that moment. "Ok. Sleep…"

In a matter of seconds he was out like a light.

Kanda grinned to himself as he laid his face gently on side of Allen's head, enjoying the tiny little snoring sound he made when he was too tired to stop himself. "Goodnight, Moyashi," He said softly, running his free palm down the side of his sleeping face to smear away the still remaining tears. "Or whatever's left of it."

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Lavi's dreams were strange again. Only this time he wasn't with anyone he knew really, or in anyplace he could remember seeing. He was on horseback – which was seriously odd – and next to him was someone he thought he recognized, though he couldn't say how. But the oddest part was that he was looking down a ravine with both of his eyes, and what he saw there was supposed to make him smile.

'Is something wrong?' The man beside him asked. He didn't glance at him nor did he attempt to use his peripheral vision to pull the man's face into focus.

Instead he was watching the line of men attempt to ford the river.

It surprised him when his response was not scripted for him and he was able to speak as if he were himself and not whoever he was supposed to be. 'Yeah. I don't know what's going on. Most of the time when I dream it makes some sort of sense to me, but this doesn't go with anything I can think of.'

'Brother?' He man beside him questioned. Lavi turned his head to look at him and paused when he saw black star on the man's forehead. 'You have been dreaming?'

_A black star? Why would he have a black star?_

'I am dreaming, right now. I don't know how my mind came up with all of this but it's freakin' strange. Naked Kanda with a Lenalee sucker I can handle – but you're not someone I know and you just called me brother.' He turned away before looking down at his hands with a furiousness that was unbefitting – it felt like someone else did it for him. His fingers were far too long to be his own. Too slender.

'Minds cannot be perfect, Brother. They are flawed, human things, things that break when forced to a point. Human minds are the things that brought sin and suffering into this world.' The words made Lavi frown deeper, but he couldn't say why. 'They are evil by nature. He told me that once.'

'People aren't evil by nature.'

'Then why do they find so much pleasure in pain?'

He looked back up at him, suddenly feeling that this wasn't a dream anymore, it was something he had seen somewhere else, something he had been told about, something he had read. He would not mention it though. Instead he would try and figure out what this person his mind had thought up was trying to say.

'Maybe some of us are wired to enjoy our own pain and our counterparts are made to like it too. Like soul mates. And that's how God intended it.'

The man shifted in his saddle and tossed his oddly colored hair away from his face. Lavi couldn't tell what color it was, only that it wasn't a color it should have been. 'What a fitting answer from you. I should have known better than to point out something like that to the king of deviance.'

'What?'

The man smiled. 'Oh nothing. Come on. If we stay here much longer you'll talk me into changing my mind.'

They turned down the embankment, Lavi still frowning, the starred man coolly guiding him with a slightly amused smile. The sound of a door closing startled him awake before they could reach the river.

Tyki had tried to be quiet when he came in, but he still managed to rouse his lover, which made him smile only a little. The redhead blinked open his eye with a slowness that was befitting of a small, sleepy animal, and he slowly yawned like one too. After a moment his emerald gaze fell on his lover, whom had not moved from his place by the door, and he smiled.

"Morning." Tyki said in a voice that was just a tad too enthusiastic for the situation.

Lavi tried to push himself up but found the act impossible. His wrists were tied loosely but securely to the bed posts by what looked to be his scarf and an overly long necktie, and seeing them made him grin a little out of the side of his mouth. "Ya know, I really don't think my grammar is bad enough to deserve this."

Tyki laughed at him and moved forward. Lavi saw then that he had a tray of breakfast food in his hands which he sat gently down on the desk before walking swiftly to the bed. His fingers worked quickly to undo the bonds that held the younger man to the bed as he hurried to explain what had happened. "You see, I was worried that while I was out someone might step in. And if you were simply sleeping in my bed unattended the person who found you might see if to take you with them. Or decide that maybe you were here of your own will, so…"

"It's ok, I get it." Lavi said lightly. "Too bad really… anyways, what did you bring? I'm _starving_." By the time he asked his right hand was free and he used it to liberate his left before pushing himself up on the mattress with a wince. He was sore again, but not as sore as he had expected to be what with everything he'd been through. He was still tired though, and the more he thought about it the more he wondered if he would be able to nap after he ate and bathed.

"Nothing extravagant," Tyki sighed as he lifted the tray and offered it to the redhead, who took it in his hands and laid it carefully on his knees. "Just toast and eggs and sausage and coffee. Sweet Tooth wanted to give you nothing but bread – mostly because you never answered his question. I won the argument, as you can see."

"Which ij g'ate." Lavi enthused. Tyki looked at him with one raised eyebrow; amazed at his readiness to eat the food he was offered. Watching the apprentice smile and cram food in his mouth took him back to the artwork he had made out of his noodles in Durnshire, The memory made his lips twitch in amusement. "What?"

He sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to ruffle Lavi's hair, his nostalgic smile never waivered. "I was just remembering when we ate together in Durnshire with Lenalee-san…" His hand stopped for a moment and his eyes grew wide, realization washing over his face in a wave. "Lenalee-san! I'd nearly forgotten. I was meaning to ask you, is there anyway for you to contact her?"

Lavi almost dropped his last slab of egg covered toast at the question. "What?"

"I…I need her help to get you out of here, and she won't help me unless I prove that you're alive. The only way I can think to do that is for her to hear your voice." His hand dove into his pocket and he came back with a wingless, sad looking golem, the eye pointed toward his palm. "This was lost in the collar of your coat. If I'm not mistaken it will help you call her, yes?"

Slowly the redhead nodded, understanding. "I watched Komui call Lenalee once; I bet I could if I tried. But won't someone notice? I mean are there any phones that are safe?" He brought his coffee to his lips and sipped it before making a disgusted face and sitting it down again. Black coffee. He hated black coffee.

Tyki shrugged. "God willing it won't matter if someone does find out; you'll be gone before any ill can come of it."

Lavi frowned at him. "But what about you?"

"We'll burn that bridge after we cross it. Before anything else, you need to be washed. Please drag yourself out of bed and I'll attempt to work the shower into something comfortable. I don't think we have time for a real bath, regretfully." He yawned a little at the redhead who tried to smile in response. "We'll also," He leaned forward to gently kiss the apprentice Bookman and Lavi tilted forward to meet him halfway. It was only a small kiss, but the seductively raised eyebrow on the Noah's face made it mean so much more. "Have to wait on," Another tiny bit of contact – it gave Lavi the feeling that Tyki was trying to distract him from what he was saying, "Consecrating the furniture. It appears that—"

Lavi pouted at him, seriously doing his very best attempt at puppy eyes as he grabbed the tie that hung at his lover's throat and yanked him into a real kiss. He focused as best he could on dominating the action, and when his tongue slipped unhindered into Tyki's mouth he inwardly smiled; it was all his lover could do to just hold himself up without falling.

When they parted the Noah of Pleasure stared at him with round, thoughtful eyes. "Where'd you learn that?"

The corner of Lavi's mouth turned up in a twisted grin. "I dunno."

"What was I saying? Ah, yes. It appears that we're supposedly on the offensive – and as such I have been ordered to spend the day killing Exorcists, none of which I will be able to locate by dinner. I'll come back distraught and unsatisfied and be forced to take my aggressions out on the only enemy I have at my disposal." His right hand took hold of the one on his tie and squeezed reassuringly. "As loudly as I want."

"You like telling me what's going to happen so I can think about it, huh?"

"It's a rather pleasant form of torture isn't it?"

"No, it's mean."

"I shouldn't tell you then?"

Lavi's face fell. "I like knowing what to expect…"

Tyki chuckled lightly before pulling Lavi's hand away and turning to the now more or less empty tray and heaving it toward the desk. "First things first, dear, which in the case is cleanliness. Come now, we haven't got all day."

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"_Hirooooooooo…"_ Cross whined at her door. It wasn't midmorning and she had already woken everyone in the house to leave, it was supposed to be time for last minute packing and eating before they left at noon – but that wasn't exactly how things had turned out.

Sunlight did not filter well into the hallway and Cross's tired eyes had been bleary with sleep and yearning. Those in combination with someone else's slurred curses and reluctant gait had made him think that the person wandering lazy toward the bathroom was Hiroko in a slightly different outfit than usual.

How wrong he had been.

The moment he had pinched Hitori's backside the boy had attempted to murder him, and cried, and shrieked to high heaven. After that Hiro had done nothing but stay in her room and refuse to talk to him, most likely planning a disgusting way to end his sorry excuse for a life. The Japanese boy had run to the protection of Sable, who had laughed at him, and then to his disciple and his disciple's lover. Those two had simply listened blankly – he guessed by Allen's swollen eyes that they hadn't slept so well after his arrival. After that the lover's had gone to pack and Hito had gone back to the blonde girl – Hiroko was supposedly still cooped in her room, plotting.

"_Hiiiiiiirooooooooooo…_" He tried again. The bottle of sake he'd found was three fourths gone, not that it mattered. He knew where the old store was and he'd raid it if she didn't come out by the time he'd drank what was in the cupboards. He most likely wouldn't get drunk from it either – his alcohol tolerance was disgustingly high when he wanted nothing more than to drown his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle.

Kanda held Allen's hand as the moved down the hall toward the door and, inevitably, Hiroko's room. This time, they had managed to get all of their things together rather quickly. They each carried a suitcase but nothing else, their jackets moved slightly in the wind their movement created. But they moved together, hand-in-hand, touching. The edge of Kanda's mouth curled at the thought of them standing before Cross and his mother with fingers entwined, indifferent to their stares.

"Moyashi-kun," He didn't mean to say it as a nickname but it came out that way anyways. Allen's gloved hand tugged his bare right until he was close enough for the smaller boy kiss gently; their feet stopped moving perhaps fifteen feet from the general sitting next to Hiroko's door. He smiled a little at the lips against his, the gentle sweep of Allen's tongue on his bottom lip, the thump of his suitcase hitting the floor. He didn't care that his luggage was sitting in the hallway, nor did her care that the sound surprised both his lover and Cross – all he cared about was whether he had his hand free to pull the smaller boy closer, kiss him more deeply. He heard a tiny sound of contentedness in the back of Allen's throat when he guided his tongue to the side of his mouth.

The expression on his lover's face when they pulled away was priceless. The tiny blush on the bridge of his nose was too adorable to not make him smirk. "Did you need something or did you just want me to kiss you?"

"Moya—" He was cut off before he could finish it, just like he had been on the train in Ange. The difference this time was that he had done it on purpose and he hugged his lover when he leaned up to touch his lips. This time his smile was irrepressible.

The silver eyes that blinked up at him dared him to say it again without taking off his clothes. He wouldn't though, not now. Not when he had been aiming to say something to begin with.

"I wanted to ask if you thought dinner would be a good place to start." Kanda muttered, his hands never leaving Allen's waist for a moment the white haired boy blinked up at him in confusion until a tiny little grin spread across his face like a slow moving cloud. It was kind of frightening.

"You mean, like a date?"

"Yes, Moya-shit—" Thankfully Allen didn't kiss him for too long, just long enough to leave his knees buckling.

"Dinner?" He giggled. "When are we planning for?"

"Che, you're very forgetful. We should get back to England in something like a month and a few weeks."

"Yeah…"

"And by then it will be May."

"Uh huh…"

"Che. You're a horrible wife."

Allen frowned at him. "Why? What's important about May?"

Kanda shook his head in disappointment. "It will be six months we've been together you ass."

"_What?!"_ Kanda was surprised to get the question from both Allen and the eavesdropping Cross by the door. The red haired man quaffed what remained in his rice wine before using the bottle as an extension of his hand with which to speak. "First you're _in love_ and now you're celebrating _anniversaries?_ My God, boy, didn't I teach you _anything?_"

"Yes, what I don't want to become." Allen's answer surprised them all, but he recovered quickly, looking back at his General with a smile that was as happy as it was frightened. "Purely on a social level, I mean." He turned back to his lover, his face softening. "I'm sorry that I forgot."

Kanda's smile was not reassuring. "Well, being you forgot, I'll make the plans. And I'm sure that you'll never forget again." Allen could see that the Japanese man was internally cackling, but he didn't specifically care. He was more worried about having forgotten which day specifically was the day they had gotten together – and he was also wondering if Kanda counted their confession of love, their make out session, or their supposed wedding as the date. They were simple details though; he didn't really care what day it was so long as Kanda was happy when it came.

"So we'll have dinner?"

"Yes. And dessert."

"Sounds fun. What else?"

"Oh," Kanda's hands, which where still in the curve of Allen's back, slid just a tiny bit lower. "I'm sure I'll think of something. Maybe…" He leaned in to speak softly into his lover's ear, his voice lilting a little as he grinned. "I'll strap you to the bed again and see how long you last with me touching you…only with my mouth." His fingers drifted lower as Allen suitcase fell to the floor. "Or perhaps… I'll let you do the same to me…"

The hand in his gripped more tightly and Allen's now free hand was suddenly holding onto the fabric of his jacket. He kept talking.

"Maybe… when the day rolls around, I'll just keep you in our room all day, naked, and see how many times I can make you—"

"Ka-Kanda…"

"Che, you asked what else, didn't you? I'm just telling you what I have on my mind." He knew he was asking for it when his tongue gently found the curve of his lover's ear, Allen shivered against him. "I might spend a few hours just tasting – every – last – inch of you." Kanda stepped back and Cross gasped when Allen threw himself foreword, both hands on Kanda's shirt collar, his momentum carried the two of them to the wall. Allen's lips smashed haphazardly into Kanda's a soft, aggressive growl filling the smaller boy's throat.

_Just as I thought…_ Kanda thought as he tried to keep pace with Allen's mouth. The general watching sat in stunned silence; Allen seemed indifferent to his existence entirely. Kanda, on the other hand, would have rather had him not stare with that tiny lift to his lips. He didn't have time to think about that though, he only had time to think about where he was putting his hands when Allen pulled away to breathe and curse before starting again. There were fingers sliding up his chest beneath the fabric of his shirt, and another grouping at the flesh of his right thigh, though only lightly.

He decided on his shoulder and his hip at first, but his fingers soon decided that was a bad idea. By then Allen was blazing a hot trail of kisses down his neck and the buttons of his shirt were coming undone and his hands were shaking uncontrollably and his throat was choking on the moan he wanted nothing more than to release into the hallway. It was stop now or the wall would never be the same again.

"Moyash—" Such a bad word to say at that moment. He recovered no air at all before his mouth was captured again, the hand on his thigh slid upward and he whimpered as his knees threatened to give out from under him, his right hand found the base of Allen's skull and pulled him closer even though he knew that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to ask Allen what he was thinking and let him see that Cross was still wide eyed by his mother's door, half-smiling.

There was one good thing about this thought. If they kept at it, his mother would come out of the room to stop them sooner or later.

Allen pulled away again but stole his air with a quick step forward. He became suddenly aware of just how much he was enjoying himself.

"Allen." He breathed when the hand that was exploring his back side found his right hip and shoved it steadily against the wall.

"What?" The white haired boy half-snarled as he rocked forward and ran the fingers of his right hand over the nearest available nipple.

Kanda gasped at him and his fingers closed tightly on Allen's coat, a shiver ran up his spine for a moment before he found his voice again. "Not – a good – place for this…"

"Oh, you mean Master?" Allen looked up at him without moving away before dragging his lips softly across his lover's, drawing a shaking breath from his lips. "Like I care. I've walked in on him enough, he deserves it." His right hand slipped up Kanda's side until it came to his shoulder, which he proceeded to pin even harder. "Love you said those things and I just…" He rocked forward again, "Wanna…"

"Che," Kanda tried to complain but an aggressive bite to his throat made the words come out as nothing more than a moan. He pushed desperately at the smaller boy's shoulders, trying to press him back, gain some space, breathe for more than an instant without fire erupting on his neck. "Room. Allen. Now."

Allen showed no sign of abating.

"Dammit Allen, don't make me trip you."

"Fine." The British boy stepped back enough that Kanda could move away from the wall and glare mightily at the red haired general who still watched them as he was pulled by the wrist in the direction of the guestroom. Before they could get there he heard the general speak softly to the door beside him.

"Your eldest bastard is about to be violated if we don't leave now, Hiro."

"_Whore-chan!"_ The Japanese woman's voice rang like thunder through the house, the sound of pounding feet drummed suddenly in Allen's ears before he found himself centimeters from a sword point – and how it got there was beyond him. It didn't make any sense for Hiroko to be in her room one minute and then brandishing a blade at him the next – not when he was walking away from where she was supposed to be. For a moment he stared at her, blinking slowly, the boy behind him silent but for the panting of his breath.

"Yes, Okaasan?" He asked with an innocent tilt of his head. All she would have to do was look down and the illusion would be ruined.

Hiroko's black hair fuzzed away from her face enough for her murderous glare to show as plain as day. Her gray eyes narrowed further and the end of her sword flicked dangerously close to his face. "You turn your ass around, pick up your things and march right out the door. And take Yuu-kun with you."

"We're not supposed to leave for three hours though," He frowned at her and tugged Kanda, closer, hoping for some kind of help in his argument. "And… we kind of… want to…" He tugged again, and this time Kanda got the hint.

"Fuck each other, Mother." He said breathily. His face was a stoic mask covered in a healthy blush of rouge. "Now move, you're blocking the bed."

She glanced between them, pondering. "Whose idea was this?"

"Mine." They said together. Kanda shot Allen a look that was suggestive at best and Allen looked back, silver eyes completely circular with shock.

When he thought about it, it really had been Kanda's idea.

"His." They said again. At once Allen turned to his lover with an annoyed expression, but Kanda's face stopped him from saying anything biting. His delicate black eyebrows were held over his eyes expectantly, his almost too wide mouth pulled into a crooked, knowing grin. His dark blue eyes lingered for a moment on Allen's until the white haired boy could no longer lie to himself about the older boy's intentions.

"You knew we'd get her out of the room if I molested you."

"Che, she's my mother, of course I knew."

"And when you saw Cross you thought it was the only way to do it."

"Splendid observation."

"So you manipulated me."

"No, I manipulated her. I still intend to practice for May."

Allen blushed so hard he thought his face was going to explode. "Good."

"Not now you goddamn horny teenagers. You both need to learn to control your hormones and get the hell out of my house, _now_." There was something impeccably dark about Hiroko's expression, something that made Allen think arguing was a serious death wish. "And Mari-chan, did you leave that dead woman outside somewhere where we can pick her up? I don't want to go tromping through the freakin' woods again trying to find her."

"She's fine." He said at once. "Dropped her by the door before I tried to come in the window."

"Good. Hitori-kun and Sable-chan are waiting in the living room _dears_, so I suggest you grab your shit and head out. I'll get mine and the bum here and be out in two minutes."

"A quicky then? Meh, I'll take what I can get." Cross smirked.

"Shut up you good for nothing! Damn it, Whore-yashi-chan, I'll run you through if you don't stop eyeing Yuu like you want to sneak out and scare the birds again." He brandished her sword at both of them, glaring. "GO."

Allen's silver eyes never left Kanda as they turned slowly away from her. Silently he mouth at him, _'I love you. And you're sooooooo getting it tonight.'_

The Japanese man smiled broadly at him as he bent to retrieve his suitcase from the floor. When he straightened he draped his free arm over the small boy's shoulders and yanked him sideways, smashing him as close as he could while they lumbered pasted the less than inebriated general. He ignored the muffled protests coming from his lover and spoke just loudly enough for the three of them to hear.

"I love you too."

He vaguely heard a suppressed gagging sound as they passed at long last out of the hall.

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**Soooo… I could say 'I'm sorry! They really like to touch each other!'**

**Or I could say 'I'm sorry! They didn't really get to touch each other!'**

**Your pick XD**

**Ok. From here on the plot gets pretty um… dark… and… stuff… so you are warned. Also, I hope to have 62 up by Thursday, but don't expect any updates until Tuesday-ish after that. I'm going to Sakura Con (as Watari Yutaka) and will be unable to update. Hope to see some people there!**


	62. Torment's Birth

Lavi's hair was sticking to his forehead and he did not like it

**First and foremost – sorry that I didn't answer all the reviews. I wanted to, but there was no way for me to finish this chapter before I left and answer them all. So I chose to give you guys more fic instead of answering your wondering messages to me. I will answer them once I have the internet again, when I answer the reviews for this one too. Also, I apologize in advance for the face that this ends in a cliffhangerish place and has no obvious or substantial plot movement that can be seen as of yet.**

**Ehem. Long windedness ftl.**

**Disclaimer of D'Order: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did…I wouldn't have to think really hard about witty things to say in the disclaimer.**

**WARNING: Man-on-man and stuff.**

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Torment's Birth

Lavi's hair was sticking to his forehead and he did not like it. The shower was a little less powerful than the ones at the Order, and the walls were a lot closer, but the colors were better. He was surprised to find it white and clean and tiled, and he was also surprised to find the showerhead shining with something like imitation gold. Tyki's color scheme was everywhere, almost like he had only picked it after seeing that it would work with what was already there.

He was astonished by the lack of purple.

"You are a terrible stream hog." There was suddenly an arm curled gently around his right side and a head of curly hair next to his face, stopping about half of the water from landing on his chest. He felt the heat rise in his face at the closeness of the man behind him, but that did not stop him from leaning back to let his sore shoulders press into Tyki. The hot water was like a battering ram on his bruises, and each and every one voiced a silent protest when he closed his eyes and tilted his head back enough to no longer obstruct the water.

"Sorry," He mumbled. "You know, I'm just so fat that I can't help it." The man beside him chuckled and kissed the skin of his neck, almost encouraging him to lean back farther.

"Don't kid like that dear, it makes me want to compliment you." He teasingly licked the skin he had just kissed. "I've never been good with compliments."

"Hmm…" Lavi felt himself smile as his left hand wandered up the arm against him to enjoy the feel of his skin. "You keep doing that I'm not gonna get any cleaner…"

The Noah chuckled lightly and pulled him tighter for a moment before letting go again guiding Lavi around to face him. It never even occurred to the redhead that something was odd or that he might want to open his eye, he simply sighed and let himself be turned. The water felt more like fire on his shoulders, and he winced at it, unthinkingly stepped into the man who shared the shower with him.

His forehead connected with a chin and they both groaned for a moment until he looked up at the older man with a half-apologetic smile on his face. "Sorry," He reached out with his left hand and placed it softly on the flesh of Tyki's shoulder, just lightly enough for him to know it was there. "I'm not the best shower-mate." He drew his head back a little when a soapy sponge hit him squarely in the chest, splashing foam on his neck. He winced at the painful stinging that started at once in his cuts and his right hand moved to pull the offending, exfoliating object away from him.

"Don't." Tyki said quietly, drawing his eyes away from the sponge. The gaze that captured his was warm and concerned, and it marveled him to see that for the second time in a day his lover's scars were missing. Lavi let his right hand fall away and touch Tyki's forearm. "It's not much but it will keep any of them from getting infected."

"So I can't wash me?"

"If I let you wash yourself what would be the point of me being here?" The sponge slid up to his collar bone to his throat and Tyki's left, unoccupied hand found his hip with a gentleness that made him shiver. He didn't answer the question; he simply held more tightly with his fingers and let his gaze move to the wall beside him, his lips pressed into a thin line that would not release a single protest. As much as it hurt he knew that it was a necessity, and he knew that his lover enjoyed running the soap over his skin half because it caused him that pain and half because it saved him the effort.

Tyki, on the other hand, was not satisfied with Lavi's lack of talk. He smiled gently at the redhead and did his best to hurry with the scrubbing. He felt something turn over in his stomach every time Lavi's averted eyes would close a little, something burn in his veins. It had been so long since he had hurt someone, even longer since he had killed, still longer since he had visited the three people he spent half of his life with – but somehow his light half wasn't complaining. It was the dark part of his soul that was growing restless.

"Lavi…" His voice was far more serious than Lavi was used to hearing it and the subtle twist of a frown on his lips was not lost in the tone. "Are you feeling alright?"

An emerald eye turned to him and the eyebrow above it furrowed. "Yeah. Why?"

Tyki bit his lower lip in thought before he spoke. "You seem tired. Not that that isn't to be expected." The sponge moved across his skin as if of its own volition. "You couldn't have slept more than five hours last night."

Lavi tried to smile when he shrugged, but somehow the expression didn't want to reach his face. "I'm alright. Just bruised up and sleepy. I'll be sure to nap while you pretend to work." He managed a half-undignified wink as he stepped back a little into the stream of steaming water to let it wash over the places he figured were clean. His hands took hold of his lovers and he yanked him playful forward so he could look up at him with innocent eyes. "So we can have amazingly loud sex when you get back."

The Noah smirked at him for a moment before kissing his upturned face and dropping the soapy thing in his hand to the floor. "More than amazingly loud," He grinned. "We'll go for a record."

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"Goddamn fucking sea. Who the Hell decided that Japan had to be an island? Whoever the shit he was I wanna make him eat all of the salt in the water between here and the mainland. No easy suicide for that bastard – painful death. Long, painful, gruesome. And he can ride in a dilapidated sailboat across the fires of Hades once he gets there, with no ginger. Forever. In a squall." Sable finished her rant by dropping her suitcase onto the dock and glaring at the swells, her green eyes narrowed beneath her hat. She still hated the sea, even after not seeing it for their stay in Edo.

"Wow. I think 'Kaasan in rubbing off on you." Hitori grinned from beside her, tilting his head in way that made his boyish features dance impishly.

Her glare turned to him for a moment before going back to the water before them. "Not really. I just don't like—"

"_The sea!"_ Hiroko spoke from behind them with a lilting, delicate quality that made both of them turn with horrified expressions on their faces. The Japanese woman threw down her three bags and skipped forward with a too wide smile, breathing in the fresh air and twirling like a small child at Christmas. "It's so blue and clear and lovely! Ah, I _love_ the ocean!" She sighed and turned back to the people on the dock before her smile fell into a murderous frown. "What the hell are you staring at?"

"Love."

"Hm?"

"Pinch me."

At the far end of the dock Kanda and Allen stood shoulder to shoulder, chatting quietly or walking in silence most of the way. Cross moved behind them with the stealth of a drunken cat, smoking a cigarette and trying not to sigh every time Hiroko threw an insult at him for being slow. They had only caught Hiroko's motions but not the words specifically, and Allen thought for an instant that his mother-in-law had lost whatever mind she had. Or he was dreaming.

"My father used to have a fishing boat that they would go out on. I don't think she's even seen the sea since he left." Kanda said at once, not looking away from Hiroko. "So you're not dreaming she really is a happy person. Sometimes."

"It's kind of scary…like you…" Allen said quietly. He could feel Kanda's eyes on him and attempted to awkwardly smile his words away. "Heh! I mean! If you ever twirled in circles and giggled at something like that…"

There was suddenly a feeling against his hand and he glanced down to see Kanda's left pinky laced through his right and the contact made him look up into the samurai's eyes. For a moment he forgot what he was trying to lie his way out of.

When Kanda spoke his expression was completely unfaltering, the longer hairs on the side of his face lifted in a fleeting sea breeze. "If I ever do, please do not hesitate to kill me."

"Lo-love…"

And then he saw the slightly lift of Kanda's eyebrows and the delicate twitch of his lips. He felt himself narrow his eyes.

"You're still trying to make me feel better aren't you?"

"Che. You think I'm joking."

"Yes."

"I don't joke Moya—kt!" There was suddenly a rather heavy coffin on top of Kanda's head, forcing him to lean over so that his nose was mere inches from Allen's. The Japanese Exorcist turned just enough to see the smoking general who had placed it there. His dark blue eyes gleamed death at the man, but Cross just smiled back at the horrible grimace Kanda wore on his beautiful visage.

Cross gently tapped the lid with his knuckles, sending hollow vibrations down Kanda's spine, "Make yourself useful woman and stop chitchatting."

And then he started walking away.

"_Teme…"_ He heard chains rattle as he turned to face the retreating man and his hand fell at once to the sword he had thankfully strapped to his hip. Before he had it half out of its sheath there were two arms wrapped around his middle, pulling him back. He did not care. He was going to hack off Allen's arms and attack Cross he was so angry.

"Come along boy and woman," The general smiled back at them as he swung his bag over his right shoulder. "We'll be late if you don't buck up and bring the luggage."

"Love…" Allen could feel the desire to kill radiating from his lover like a thick black fog, blinding him to the obvious amusement Cross was getting from all of this. "Do not attack him, please do not attack him. You have self-control, please use it this time."

"I will. Right after I cut that bastard into a jigsaw puzzle." He reached up with his left hand and took the coffin by the edge before violently heaving it off of his back forward. It landed with a bang that directed all eyes them; the arms around his waist closed suddenly tighter at the sound. "Let go, Allen."

"Hell no. Stop being murderous."

Mugen slid out of its sheath with a delicate song that made the less brave of the dock dwellers step back in worry. Hiroko, Hitori, and Sable watched silently as Kanda, with Allen around his hips, and Cross, with nothing but a satisfied smirk, faced each other.

The afternoon light did not reflect from his blue-black blade, but bounced brilliantly from his ebony hair; cast his sapphire eyes in shades of bronze. Allen yanked back on him, trying to keep him from moving forward, but Kanda held his sword steady, steady and pointed directly at Cross's face. The British boy new that if Kanda so much as swung his weapon at his master he would feel all the pain of a thousand beatings in as many days, not to mention have the problem of having attacked a superior.

"So," Cross sighed at him before leaning indifferently into a stack of crates as if he were tired. He toyed with the edge of his hat for a moment before tilting his face to look more surely at the shivering samurai. "You can give it but you can't take it, eh woman? That hardly seems fair."

"Che." Kanda narrowed his eyes at him. What was Crosses problem? All Kanda had done was let Allen touch him in the hallway, and then he had said that he loved the smaller boy. Did that really bother him this much? That didn't really seem logical, not in the least. But Kanda didn't specifically care about logic. He wanted blood.

Allen heaved backward with all of his weight in a feeble, pointless attempt to turn his lover away. "Kanda stop. He's baiting you, just like Lavi does. Please don't do anything stupid…"

With a growl that reminded Allen vaguely of how Kanda used to be before he had learned to smile, the Japanese man turned on him, undoubtedly hoping to do nothing but shake him off and have a clear shot at Cross. He turned too quickly, catching Allen's sleeve in his belt and tangling his feet together when he pulled him sideways. At once the white haired boy tripped onto the dock, ripping his sleeve and bashing his face on the wood, a tiny protest leaping to his lips. The others watched Kanda watch him fall, various degrees of wonder, amusement, and fear on their faces.

Mugen's blade was suddenly jabbed into the wood beside Kanda, his target having switched with Hiroko-like speed. He was instantaneously kneeling beside his fallen lover, muttering something that was neither an apology nor an insult.

Cross watched it all with a calculating look on his face, thinking it all over. The more he watched that effeminate looking young man and his idiot disciple interact, the more he wondered if maybe he was wrong about them. At first he had thought them nothing more than a fling – maybe friends with benefits or something along those lines – but when he had questioned who was in charge they had not argued like friends or like lovers; Allen had apologized politely and Yuu had done what he could to take things in stride. And in the hall, Allen hadn't exactly been timid about asking if he could touch the other boy, he had simply rammed him against a wall as if he owned him.

And here, when he had at last goaded the Japanese Exorcist into accidentally harming the British boy, he went and forgot all about how much he wanted to murder. It was as if, almost, maybe, they weren't lying to themselves about this thing they called _love_.

He couldn't hear what the two were saying when they spoke so softly, but he could see by the smile on Allen's face that whatever words were being transferred they were horribly sappy and meaningful. Until he began to blush. And blush some more. And then there was a hand on the white haired boy's belt and he was leaning into a kiss, and the people around them who had stopped to stare at the coffin looked away, blushing at this violent young woman and her smaller lover.

"You shouldn't provoke him if you can help it, Old Man." Sable said softly, drawing his eyes momentarily away from the pair. "They've been through a lot together, so if you try to make him hate you you'll just get them both hating you. And then Allen won't play poker to save your ass no matter how much you owe."

"Make him hate me, eh?" He asked with a slight tilt of his head. "He's a Kanda; he should already hate the world."

"Yeah, well, I think he's a Walker now."

Cross snorted a laugh. After a moment of silence he raised an eyebrow without turning to her as he spoke. "Still reading minds then?"

"How could I not? It's not like I try… Besides, it doesn't take the Noah of Understanding to figure it out. Anyone who even looked at him before last November knows that his mentality has gone from murder and revenge and death to... love and… doujinshi type material." She smirked at him for a moment out of the corner of her eyes, looking passed her golden bangs and into the shadows beneath the brim of his hat. "Come on, stop thinking about little innocent Allen and making comparisons, just apologize and grab your dead chick and get on the boat."

Before General Cross Marian could even think to retort, the captain came to greet them.

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"So it's like this?"

"No."

"Like this?"

"Ty-chan. Give me the golem."

"Well, well," The Noah said with a roll of his eyes. "First you don't want me to wash you and now you don't want me to help you with the phone. I feel useless."

The two of them were standing beside the desk, looking at the phone placed on it. The more Tyki tried to understand how the Black Order's golems worked the more confused he became, which Lavi secretly thought was adorable. He was once again wearing a borrowed pair of the older man's pants, held up with a belt that hardly fit him. He hadn't bothered with a shirt, not when he wasn't going anywhere and sleep was feeling like the greatest idea since sliced bread.

"You aren't useless," Lavi said gently. "We just don't have all day." He took his sad, wingless, twitching golem from the other man's hand and quickly snapped the wires into the places they were supposed to go and laid it safely on the desktop. He held the phone in one hand and dialed the number with the other, thanking his tendency to remember this sort of thing and whatever caused it.

Each turn of the number wheel deadened the line for a moment before it clicked. He kept at it, dialing numbers one at a time, replaying Komui's movements as he went. When at last he had finished he brought the phone to his ear and was surprised to find that his hand was shaking the metal of it against the side of his face.

_I'm nervous._ He thought suddenly. _Why am I nervous?_

When he heard the sound of Lenalee's golem ringing, the shaking stopped.

Two more rings before he heard a worn, almost lost Lenalee voice crack onto the line. "Hello?"

He wasn't seeing the room anymore. He was only imagining all of the horror the Chinese girl had put her through knowing that she had let him go with Tyki. She had let him go and no one else had. He swallowed hard before he tried to speak.

"Lenalee."

He heard a tiny gasp, half of surprise and half of fear, before her small, broken voice came into his ear again. "La…vi?"

He forced a smile onto his lips as his left hand moved to hold in the tears that were suddenly threatening in his eye. _How stupid I am… it's my fault she's like this. It's my fault that I fell in love. If I could be a bystander, if I could be indifferent…_

"Yeah…" He croaked. He knew that it didn't matter if he was smiling anymore, she would hear how tired was and how worried. "How's life?"

Her half spirited laugh almost made him shiver when he heard it. "It could be better. Komui-nii-san…and I…we don't know where you are. Or if you're ok… or…"

"I'm alright Lenalee," He said as calmly as he could. "I'm just stuck here for a while. Until you and Ty-chan figure a way to get me out." He closed his left eye, trying to find the words that would express the situation without worrying her. "Things weren't all that great when I got here but I'm fine now. I—" He paused when a pair of warm arms circled around his waist and he was pulled back into his lover's chest, the smell of cigarette smoke and paper slowly filled his nostrils, soothing him in a way that he couldn't explain. "I kind of like it here, if not for the terrible coffee and the relatives."

"Lavi…" She was crying and he could hear it. He didn't want her to cry.

"Really Lenalee, don't worry. Just a little bruised up is all. So long as Tyki _stops doing that to my neck right now_ I'll be really fine."

The Noah chuckled into his skin before blowing lightly for the area he had just run his open mouth over. He was teasing but he knew the action would make it easier for Lavi to speak without thinking too hard about what was being said into his right ear. "What am I doing, Lavi? This?" He softly laid his lips on the younger man's shoulder, sucking lightly.

Lenalee echoed the question almost at once. "Why? What's he doing to your neck?"

Lavi growled a little in the back of his throat before placing his left hand firmly on Tyki's forehead in an attempt to shove him off. "You don't want to… _no!_"

"Yes I do…"

"Yes, she does…"

"He _was_ kind of kissing it… now he's… not."

"Lavi… tell me…"

"No! You'll draw dirty pictures!"

She scoffed at him, tears forgotten for the moment. "I will not! Now tell me!"

"Dirty pictures?" Tyki questioned before following the course of Lavi's neck to his jaw, which he proceeded to caress regardless of the hand on his face. "I'd like to hear more about this…"

"He's gently nipping that little sensitive place under my jaw and I'm about ready to bite his face if he doesn't stop it." Lavi said matter-of-factly. "And now his left hand needs to get away from my pants or _there_ – _will – be – consequences._"

"Will there be sex?"

"I did not need that question in stereo."

Lenalee made a small sound of amusement – which he hadn't been expecting. "Sorry, Lala-chan."

He smiled again at that, but this time it was a real smile, not one he had to fight to keep on his face. "So are _you_ alright, Lenalee?"

"Yes." She said after a moment, as if she were thinking about it. "I was just worried."

"Don't be. Just hurry and work something out with Ty-chan so we can get out of here. I should most likely go." He tried not to sound hurried, or like he was starting to pant, but both were true. "I have to _sleep_ while I can…_hah…_" He was suddenly aware that sometime during the last exchange his fly had come open, and now a strong hand was working its way around him. He stopped pushing on his lover's face in favor of holding himself up against the desk, his breath coming in slowly worsening gasps. "Yes, _sleep_. That means _not_ responding to the _hand_ in my—"

There were four loud knocks at the door. The two men by the phone went suddenly still.

"Lavi?" Lenalee asked, suddenly serious. "Lavi? Are you there? Lavi?"

"S-sorry," He said quietly as Tyki stepped away from him, his face suddenly serious. With that simple apology he hung the phone up and recaptured his golem, which he shoved into the desk drawer as quickly as he could. Four more knocks came by the time he looked to his lover, face pale, hands shaking, not sure what he was supposed to do.

He watched Tyki's face as ideas flashed behind his eyes and were cast aside, until – at last – his eyes turned bright with a plan. A sly grin split his face and he took Lavi by the hand before guiding him hurriedly to the bed and ushering him onto it. He pulled off his shirt and cast it aside carelessly before crawling up beside him.

"What are you doing?" Lavi asked in a quiet whisper. The Noah reached for the scarf that had been used to secure him to the bed before and he let him tie it around his wrist, following his gut.

"Sorry," Tyki hurriedly apologized. "But unless you have any better ideas, I am going to pretend to be in the middle of touching you."

"Great." His right wrist was tied up as well, the silky fabric almost wanted to slide off his wrist. "Couple more minutes and you wouldn't have to fake it…"

"Shush, look frightened." He straddled the younger man's middle and placed a hand on either side of his head before kissing him deeply, stealing his air with it. The act brought the perfect blush to the younger man's face, and with a gentle ruffling of his half-dry hair he look as if he had been this way all morning, and he was panting out of annoyance.

"What?!" He barked at the door. Lavi tried to turn and see who came in as the door opened but a hand in his hair push his head down again, almost painfully tilting his neck up to his lover. He tried to tell himself that he wasn't supposed to be enjoying this – he was supposed to be acting like he hated it – but the sensations told him otherwise. There was heat in all of the right places for this, and pain in his scalp, and the pressure of bonds on his wrists. He couldn't help the little gasp of yearning that broke through his lips when fingers wracked slowly across his collar bone, leaving delicate red lines across the bruises.

"Oi, Tyki!" It was a small girl's voice – a voice that Lavi found familiar. Just hearing it made the fear on his face no longer feigned and a shiver ran hurriedly from the base of his spine to his skull. It had been her, after all, who made him think Tyki had betrayed him.

"Ah, hello Rhode." Tyki smiled at her, tilted Lavi's head back more so that he couldn't see. For a moment the apprentice Bookman yanked at the ties, knowing they would not give way but still half wanting them to. He swallowed in a dry throat when the man above him unconsciously rocked his hips forward. "Was there something you needed?"

"Uh huh." The bed was bouncing a little – perhaps she had climbed up on the foot of the mattress. "Whatcha doin'?"

"Hm?" His voice grew louder, but Lavi didn't know what he was doing with his head pulled back like that. "Oh. He doesn't respond well to pain, but there are other, more pleasant ways to get him talking – I have discovered. We were simply having another bout before I left."

"You should have left ten minutes ago. Lulubell already has." The bed bounced again, this time violently. "I want my turn, Tyki-nii! I want my turn! How come you get to play with him so much?"

"If you want to play with one you should get your own."

"Hmm…" She stopped bouncing and Tyki let go of Lavi's hair enough that he neck wasn't hurting. He kept his mouth shut as he listened. "Ya know… there is one Exorcist I would just _love_ to have as my own. But I think that's different."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." She continued thoughtfully. "You're just having fun. I love him."

Tyki's voice was far away again when he spoke, but a blind hand still wandered down the side of his neck to his chest, teasing him with its nails. "And what makes you think I don't love this one?" His tone was wrong. Lavi hissed under his touch and it served to cover up the sound Rhode made in horror. Lavi had the distinct impression that the two were blinking at each other, neither understanding what had just been said, neither willing to ask. Somehow it made him want to hug the man above him to hear him slip, to hear him ask that question with such rhetoric – his tone of voice was all that was needed to know that he _did_ love him. But he could not hug him, not with his hands strapped to the bed posts.

Instead he moved his head down, his hair flowing easily through the now limp fingers that held him, and looked up at the two stunned Noahs who watched each other. After a moment Rhode glanced at him and Tyki followed her gaze to his face, his hand stroked gently through his hair, calmingly, unthinkingly, more to sooth the older man than the younger. The female Noah cleared her throat before she spoke.

"You're… not lying. You really love him." She wasn't accusing. She wasn't condemning. She was simply stating it as a fact. "That's why you wanted to keep him."

Slowly, without looking at her, he nodded.

"No you don't!" Lavi spat, but his words were not cruel. Inaction at that moment wasn't an option any more, not when his lover was admitting to being a traitor. "You _can't_ love me. And you can't tell _her_ that you do. What'll happen if she tells someone? What'll happen when they come after you? How come you're so honest? Why can't you just tell her you hate me? Why do you always have to do the thing most likely to get you ki—" The hand that had been running back and forth in his hair held the back of his head as the Noah pulled him to a kiss. He didn't want to kiss at that moment, but he did anyway, passionately, willing the other man to see how much he loved him back and how painful it was to see him say it to an enemy. Fire danced hotly across his cheeks when they broke for air and connected again, neither specifically caring that Rhode was still there, witnessing their obvious act of betrayal.

Lavi sank back into the pillows when the parted again, fighting tears. In a quiet voice he spoke again, leaned his face into the palm that had come to rest on the side of it. "I love you, too."

"How can…" Rhode whispered, leaving the question open. For a long time she glanced between the two of them, thoughts turning behind her eyes, fingers wringing the fabric of her too-short skirt. Finally she turned to her relative and attempted a sad, crooked, almost human smile. "This isn't getting you out of your list, ya know? And you still have to share with me. If you do, I won't tell the others."

"Share?"

"Yeah. I wanna play!"

"You can't break him."

"That makes things less fun… but if that's the only rule…"

"You can't break him, you can't tell, and you can't try to destroy his heart."

"Your rules suck."

Tyki raised an eyebrow at her in question, Lavi shivered under his hands. He knew what the boy had dreamed of before, though not in detail, and he knew that Lavi wasn't looking forward to a repeat. He had to make as many rules as he could to avoid that happening again. "Do you want rules or do you not want to play with him?"

She sighed heavily, frowning. "Fine. Tell me the rest of your Goddamn rules."

"We're sharing so you can't spend more time with him than I do – he _is_ mine. You can't kill him. If you break any bones you have Cole fix them, otherwise touching each other becomes difficult. If at any one point in time you capture your own Exorcist, you leave mine alone. Not touching his eyes. If you do accidentally kill him, or break him, or simply bend a rule until something too unpleasant happens, I will find and kill Allen Walker."

Her mouth fell open in surprise and Lavi blinked at him, not understanding.

"Do not look so aghast, you told me once in jest that you liked him. It only makes sense that your crush has grown." The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement, his eyes glittered almost fondly. "Deal?"

She pouted at him for a moment, mulling it over. There had to be a loophole somewhere – and she would find it, given time. She didn't have the time to think about it now, but she would later, after the deal had already been made. "Ok!" She grinned, rocking backward so the bed wobbled once more. "No take backs and no adding rules, either."

"Naturally not."

"Sorry I can't play today though. We have people to kill first. Come on." She tugged on his free wrist in an attempt to urge him on. He sighed at her in annoyance before turning back to the redhead who blinked up at him in fear.

"Ty-chan, you—"

"Sh…" He leaned down to softly touch his lover's forehead with his own, speaking in a voice that would not carry six inches. "I'm sorry dear, truly sorry. If I had lied to her she would have known and she would have told. Telling might hurt you, but it keeps us both breathing." He tilted his head enough to gently kiss the place his head had rested before doing to same to his lips. "And Lenalee knows now, and she'll help. If I play my cards right, you'll be gone before she can even think about your thoughts." Another short kiss and a gentle caress of his forehead, just where he wanted to be touched. "If not I really am sorry. I love you, I do, more than anything, more than living or killing or having two lives – and no matter what happens or what pain I invariably cause you do not forget it." When he breathed out Lavi could feel the warmth on his face, after a moment Tyki moved his left had so that it rested on the side of his neck, cupping him in a single handed hug. "Please."

"I swear I won't," He said surely. His arms ached to hug him but he couldn't, and he dared not ask to with Rhode moving steadily toward the edge of the bed. "Never again. Not after everything that's happened. Yyou only did what you could to save us both."

"Goodbye, _amante._" He whispered, running his thumb under Lavi's right eye. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"And then we can have loud sex, right?"

Tyki chuckled as he finally slid off the bed and stood beside it, capturing his shirt and pulling it on with the ease of a man going off to work in the morning. "Of course. I always follow through on my promises." He turned to the bored looking girl at the end of the bed in time to see her face light up with some idea or another, her tongue gliding across her bottom lips as she thought about it. Even if he knew the subject matter of her thoughts had become foul Tyki didn't care, the expression still made him smile. "Shall we?"

"Yup. As soon as you put on shoes."

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**Sorry that it was quite a bit shorter than I have been posting of late, it's just hard to write long when I'm trying to do it on a specific schedule. But the good news is that next chapter should be long, plotty, fluffy, and fun, so… yay! Lots of stuff, it's bound to be longer!**

**Thanks for reading! Sorry that I have to go to Sakura Con and have fun instead of staying here and posting every day :(**

**See ya'll next week!**


	63. Odds

After a bit of arguing, annoyance, and eventual pouting, Kanda, Allen, Cross, Hitori, Sable, and Hiroko at last arranged to have three separate cabins on the ship – which was expensive but unlikely to cause problems among them

**NIAMH RETURNS FROM SEATLE!! AH!!**

**Ok. Long. I don't waste your time. Sorry it took so long. :(**

**Disclaimer of D'Smuttiness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… bad things would happen. Well, mostly. There would also be boy's touching one another.**

**WARNING: Boy's touching one another, cursing, and (OMG!) a boy who likes a girl!!**

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Odds

After a bit of arguing, annoyance, and eventual pouting, Kanda, Allen, Cross, Hitori, Sable, and Hiroko at last arranged to have three separate cabins on the ship – which was expensive but unlikely to cause problems among them. Naturally Marian elected to room with the woman of the Kanda family, even if it meant his doom, which left Hitori and Sable in the awkward situation of sharing space. Neither of them were especially picky about such things, so they shrugged it off while Hiroko glared death at the two of them, irked beyond reason that her son would have to room with the foreign whore.

It was not until they were all settled that Sable became sea sick and took up her traditional place on the deck, hacking and coughing and shaking weakly. The wind tangled her hair something awful, but even the wind could not stop Hitori from watching over her silently, not touching, just being sure that she never choked or became too weak to stand. He was quiet a bit more subtle than Lavi had been, and because of that she threw up on her hair less. She didn't say a word about him shadowing her – and she didn't say two about how much better it made her feel to have him quietly defend her against her insides. It was odd – and a death wish – but she found herself smiling at him the more he just stood by and did nothing.

Kanda had situated himself on the bottom bunk of his and Allen's cabin and pulled out a book, knowing full well that after two days at sea his lover would be perfectly incapable of engaging in certain activities. Part of him wanted to make up for that fact and simply not leave the bed for the rest of the day, but that didn't seem like the thing to do after what had happened on the dock – it seemed that he would have to have a chat with Cross before they did anything else sexual within earshot of the old man.

"Love…" Allen cooed from the foot of the bed. Even if it was only a five day voyage he still made things more or less tidy in their shared space. He was trying to arrange their suitcases safely between the bed and dresser so they wouldn't tip. "I was wondering if…" He trailed off, pretending that their perfectly balanced belongings were suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. His metallic eyes were half down cast, shaded in hues of blue from the light reflecting from his jacket. Unlike last time they had a small porthole that provided just enough sunlight to brighten the room without the help of a candle.

"You're doing it again." Kanda drawled at him.

"Doing what?"

"Not actually managing to finish a sentence because whatever you're saying embarrasses you on some level or another." Kanda explained without looking away from the pages before him. He was still in his coat and his boots, his head resting softly on a pillow with his shoulders. He flipped a page backward, changed the angle at which he held his reading material before he continued. "You shouldn't be embarrassed, just say it."

The white haired boy's left hand came down softly on his knee, just strongly enough to draw his eyes away from the page. "Can we cuddle?"

He almost laughed. "Is something wrong?"

"No." Allen half mumbled. "I just… want to be close to you."

Now Kanda actually did laugh, but it wasn't the harsh sound his lover was expecting. Instead it was a soft sound, kind, amused, hardly mean or rough. He looked at the silver eyed boy with an expression of affection before taking him by the hand and guiding him closer, his book falling to the mattress to the page he was reading. "Che." He intoned without thinking about it. Allen melted into his arms, his right leg over both of Kanda's, the same arm draped around his middle, his head found the perfect place to rest on his chest. His left arm stayed mostly between them, but it didn't matter, Kanda's right pulled him gently into a half-embrace that made him feel perfectly engulfed in his lover's warmth.

"Thanks," He said softly into the cloth of the Japanese's Exorcists jacket, sighing. "I wasn't sure you'd let me if I called it cuddling, but you did…"

"Hm." Kanda glanced down at him while he ran his fingers gently up and down the younger boy's neck. "It doesn't specifically matter what you call it, it's still being close to you, and I like having you close."

Allen grinned at him. "Which is good. Otherwise you'd just have to put up with me like a tumor."

"Heh. Not a very big one."

"Shut up."

Warmth might have filled Kanda to brimming just to hear him say those words said so lovingly. There was something about having Allen so close that made him want to simply say nothing and let the silence accompany them, but he knew he wouldn't. Not when Allen had been so eaten up by the way he had worded that sentence on the lawn. Kanda had been only bothered vaguely by it; it didn't really matter to him if his lover pursued his purpose before he pursued his dreams, so long as he could be with him when he changed from one to the other. It had hurt to know that he was only one reason for Allen's will and determination, but he would be the _only_ reason as soon as the war was over.

And oddly, the thought kind of frightened him.

Though he kind of felt that Allen would go into crime fighting and justice upholding and bounty hunting if the fighting ended within their lifetime. He wasn't the kind to settle down quietly and live out the remainder of his days in a quiet little cottage on the outskirts of town with his lover. Just thinking about it made him smile.

"What?" The subject of his thoughts asked from his chest, when he asked, the British boy's hand started drifting across the white line on the front of Kanda's jacket, completely without thought or purpose. "You're smiling like me being rude to you is nice."

The corner of the Japanese man's lips turned up yet farther, his arm curled just a little more tightly around his lover's shoulders after a moment. "I was just wondering what we'll do when we're home."

"Hmm… I think I know what I'll do." Allen grinned. "I'll eat."

"Che. That's not what I meant." As if to prove his point Kanda's arm slid surely down Allen's back until his fingers found the small hole that had been left from the most resent attack against them. He stealthily swirled his fingers against the fabric he found instead of skin, and raised his eyebrows at the cute little gasp his touch produced. "I meant _other_ things."

"Like what?"

"Well, aside from you eating, and both of us sleeping for two days without stopping, I suppose there will be much last minute planning and, eventually…" His face fell in a forced grin, his glimmering eyes narrowed. "You'll stop blushing when I try to tell you these things."

"And you'll stop glaring when I blush at you." Allen half chimed. "Why do we have to sleep for two days? I don't think _you'll_ be that tired."

"Heh. Because we won't be sleeping for the two following."

"Why wouldn't—oh. You are a sick pervert you know that."

"Says the boy who shook me by the collar and yelled at me to fuck him."

"I have my moments of insanity for your body but you're just crazy all the time!" His lover insisted. "When you aren't touching me, you're thinking about touching me, and when you are touching me you're thinking about the next time you'll touch me."

"And? I have a healthy sex drive if you ask me. Besides, you can't really blame me."

"Yes I can. I blame you."

Kanda snorted at him. "It's my fault that you have a beautiful face? And it's my fault that you make that stupid expression that makes you so…so…" He had to close his eyes to say the word without acting on it. "Goddamn cute?"

"Cute?"

"Yes, Moyashi. Cute." Kanda's eyes opened to see him making that same face he had been talking about, eyebrows gently furrowed, right one raised higher than the left, mouth open only enough for him to see the soft flesh of his tongue within, his lips pulled back slightly from his teeth as if he were trying to say something without having words for it. "You're adorable when you look at me like that."

"Adorable?"

"And I just want to do horrible things to you when I see it."

"Horrible things?"

For the second time since Allen had set eyes on him, Kanda seriously flushed. "Yes. Bad things. No more talking about this."

"You're not getting out of telling me." Allen smirked at him and buried his fingers under the fabric of his lover's jacket. His cold fingers were only mildly surprised to find bare flesh beneath, which he began to caress with a feather-light touch.

"Getting out of what?"

"What horrible things do you want to do to me? I mean, if it's worse than a belt and a bottle of honey – which isn't even _bad_ – what could it be? Whips? Chains? Handcuffs? Blood? Do you want someone to watch? How about women's underwear? There was this one woman who Cross was with who—" Kanda's free left hand found it's way to Allen's lips to try and hold them closed, muffling the sound coming out of his mouth as best he could manage. After a moment the British boy stopped attempting to speak and simply widened his eyes in question.

"Why would – I would – I'm not – never – not – you're my – and I love you…" The Japanese Exorcist floundered for words in a desperate attempt to clear things up. Who the hell had told Allen about all of those fetishes? And did he really seem like that much of a sexual deviant to his lover? If so what had he done to make him think so? Was it the four times in one night thing back at Christmas?

"Lome." A voice mumbled from behind his palm. 

"Oh," He pulled his hand away to let Allen speak unhindered. "You just… caught me off guard."

"Heehee." The white haired boy cackled under his breath. "Well then? Going to spill?"

Kanda sighed and thought about shaking his head but decided against it. What would the harm be? Once his wants were out in the open, no one would be able to complain about them being hidden – and Allen obviously wasn't going to tell him he was some sort of freak. "Fine." He slowly blinked twice before he spoke. Making up his mind to say it was one thing, actually saying it was another. "I want to either take you by the wrists and pin you done and have my way with you, or have you try the same on me. I want to bruise your neck like I did on the lawn. And I want to… _bakana…_"

"Yup. Really stupid. Now stop trying to hide your face in my hair and tell me."

"Pull you close…just…smell you…"

Allen giggled and snuggled his head closer, his whole hand slipped beneath the fabric of his lover's jacket. "All because I make an expression at you?"

"Che, it's not just an expression. It's a face that says more than any words ever could."

"You know what I think would say more than my expression?"

"What's that?"

Allen's fingers found the nub of a nipple and he pinched it forcefully enough to make his lover gasp beneath him. "My actions."

"Um… what are you…"

In answer the smaller boy pulled his hand out of its home and jerked open the first three buttons of Kanda's jacket – the only three that he had been using. He pushed the fabric aside and hooked his right leg around his lover's left so he could haphazardly heave him around to face him. The Japanese Exorcist stared at him for a moment while his palm danced a hot line across his chest, moving the material of his coat toward his shoulder. "I said you were going to get it, you know. And it's not like I'm going to have the opportunity after I haven't eaten all that well in a few days. And you seem to need some persuading."

"Persuading?"

"Yeah. You seem kind of… unwilling to open up to me." Allen continued. He rocked off of his left arm so he could bring it up to touch Kanda's skin with it but it was captured in a desperate hand before he could reach it. "We've already been through how much we love each other, and no amount of awkwardness is going to change that, but me talking obviously isn't going to get anything out of you so…" He looked deep into the pair of questioning sapphire eyes that studied him, paused to be sure that the man understood the words coming out of his mouth. "Let's play cards."

Kanda blinked. Play cards? What did that have to do with anything? Nothing! It was a completely random request, not to mention one that left him wondering if maybe he had been paying a little too much attention to the hand sweeping across his flesh, teasing him. "P-play cards? What—why?"

Allen's mouth turned up in a sly grin. "Because if you're not willing to live out your fantasy, I'll just live out mine."

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Rhode half skipped down the hallway in front of Tyki, humming softly under her breath as she went. This was going to be delicious. And when she was found out! That was going to be the best! Because her loophole was the best damn loophole the world and there was nothing Tyki could say about it!

_It won't be as fun…but it is still going to be worth it…_

"You look very pleased with yourself, Rhode-san." Tyki said with only a tiny smile playing on his lips.

"Naw, I'm just thinking. Hey, I'm gonna take a little break in girl's room before we go, okay? I'd hate to not kill someone because I have to go…"

The dark haired man sighed as if annoyed by her but didn't try to stop her or follow when she turned down a different hallway. Instead he leaned against the wall to wait, shoed right foot behind his left, fingers at once searching for a cigarette somewhere in his jacket. When he found his pack he slowly pulled one out and placed it in his lips and fumbled for his lighter. He almost didn't recognize the feeling of fabric against his palm when he pulled it out, but his eyes soon reminded him why it felt so different. Away from the flame at the base of the little tool was wrapped Lavi's green headband, the cloth stretched so that it fit securely without risk of slippage. His eyes stayed glued to it for a long moment, his smoke hanging uselessly from the corner of his mouth.

Without even glancing around to see who was near him, he brought the band to his nose and inhaled the scent of his lover.

_I am truly sorry. I never did want it to turn out like this. I never wanted to give Rhode permission to break your bones and tear your flesh. This wasn't the plan. This wasn't my hope. This is nothing but a broken nightmare made reality and there is naught we can do but standby and wait for morning._

_Above all, I wish I could tell you that and know that you believe me._

He sighed out and breathed in again, closing his eyes and imagining the redhead he had left on the bed frowning up at his canopy and the line of ceiling that could be seen despite the red fabric, green eye looking half sad. It was true that he loved his family, and he loved having the double life that he usually lead, but – and part of him was sad to admit it – he would give up both if it meant saving Lavi. He had done such terrible, painful things to him, and he had been accepted nonetheless; the least he could do in response to that was give himself as wholly as he could offer.

_I love him so much, I don't care who has to die for us to be together. How selfish._

"Tyki-nii…" It was Rhode's voice that prompted him to light his cigarette before thrusting the pack and lighter back into the same pocket; he didn't open his eyes to see if she were grinning at his foolery like he thought she was. She knew how he felt – if she wanted to mock him over sniffing Lavi's headband she would prove herself just as childish as she looked. "Come on. Let's undepress you."

"That is not a word." He said with no enthusiasm.

"Then why do you use it? Whatever." She grabbed his left wrist and jerked with a force. "We're going."

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"This is pointless." Kanda threw down his pair of sixes and seethed at his lover, didn't even wait for him to put down his hand before he threw off his coat, aiming for Allen's head. The black garment landed cleanly on top of him, slid across his soft white hair before it slipped to the bed beside him, rumpling against the mattress. The British boy smiled from the corner of his mouth and laid down his hand, showing four sevens.

"Aw, Love, you can't give up! There would be no use playing!"

"There _is_ no use playing when I can't win." He insisted. "You've got my boots, my socks, and my jacket; you can at least _pretend_ that you don't have half the deck up your sleeve." As if to prove it he leaned forward and took hold of Allen's right hand. He yanked his shirt back, spilling a goodly amount of cards onto the blanket beneath them. Allen immediately snapped his arm back, frowning deeply.

"Hey! They might be there but I haven't used them!"

"Moyashi…"

"And even if I _do_ use them it's still a win-win situation!" Allen insisted, gathering his cards up and shuffling them into the deck. He was still frowning but an evil little smirk was starting to appear, dark and plotting.

"How so?"

"Well... If I win, you get laid. If you win, you get laid. And for once, nobody will have to wonder what to take off who," He grinned from ear to ear at the glowering face Kanda made before setting the cards down again to be cut. "With odds like that, who wouldn't want to play cards?"

The Japanese Exorcist's shoulders slumped to the sides as he parted the deck one handed and let the other boy continue with what he was doing. "Somehow that makes me even less inclined to finish."

"Don't be a sore loser…"

"I'm not."

"Then I bet you a garment and raise you a body part." Allen chimed even before picking up his hand. He tilted his head in what he figured was the cutest way he could manage and smiled innocently, widening his eyes as if to show his honesty.

"A body part?"

"Yup!" His blush denied his surety. "If I win, you have to stick your hands wherever I want them. And if I win the next one, I think I'll take your lips."

"You could always take my—"

Allen cleared his throat noisily and picked up his hand so he could splay it artfully in front of his face. The man across from him sighed fatalistically before picking up his own cards and shifting through them. A queen, an ace, a king, a ten, and a jack. All of spades. Kanda gaped for a moment. He had to be wrong. There had to be one missing. There was just no way that Allen had dealt him a royal straight flush without something screwing it up. It didn't happen. The odds were astronomical. It didn't make sense. There was just no way.

Unless the British boy had messed up and gave him his own planned hand. Or something. He'd have to test that theory.

"Love, you look like you've seen a ghost."

He couldn't look up. He felt that moving his eyes away would make his luck vanish, and his obvious win with it. "I'd like to raise you all of the clothes on your body."

"_What?!"_ Allen half-shrieked. He looked at his hand – a royal flush of diamonds – what on Earth could Kanda be thinking to wager that much against him? What could he have? Four of a kind? A straight? A full house? Nothing as extravagant as this. "What are you thinking? If you lose I'll get your body."

"I won't lose. In fact, let's throw your body into the bet too."

"Are you just trying to end this quickly?"

"Che. I'm trying to end this while I can."

Allen frowned deeply. "Fine all of my clothes and my body, but if I win, you're doing whatever I say to make up for your lack of clothing."

"Deal." Kanda wet his lips with his tongue and waited for his lover to move.

"I don't want any cards." Allen said surely.

Kanda thought his heart was going to turn into lead in his chest any moment but he ignored it. When he spoke he heard his voice quaver violently. "Nor do I."

"Great! Lay them out Sir Confident." Allen slapped down his hand and splayed it, lips pulled back in a fiendish grin. "Pants now."

"Not so fast, Moyashi." Kanda breathed. "Look." He put each card down one at a time and waited for the stunned silence. Allen blinked at the perfect royal flush of spades, his jaw slack, silver eyes as big as baseballs.

His mouth flopped a little but no words escaped his lips.

"Strip."

"How did you – how come you – why didn't I –" Allen blithered. After a moment he gave up on words and waved his hands in an expression of sheer loss and confusion, incapable of doing what Kanda had told him.

Kanda reached out and took the smaller boy by the collar and pulled him forward, just inches in front of his face. Allen gasped at the motion, his hands made little slapping sounds on Kanda's chest to stop him from falling forward. He had been sitting on his knees so when he was moved against his will he nearly fell.

"I've…never lost." He whispered. His eyes didn't quite comprehend the left hand twirled around his collar or the right one messing with his buttons. "I've never lost. How… why…"

"Moyashi-kun." The use of his nickname brought the boy's eyes up to Kanda's. He could see disbelief, fear, confusion – and there, now that he was thinking, a little twinge of affection. "I took your poker virginity, ne?" He grinned. "How fitting."

The white haired boy felt his lips turn up in a boyish expression of amusement. His bangs fell forward over the bridge of his nose, half blinding him when he pushed himself into the older boy to kiss him. He was half surprised when his lover let him lead the kiss, his tongue left to explore the mouth he had come to know so well. When he touched the front of Kanda's hard palette with the tip of his tongue the chest under his palms shivered, and one of his lover's legs moved to give him more to lean on; a pair of warm, strong arms reached around behind him and wrapped around the base of his spine, drawing him closer.

He panted when he had to pull away to breath. With a glance he realized their game was destroyed, cards scattered on the floor and on the mattress, face up and face down, unthought-of. He didn't really care. They could play fifty-two pick up later.

"How did you win?" He asked softly.

"Luck." Kanda shrugged.

Allen kissed again, this time with hunger, and pressed back on Kanda to see what would happen. It did not take the least bit of persuading to have him reclining on the pillows, hands curling up his back, supporting him for a moment before he laid fully on his lover's chest, hips aligned, his right knee between Kanda's legs. Internally he did a small dance of victory at having finally gotten this far – farther than they had in the hallway at least – and externally he gasped into an open mouthed kiss that he didn't remember starting. A small shift of his hips had the fingers on his back clenching at his skin.

"Luck?" He husked after a moment. "You didn't cheat?"

"Che." Kanda's right hand was trying for his shirt again, the left hooking tightly in the cloth against his back. He shivered, wishing that his lover would answer so he could kiss him again regardless. "I don't cheat. It's pointless to play if you only win."

"Bloody bugger." Allen muttered. He wouldn't have minded so much if Kanda had been a better cheater, but knowing that he had beat a royal flush with a better royal flush with nothing but the cards he was given was almost too much. Somehow he wanted a rematch – an unfair rematch… no that wasn't the way to think of it…

"Are you going to kiss me or just blink at my forehead until I lose interest?" Kanda pulled on the shirt that was no longer closed and let his palm rest on the warmth his of his lover's ribcage, beneath which he could feel the pounding of his heart.

Allen leaned in to place his lips on Kanda's in answer but the Japanese man made him miss. The fingers that had just found a place to rest on his side were gone, replaced by a bare arm looping around him to pull him forward. He wasn't sure what Kanda had planned but he let it happen, and after a moment he found his face on the flesh of his lover's shoulders, sideways, mostly naked chest pressed to equally uncovered skin. Instinctively his arms looped as far as they could around the man beneath him, and the embrace was returned with a strength that made the air fight to get into his lungs. He did not complain though. He knew Kanda would whine if he said anything about it.

"Oi, Kanda." He mumbled. "Are we going to snuggle or can I lay you?"

The arms around him went limp at the words, but they stayed draped over his sides in a protective cocoon of Kanda. "I'm not sure, Moyashi. It depends who's on the other side of our door."

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Sable swallowed hard and turned away from the ocean, blinking away wind caused tears and leaning against the railing, breathing hard. The sea here wasn't especially rough, but even the moderate sloshing was enough to make her feeling like dying. With a sigh that shook her from her neck down she closed her eyes, tried to ignore the convulsing waves of nausea.

"How are you feeling?" Hitori was so quiet she had almost forgotten that he was there. When he spoke and she wasn't looking at him she could almost mistake him for his brother, but that his voice was just a hair higher, and his tone much less agitated. He didn't sound Allen's age that was for sure.

"Ok." She lied. "Thanks for standing around to watch me."

He waved it off. "It's the least I can do for… someone I like."

"Aw, Hito, you're sweet." Sable rang at him, smiling as best she could without opening her eyes. "You like me?"

He shrugged even though she couldn't see it. He had been thinking about it since she had carried him back to the bathroom – how she made his heart race, how she always said things to make him blush, how she never tried to compare him with his brother, he liked all of those traits. He also liked how she had weaknesses, and said things she didn't mean, and how she managed to smile at him and look nervous at the same time. "Even if you're a little odd, yeah, I like you."

Sable cocked her head to the side and giggled girlishly, damning herself for her obvious blush. She would never admit to it but he really was cute – and she didn't think that because he looked like Kanda. Hell, Kanda was a sizzling piece of man meat in her book; Hitori was on a different scale all together. They shared common interests, like akuma and books and language and family, and it was fun to spend time with him because he was quiet most of the time – unless they were talking animatedly about something. Then he was boisterous and smiley and silly just like any sixteen year old.

"You know… you're mom will kill us both if you do more than hold my hand."

"So? Haven't you ever done _anything_ risky, _ever_?"

She stared. One time, long ago, she had said those words to Lenalee in an attempt to get Kanda and Allen to spend time together. It was completely different to be on the receiving end. Yes, she had done risky things, but that didn't mean she wanted to put her heart on the line with her neck and his manhood.

"A while ago I liked a boy. And now he might be dead. I'm not completely over it. And you remind me of him." She said with finality. "I wouldn't want to do that to you. And I'm cynical and horny and I will say something in front of your mother eventually. And the odds are against me living more than five years…"

He sighed, the corner of his mouth turning up in an expression that reminded her too much of Kanda in the middle of a fight. He looked up at her, being he was a bit shorter. "Whatever. Just come eat lunch-dinner with me. You don't have to say you like me back and you don't have to pretend that you're not scared shitless. And here, take my hand so you don't fall over. You look beat."

Sable did as instructed, heart pounding in her throat, almost unable to feel her hands and feet, and slipped her fingers into his. Somehow, even if it was only that small, it felt like a much bigger amount of contact between them. After two steps she found the courage to find her voice. "Thanks Hito. And I um…"

He grinned at her, his fingers closed more tightly around her palm. Even if she was older and taller, his hands were bigger. _"Ii desu ne."_

"_Ee."_ She smiled back. "Very."

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Hiroko threw open the door without knocking and was greeted by half-shirtless Allen kissing her son with more enthusiasm than she could have imagined. It seemed to her that Yuu was just trying to have a little shirtless hugging time, but Allen had other ideas. Their legs were almost forking, the smaller boy's left hand held him slightly up from his lover while his right tangled in Yuu's loose tresses, wandering through his hair to his neck.

They both had their eyes closed, but a vibrant blush was starting on her son's face all the same.

"Okaasan," When they broke apart Allen turned to her with hooded eyes while his right hand stopped his lover from speaking. "Please knock before you enter."

"Yuu." She said pointedly, ignoring the look Allen was giving her. "Please tell me Hitori would talk to you before he did anything stupider than usual."

"What?" Kanda caught Allen's hand and pulled it away from his lips so he could speak. He didn't specifically care that he mother had almost walked in on them – it was hard to care after what she had said about aprons being backless – he was more worried about what Hito could have done in such a short amount of time. "What did he do?"

"Che!" Hiroko folded her arms and lifted her voice in annoyance. "I just know he likes her. And he's touching her. And they're _rooming_ together. She's not even Japanese! I'm only thirty-six! I'm too young for grandchildren!"

"Love."

"Hm?"

"For now on, remind me to lock the door before I get on top of you."

Hiroko narrowed her eyes at the white haired Exorcist and seethed at him wordlessly. "Fuck you, Whore-chan this is seri—"

"Yes, that's what we're trying to do." Kanda glared at her. "Now leave. You annoy me."

Allen glanced back and forth between the two, waiting to see what the woman's response would be to something so rude. To his surprise she simply sighed and shrugged at them, looking disappointed. "You really don't care that Hito might corrupt the family line with some blonde mutt's questionable heritage?"

Kanda frowned at her. "Che. It has nothing to do with me."

"What?!" She had her hand on one of her swords in an instant but she didn't draw it, she simply left her palm on the pommel. "Of course it has something to do with you! You're _Kanda_ Yuu."

Allen felt his lover shiver as if repressing a violent response. "I've learned something that you haven't Okaasan. I've learned that it doesn't matter who someone falls in love with, so long as they mean it, nothing else matters. If Hitori wants to marry Sable someday, I'm not going to stop him because you want black haired and black eyed children."

She gaped.

"Now _leave_. You're already ruined the moment and heard my opinion, you have no reason to be here."

Allen couldn't keep his eyes on either one of them for fear the other would do something violent. It took perhaps two minutes of staring and blinking before Hiroko turned on heel and slammed the door behind her, fuming. He turned back to his lover then, fear in his silver eyes, and watched him sigh.

"Love?" Allen's questioning tone made Kanda look up at him, a curious expression on his face. "Did she really ruin the moment?"

Kanda smirked at him and used the hand that wasn't lost beneath the fabric of his shirt to start pulling it off. The British boy wriggled to help him get it off of his arms. "At this point, nothing short of a cataclysm could ruin it."

"Good." Allen smiled and leaned down again to kiss him fleetingly. "I owe you lots; I'd hate to start a tab."

Kanda chuckled and tilted his head to brush his lips once more against his lovers, fingers gliding softly over the skin of his back until they came to the base of his skull. "You might as well get started. And afterward you can ask Okaasan to cut your hair; this is getting out of control."

"It's not _that_ long. Look at yours!"

"It's long enough. You'll be able to braid it soon."

"Can we talk about this later?" Allen waffled, running his palm across his lover's chest and up to his shoulder. "My debt is going to start incurring interest."

"Che, you won't find me complaining if it does." Kanda pulled him gently down to kiss him lingeringly, opening his mouth to invite the white haired boy in. He wanted to smile but it was impossible with lips against his and a tongue tenderly exploring the inside of his mouth. His left hand drifted to his lover's pants and started on the buttons, which caused Allen to draw back before either of them actually needed air.

"Already?" His voice was husky as he spoke. "Aren't you supposed to be the patient one?"

"I am patient. But you owe me your clothes."

"Right." Allen smiled. "Then let's get my boots first."

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"_Ummf… move, I can't get in with you walking right beside me."_

"_I can't get in with you right beside me either. Dammit."_

"_Step back."_

"_Why don't you step back?"_

"_We _both_ have to step back or neither of us is getting through the door."_

"_Ooh."_

"_Damn that Tyki Mikk. Why can't he have double doors like we do?"_

It took a moment for Lavi to realize that the voices he was hearing weren't a part of his dream and were indeed in the room with him, pulling him slowly out of his light slumber. He didn't look up, not when he could hear them by the door, talking in muffled voices. There was one higher and one lower, but he could honestly say that he had never heard them speak before. He thought about glancing up at them, opening his eye, but he decided against it. His best bet here was to pretend to be sleeping. Wounded, unhappy, and sleeping.

"He's tall. Just like she said."

"Yeah. And sleeping. Hee. Heehee. Heeheeehee." There was the sound of something soft on skin, and the feeling that someone was leaning very close to his face. It took all of his will not to give himself away. "Here. You're closer."

Almost at once Lavi felt something pressed over his eyes, and his mouth opened to protest. His tried to see past the fabric but found nothing but darkness and the feeling that the cloth was being tied too tightly. He wanted it to stop.

"Wha—" There was a gag in his mouth, stopping his words even before he could think them. He felt his heart thudding in his chest as a moment of panic ran through him. Who were these two? Akuma? They didn't seem like it, for some reason. Then who were they? Rhode was away and Tyki wouldn't do this to him, so who could they be?

A rough hand in his hair pulled his head up and he felt warm breath on his face, goosebumps rippled down his neck at the feeling.

"Yo, Lavi-kun." The voice in front of him, which was lower than the other, and he felt and hand closing on his left wrist as fingers worked to free it. He felt something cold on his temple before a resounding click told him what it was. There was a gun to his head. "Rhode told us you'd be here. An' now we're gonna have some fun. Tyki said she couldn't break ya right? Well he never said anything about us, huh?"

_Fucking loophole_.

"Oi, he looks pale." The higher voice said when his hand was free. He didn't fight, not with a revolver to his skull.

"Heh. No he doesn't. Not yet."

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**Props to SailorLight22 for that line about win-win. It was so great, I had to use it XD**

**Anyhoo! I'm back! And if I missed your review, I'm sorry. There were so many… I'm over 600 now. I never thought that would happen. My goal was 1000, but maybe that's small, huh? :D**

**Sorry it took so long to update! I tried to answer as many reviews as I could and then finish the 10 more pages this needed XD**

**Thanks for reading! /loves\\**


	64. Feeling

His heart was pounding like a hammer on his ribcage, rattling him from the inside out

**Welcome to Niamh's smut on plot sandwich! How fun! It's pretty long again. Sorry.**

**Sorry about Lenalee. And Lavi.**

**I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… omakes would last longer. And feature lots of hot springs.**

**WARNING: YAOI. Man-lovin'. Boy touching boy. And violent type stuff.**

0x0x0x0

Feeling

His heart was pounding like a hammer on his ribcage, rattling him from the inside out. His palms were sweat slicked and slipped across the chains that kept his hands over his head, biting painfully into his wrists. He could feel that his pants were just barley hanging on to his hips, the extra fabric of which hung down around his feet, making it harder to stand with the balls of his feet against the flood.

The blindfold didn't help at all. There were two of them, and he could follow two people pretty well with just his ears, but blindness left very little warning as to what they were going to do. His mind went back to his first encounter with an unknown Noah and all of the pain that had come of it – that was not something he wanted to repeat, not ever – and felt an involuntary shiver run from the bottom of his spine to his shoulders.

There was also one question he had that didn't seem to be getting an answer. If they were here to get information out of him, why was he gagged? He couldn't tell them anything like that. Not that he would otherwise.

"Oi Debitto, he's looking pale again."

"Naw," There was something on his chest, cold, but shaped differently than a gun. He had felt something like it so many times when Yuu threatened him, so there was no mistaking it for a blade. "He hasn't lost any blood yet, he can't be pale."

"Knives first?"

"They're not just knives, they're special."

"Whatever. The point is the steps are cut 'im with 'em an' then what?"

"And then we can have Tyki help."

_What?_

"From the time he killed those Exorcists?"

"An' he laughed it was so much fun."

They both cackled.

Slowly he felt the blade on his skin move down, but it didn't hurt. Whichever one of them it was he was simply teasing him, trying to make him antsy. Lavi had a mind though and he was going to use it.

What could they mean? _Tyki from the time he killed those Exorcists? How does that work? He went to go pretend to kill people, so he can't be here. And he can't be from another time. What if… maybe that has something to do with their—_ He was cut off when a blade dug suddenly into the flesh of his right arm, below and outside the elbow, and started to trail its way slowly down his arm toward his shoulder. It wasn't a deep wound though the smell of blood immediately filled his nostrils, just painful. Like an overly large paper cut that trailed the length of his upper arm. He would have hissed if there hadn't been a gag in his mouth; the fingers of his right hand closed around the chains that held him up as his muscles started to twitch in discontent. Twitching was bad. Too much of it would cause his arm to fly toward the blade, not away.

There was a second cut starting on his left side, just below the turn of his shoulder, just as slow as the other. That one didn't last though, one moment it was there and the next it was somewhere else, sliding maddeningly around all of the nerves that would have registered agony and through the ones that confused him with sensations much like a painful tickle. His mind refused to register what they were doing because he didn't want to think about it.

And not wanting to think about it was the prime way to ensure that he did.

_Cut the skin over the confusing nerve junctions – like the funny bone – and change to a way of hurting with less specific aim. Only one feeling will work after that. One feeling. Pain._

A knife caught his funny bone while another slipped delicately over his kidneys.

_Shit._ He thought with a mental sigh. _Get back soon Ty-chan. And be white. Otherwise this is going to suck._

0x0x0x0x0x0

Allen's boots made small banging sounds when they landed on the wooden floor and the sound brought a knowing smile to Kanda's lips. He didn't need to ask to know that it was his turn to lie back against the bed and let Allen have his day – after what he had pulled on the lawn he had the feeling that his lover wanted control again, though he was unsure how long he'd keep it. Kanda let his fingers run up and down his lover's back while he leaned away a little, letting the smaller boy lap at his neck with hungry lips. He hummed at the hand sliding across his skin to his stomach and smiled at the touch of a tongue on his neck, drawing hot line to the hollow of his throat and back again. This time, if they weren't interrupted again, he was going to enjoy letting Allen do what he wanted.

"Love," The British boy whispered into his lips before kissing him deeply, drawing out the contact until he needed air. Allen still had not grown used to the Japanese man letting him have whatever he wanted of his mouth but he wasn't going to complain about it, indeed he wanted to congratulate him on learning how to kiss and be kissed equally well – but that was a conversation for another time. "Why do you look so satisfied? I haven't done anything serious yet."

The man beneath him smiled and reached up to brush away his bangs a little, his other hand stayed securely on his lover's hip. "Che. I can't be…happy to lie under you?"

Allen chuckled at him and let his own face break into a smile. "Sure you can. I just don't think I've seen you this content before." He tilted his head into the hand on the side of his face and smiled. "I like it."

When the other man spoke there was something longing in his voice, something he didn't mean to be there. It was that same as when he had spoke on the lawn, only this time Allen recognized it straight away. "I'm glad you like it."

"Kanda." Allen said seriously. "I love you. Lots. I do. Please Love, don't be sad, don't be sacrificial. Don't…" He captured his lover's lips again with a desire that had more to do with his want to reassure him than it did with how much he wanted to touch him. His tongue found his lover's and he coaxed it into fighting him, but he pulled away before too long, wanting to speak. He could see it in Kanda's eyes when he looked at him, that dullness behind his smile, the cold beneath the burning, the shadow that clouded his contentedness. It hurt to see it. It revived The Thing – the guilt – in his heart. "You told me you were alright – was it a lie? I don't know what to do Love. I don't know… I love you… but when I look at you… I see how much… you love me." His shoulders were starting to shake and he couldn't tell why. "And… I hurt…"

"Moyashi?"

"I can't describe it." Allen continued. "I don't know what's wrong. Or what I'm seeing. Or why I feel like something is wrong, but I do. It shouldn't feel bad but it does. It's like… _gah…_"

"Sh…" Kanda's hands stopped exploring the bare skin of his back so he could push Allen off enough to sit up. When he had the smaller boy propped on his knees he wound his arms around him, placed a soft kiss on the warm skin of his shoulder before speaking. "You need to stop beating yourself up over this, you're being stupid."

"Kanda…" Allen curled against him, hooking his arms beneath his lover's and sliding forward onto his lap, hooking his legs in a full body embrace. He shook again, buried his face in the crook of his lover's neck, fighting the urge to cry. "I know I am, but I can't help it. What else can I do?" He blinked repeatedly, trying to draw the pillow behind his lover into focus. "Is it you who… is looking at me with dim eyes… or is it me looking at you?"

The older Exorcist pressed the smaller boy closer, folding him tightly against his chest. "Che, _baka_. If it hurts this much how could you even think that you don't love me enough? And neither of us has these dim eyes you're talking about – unless you mean how idiotic you're being. You said it before, we've been over how much we love one another, so what's bothering you now?"

Allen choked a sob into his shoulder. "When you…lay back and look up at me like that, like I'm perfect, like…I'm everything… I start thinking about all of the things that want to come before you. I think about them and they won't go away. Dammit." He titled farther, still shaking. "Why is it so hard? Why can't I just forget everything else? Why can't I see nothing but your head against my pillow?"

A gentle hand came to rest on the back of his skull, which persuaded him into lean back into it to look at the man who held him. He saw a certainty in those sapphire pools that made him stop gasping for a moment, they calmed him somehow with their depth, their near indifference, and yet their concern rocked him. He blinked as the hand that had distracted him moved around to the side of his face to tenderly lift the tears from his eyelashes.

"Listen to me, Moyashi-kun, and kiss me for that afterward." Kanda spoke quietly, placed his wet hand gently on his lover's shoulder as he continued. "I don't care if your mind can't stay in the moment right now – that doesn't mean you love me any less. Tell me this, when you look at me, what do you see?"

"Love."

The corners of the Japanese man's mouth turned up in amusement. His smile was perfectly crooked; his bangs framed his eyes in a travesty of the normally straight pattern they fell into. It seemed to Allen that his answer had surprised him, though not unpleasantly.

"Che. And if you don't know what that means, I don't know what to tell you." Slowly Kanda brought his lips to Allen's in an innocent peck of contact. "You're driving yourself insane with something that isn't even an issue." He cupped the side of his lover's face with a gentle palm. "If you loved me anymore I'd be worried that I didn't love you enough. Now please Moyashi, Allen, believe me when I tell you that I'm fine. You should be fine too. Stop thinking so much about feeling and just feel."

"What?"

The Japanese man sighed at him. "It was something stupid Lavi told me once, that we think by feeling. It was… just before we left for Sweden, actually. I didn't really understand it then, but I think I do know. If you keep thinking about loving me, how will you ever get around to feeling it?"

Allen blinked at him silently, turning the words over in his mind. "Then…maybe…" He brought his hands up slightly so he could set them on his lover's shoulders. "Maybe…" He sighed, the action made him tremble, which cued Kanda to kiss him again with a fierceness that he could do nothing but return. His words had run out on him. There was nothing but the yearning in his heart, the desire for closeness, the want of the man he rested on. What he had meant to say was that maybe Kanda was right, maybe he was over thinking it, and perhaps he was letting things get in the way because he was nothing but a worry wart. But he hadn't said it. Instead he said nothing and commanded his body to say it for him.

Instead of thinking about where he was kissing he simply let himself do it. His lips trailed a hot, line down the side of his lover's neck, and each inch felt differently under his touch, each curve was a new texture and angle. He let his hands slide down Kanda's chest and he tried to memorize the touch of it against him. When he didn't think about it and simply let his hands think for him; he found himself understanding something he had never even noticed before.

The two of them breathed at the same pace when they were this close together. It wasn't something words could explain anymore.

The worrying stopped.

Allen's world shrank to nothing but the two of them on their bed, the fire that burned in his veins, the lack of fear in his lover's eyes. This time when he pressed him back on the pillows he knew there was nothing to stop him, that none of it mattered, that he wasn't doing this because he owed his lover a debt anymore than he was doing it because he was a horny teenager – he was doing this because he loved Kanda differently than he loved anyone else. And, to make things better, Kanda loved him back the same way.

The Japanese Exorcist grinned to himself when he saw the change. He had been right – for once. All it was a little touching and Allen wasn't crying anymore, he was grinding his hips forward with force enough to make Kanda moan and he was artfully painting lines of goosebumps down his skin. He took his lover by the hips and lifted him slightly as he rocked backward, which made Allen's eyes widen. It seemed the British boy had nearly forgotten the part his lover had been looking forward to – the part that they hadn't gotten to in the hall.

It was hard for Allen to focus on what he was touching and how he was feeling at the same time. He tended to forget where Kanda started and he ended – until Kanda moved him. When that happened he became acutely aware of where his momentarily forgotten desire was located, as well as where it wanted to be; the hands on him slid back and down, gliding to the backs of his thighs to pull him forward again, eliciting a broken cry from his throat. Pants suddenly felt like the root of all evil.

But they could wait.

He slid back a little and Kanda let him, even though it depleted the friction between them. He stopped with his face just even with his lover's throat, which he kissed gently before moving lower. His tongue followed the curve of Kanda's chest until he found himself just above his belly button, which he kissed with such tenderness it tickled and made his lover fight off a chuckle. That was fine though, he wasn't planning on staying there for long.

"Do you know what's ironic?" Kanda's fingers drifted to his chin and pulled his face up to look at him, if only fleetingly.

"Hm?"

"You spent all that time balancing our luggage and you'll just have to knock it over to find our little bottle."

Allen didn't take his eyes off the older boy's as he played his tongue softly against the skin just above his pants. "Not yet, Kanda." He whispered. "You always were the patient one."

0x0x0x0x0

He couldn't tell if the room was spinning or if he had simply lost too much blood, but in either case he knew that things weren't looking up. They had stopped cutting on him, which was good, but what came after threatened everything he had learned in the last forty-eight hours of his life. It wasn't the fact that they were trying to torture him – he had expected that even after Tyki had told him he would be defended and safe – it was who they had helping them. Because even if the man was perfectly silent but for his occasional laughter he still smelled the same, and on the rare occasion that skin touched his he had the distinctive feeling that he knew him.

Yet, on some level that he could not describe, he knew that no matter how much like Tyki the person was, it wasn't him.

The whip snapped against the skin of his stomach and he flinched, a blot of deep crimson erupted across the back of his eyelids at the feeling and an exclamation caught in the back of his throat. He hated this. This wasn't like before. They kept him bound and gagged, unable to even attempt to give them information, and they spoke back and forth between each other as if this were some kind of hobby. The two would have bouts of arguing that would temporarily bring a stop to the pain they were inflicting upon him, but that never lasted. Their banter would end and the not-Tyki would lash out again, usually with more strength.

"This is gettin' boring."

"Yeah… he doesn't fight very much does he?

"How about we up the ante a little?"

"Already? Hee hee."

There was a hand on Lavi's hip, steadying him, which made him wince behind the blindfold. The one holding him spoke just softly enough to frighten him. "It's not like we haven't been at it for a while. If he were any less noisy I'd think he was enjoying himself." Lavi tensed when he felt the material of his pants pulled back so that they strained against the belt that held them up, a growl rolled from the his stomach outward warningly. There was only one Noah he was ok with doing that, and these two weren't him.

"Oh, he doesn't even like me lookin'."

The other one cackled quietly and a lash caught him across the back, making him gasp. "Don't be defensive, we're not touchin'. Yet."

_Or ever._ His mind insisted.

"Wow…I guess ya _are_ enjoyin' yourself, eh Lavi-kun?" There were fingers slipping on the bloody curve of his hip, just below where his pants had been. "Bleedin' this much and still enough for that? No wonder Tyki-pon keeps ya fed."

"Just his sort of bedmate, hee."

_Ok. I'll move now, just go back to whipping me. Seriously. I don't need you two to point out that I'm not your normal. In fact, it's kind of disconcerting that you'd think I'd need you to._

"Hmm…what do you wanna do? More bashing? Or have some fun?"

There was a pause in which Lavi sighed to himself. _These two idiots tried to fit through one doorway at the same time, they talk like they have only a basic understanding of grammar, and yet they are the ones with me here, chained up, blindfolded, at their mercy._

_How lame does this make me look?!_

_And they plan on touching me. I don't want them to do that. I don't want them near me. But I can handle it if they do. They're too stupid to do anything too horrible. I'll pass out before they get it done._

_Is it odd that the thought of passing out makes me…happy?_

"Well…" Something was messing with the gag, undoing it enough for him to cough it out from between his teeth with little effort. When it was gone he ran his tongue across his lips and breathed in the blood-flavored air, at once becoming aware of how close he had been to being oxygen deprived. The room didn't spin as much when he could breathe through his mouth. "How about we see if we can make him scream first?"

0x0x0x0

He was a master of seductiveness and Kanda would never argue with him over that fact. He watched Allen take the corner of his pants between his teeth and pull, which in turn slipped the buttons one by one from their holes, slowly, sliding his garment farther and farther open to expose his skin. The older Exorcist felt his mouth fall open as his eyes followed Allen's teeth to the protrusion of his hipbone before a tiny nip and a soothing lick sent tingles running up his spine. There were fingers laced through his belt loops and he arched away from the mattress to help his lover yank off his pants.

Usually, when he was more naked than Allen was, the smaller of the two paused to take in the sights and appreciate his lover's nudity, but not this time. At once Kanda found himself with a hand on his right shoulder, another on his side, and lips pressing into his, tongue fighting for the inside of his mouth. He let his palms lift his lover again, and this time the kiss broke when he whimpered at the contact. It was perfect. It was as if every inch of flesh they brushed let him know exactly what Allen was thinking, and visa versa, and the thought that they could become so close nearly drove him mad with desire.

The fingernails brushing his shoulder made his own clench for a moment. He wanted Allen out of those pants _now_.

The British boy laid his lips on his lover's collarbone and willed his thoughts and his actions to be the same thing. _I love you. I love you._ Allen thought into his touch. _And I want you._

"I love you too," Kanda murmured into his ear, lifting again. "And I want you more."

Allen didn't care how Kanda knew what he was thinking; all he cared about was getting his Goddamn pants out of the way. He left an open kiss on his lover's neck and thought to reach for the fastener on his last remaining garment but Kanda's hands had gotten there already, so instead he let his mouth find Kanda's with an urgency he could only show. He needed him now. He needed him and there was nothing short of closeness that would sate him. Even as he thought it his lover tilted into him so that their chests touched each other, their mouths broke away to come back again at once. He forgot where his hands were and simply let his weight rest on Kanda while they both haphazardly worked to rid him of his pants, wiggling and sliding as they worked. Yet, even if he wanted them gone, it didn't matter so much that he was aching with desire – it mattered that he wanted to touch his lover's skin.

Unlike his boots the discarded garment flew into the far wall with light _pat_, and the sound brought a tiny, satisfied smile to Kanda's lips. He didn't know why but every time he had a wish Allen was there to grant it, down to when he took off his pants and how long he wanted to kiss him for. He felt as if somehow his actions weren't his own, as if Allen were cueing his movements or perhaps he was cueing Allen's. But it didn't matter. What did matter was the leg between his, and the pounding of Allen's heart against his hand.

A strangled moan broke through his lips when a hand at last found his erection and gave it a much appreciated stroke, his hips moved of their own accord to lift him into his lover. He pulled down on the smaller boy so his lips found the soft skin of his shoulder, which he bit tenderly, and let himself gasp at the pleasant fire running through his skin. Now, with so much skin connected, with such electricity coursing through his veins, with his eyes only for the blushing boy above him, he wanted more.

"Kanda…" He heard his name gasped into his neck, just loudly enough for it to be more than a whisper against him. He nodded into Allen's throat, somehow knowing what he meant to say without anymore words than that. He let himself fall fully against the mattress, Allen hunched over him so the sides of their faces touched. He could hear that the two of them were breathing in tandem, though when it started he couldn't say, and his hand and his lover's thigh made both of them breathe more rapidly.

"_Haiyaku."_ He rasped, uncurling his fingers a little. Whether Allen actually knew the meaning of the word or not he couldn't even guess, but it was enough to send him reaching for the suitcases. Kanda heard two loud thumps and a short curse before he was hit in the face with a clean white shirt, which made him chuckle. He pulled it away and tossed it lazily toward the wall only to have a pair of pants follow. He pushed them aside to see Allen turn back to him, bottle in hand, satisfied expression plastered on his face like a child who had stolen the contents of the cookie jar.

Not that he had time to think about that. There was touching that needed to be done.

Allen poured the liquid into his right hand and lowered it between his lover's legs while his left found something to hold on to. To his mild surprise Kanda took it in his and yanked him forward, sealing their lips together and forcing his finger to slide forward faster than he intended. Kanda had always been good at controlling his reactions and this was no exception, he rolled his hips upward and deepened the kiss, his fingers held so firm on Allen's hand that he couldn't have pulled away even if he had wanted to. Allen moved his index finger a best he could while madly trying to keep his mouth his lover's with both of them panting; he didn't need to hear Kanda's growl to know he was still doing a fine job of it.

Two fingers and he thought Kanda was going to shove him off and take _him_ instead of the other way around. Allen could still tell what he wanted, still feel that they shared something now that he wasn't thinking about what it was, but there was a hunger that had not been there when they had started. A need that, he slowly realized, was half his own.

It was time.

His fingers slide easily from within his lover and he one handedly attempted to retrieve the abandoned bottle and use it. Kanda haphazardly took it from him and dumped the contents into his hand, being more than liberal. Mentally Allen noted that they would have to stop by some questionable store or other to procure more sometime soon, especially if he kept having his hand filled to brimming.

Almost at once he applied it to himself, Kanda fumbled with the cap for a few moments before he gave up with a glare. He wedged the container right side up between the mattress and the wall before turning back to his lover with an expression of expectancy. His fingers unwound themselves from Allen's and wandered up to his shoulders where they played softly on his sweat slicked skin, cueing him that at the moment he was ready, so was Kanda.

His hands slipped a bit when Allen lifted him from the bed and leaned forward, forcing Kanda to slide back against the pillows still more as he pressed. He heard himself moan as he filled that tight space and his hips moved back and forward hurriedly without him meaning to. With a shaking gasp he clenched on Kanda's hips to slow himself, his lover quivered under his hands, flingers closing on his flesh. With a slow intake of breath he looked down at his lover's upturned face to see how he was fairing – and to know if movement was the best idea. The eyes that met Allen's were filled with the yearning he had hoped to find there, so he took it as his cue to proceed. He pulled back again and moved forward in a rhythm that did nothing to satisfy him but served to ensure Kanda's comfort, which he realized he couldn't keep worrying about. The light blush on his lover's cheeks and the growing desperation in his moans encouraged him to quicken and strengthen his trusts, his lover moving with him each time.

Distantly he heard his own voice whispering Kanda's name, a cry starting in the back of his throat at the tingling pleasure running through him. His left hand groped once more for something else to hold on to, something that wasn't lifting to meet him, something like the hand that Kanda offered. At this angle he couldn't reach down and kiss him or move forward and lay his lips on his neck – Kanda's thighs were pressing almost painfully into his sides, driving him onward – so the connection of their hands attempted to make up for it. Through his fingers Allen could feel his lover's heartbeat, his strength, and the two of them together made him increase his speed on last time.

The sound Kanda made was completely without form but it carried all the meaning his lover needed. He had found the place he had needed to find and, if he aimed right, he could hit it every time. He pulled back and moved in again, and this time his own voice raised in expressing his enjoyment, Kanda's back arched to meet him. Allen did not think about much for the next few moments – he was far too focused on feeling his lover and himself plummet toward the edge of oblivion.

There were fingers of heat wrapped around his midsection. There was a hand too close to breaking in his. And there were eyes looking into his until the last moment, the moment when Kanda was swept away, his eyes closed, mouth open, muscles tightened in the ecstasy of the moment. Allen held off as long as he could, hitting that spot again and again, until he couldn't stop himself anymore. The room dissolved around him. There was nothing but Kanda's voice, Kanda's hand, and the feeling that finally he had reached his peak and crashed down the other side, wave after wave of delight took hold of him.

It was over in an instant. He found himself sprawled against his lover's chest, gasping, hair clinging to the sides of his face and his neck. With a deep sigh he dragged himself off of Kanda and rolled onto the mattress beside him, blinking at the pair of thoughtful sapphire eyes that studied the side of his face. Their hands were still intertwined.

"What?" He asked with a voice gone raspy. "You're face is funny."

Kanda glared at him. "Che, well yours is pretty." He swallowed hard before he managed to say what he wanted. "So? Are you still beating yourself up over nothing?"

"Nope." Allen smiled lopsidedly. "I love you and you're the only one I have sex with."

Kanda's face fell. "I have been reduced to my penis in your mind?"

"God no! You have a wonderful ass also. And nothing can rival that perfect mouth of yours."

"You're digging a hole, Moyashi."

"Am I? Will I be taught a lesson? Are you going to punish me?"

"Yes. You'll sleep on the floor."

"No, you said we could never do it on the floor again, remember?"

"Hallway."

"People will see us!"

"_Alone."_

"You want to watch?"

Kanda frowned at him and blushed, but his fingers tightened nonetheless. "If I weren't tired from that lousy lay, I'd screw you into the mattress."

"Lousy! I was emotionally distraught!" Allen exclaimed in mock horror. He knew it hadn't been his best round – he hadn't been thinking clearly. Now his mind was clear, his hands were steady, and he understood that the two of them shared something that was different from anything else, they were like the same person, it didn't matter what else happened or what akuma or what human tried to separate them, Kanda was the only person or thing he felt the way he did for.

It was the difference between truly loving and simply caring.

"You're going to be _physically _distraught if you don't stop talking and cuddle with me."

Allen smiled one of those perfectly bright smiles and rolled closer to the sweaty, sticky naked man beside him, and could honestly say that he didn't care how dirty they were, he was happy to be there. He snuggled as close as he could while his lover reached done and found the cap for their bottle of lubricant and closed it, then set about arranging the covers so they were comfortable and mostly covered.

Allen brushed two playing cards off of his back and threw them on the floor.

"I thought you didn't like ship blankets." Allen mumbled as he wiggled the pillow into a sharable position. When Kanda lay back down beside him he was perfectly placed so that his head rested on it and his lover's arm could drape over his head, nearly encircling him in Kanda's warmth. He hummed and scooted closer.

"Che. I'm not using my jacket when we're both in need of a bath. Again." He sighed and turned a little so he place a protective arm around Allen, turned his face so he was looking down at the smaller boy. "If we had sex less we wouldn't have to worry about it."

Allen scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous! You know you'd rather never shower again than lay off the touching."

"Never shower again? That's a little extreme, Moyashi." He lowered his lips to Allen's and just barely brushed them, and when he pulled away he heard the air rush out of his lover's lungs in disappointment. "But I think you're right. I could live with a lifetime of baths."

"Love."

"Hm?"

"Just…" He blinked slowly at him before lifting himself enough return the kiss a little more deeply, running his tongue over Kanda's lower lip before giving it a tiny, experimental nibble. "I know I'm not supposed to say it but… thanks. For being understanding."

Kanda smiled at him crookedly and pulled him just a little more tightly. "You're welcome."

0x0x0x0

Tyki wanted nothing more than to go back to his room and check on his lover, but he hadn't been gone quite long enough. He was standing at the bottom of a tall hill, looking up at the sad little inn Lenalee was staying in, frowning deeply. He could plainly see her sitting outside, speaking to a Finder, moving her hands in a way that said she was trying not to be angry with him. For that reason he approached slowly, trying to give her ample time to see him before he spoke; his feet made strange sounds on the grass as he walked, sounds that he had nearly forgotten it had been so long since he had made them himself.

Her swollen eyes caught sight of him just before he reached the inn's immediate grounds and she sent the Finder away, seeming to cite a headache for the reason. When the man went inside Tyki approached more quickly – it was all he could do to keep from running to her side.

"I wasn't expecting to see you in person." She said quietly, stepping back onto the odd porch. He took it as a sign to stop coming forward. He stood perhaps six feet away from her and two feet lower – the hill and the porch offered her quite a bit of height – so he looked up with her and pulled the hat from his head to hold it in his uncertain hands.

"I had the time, and it seems safer than letting Cole be intercepted. He isn't mine, after all." He blinked slowly, wishing that she would let him get closer, wishing that this weren't his fault. He could see that what both of them really needed at the moment was a hug and he wanted to give her one because he understood her pain. "Can we talk?"

Lenalee swallowed hard and unconsciously took hold of the support beam beside her. "Yes."

He flipped his hat between his fingers, trying to find the right words. "He's… alright, for now so… you don't have to worry so much. And he really is a strong person. Between the two of us he might make it back to you alive and functioning." He tried to smile at her but the expression died halfway to his eyes. It was difficult to clear his throat to speak but he managed. "I won't ask you to save me."

"What?" Lenalee asked quietly.

He chuckled at her and the hat stopped in his hands, forgotten. "I hold no illusions about the Order or its purpose – I will not ask you to save me. If I live long enough to get him there I will walk away from the rest of it; it would be too much to ask for sanctuary."

"What are you saying?"

"Don't be dense, Lenalee-san." He smiled from the corner of his mouth, a sad type smile. "By freeing him I will forfeit my life. There is no way around that. Don't look so surprised – what would your side do to a traitor?"

Lenalee paused, unsure what to say. When he held his face like that she could see the regret in his eyes, yet he still seemed determined and horrifyingly sure. It almost hurt to realize what he was saying and yet she could not find it within herself to truly feel pain for him, instead she felt a tiny pang in her heart for the apprentice Bookman they were trying to save. He wouldn't know, she knew, because the man standing before her wouldn't tell him. It wasn't in his nature to do something so unpleasant.

She felt a second weight added to her shoulders. It was more than Innocence now, it was Tyki's life. Part of her wanted to be glad, to thank him, to smile; to go on as if he were nothing but her enemy, her sacrifice to save her friend, but Lavi would never forgive her if she did that. So she bit her quivering lower lip and finally gave up on looking at him stoically; tears started down her cheeks and, before she could think to stop him, Tyki took two steps forward. In a matter of moments she found herself engulfed in his embrace, gently, as if he were afraid to touch her.

Every muscle in her back went rigid.

"Don't cry," He whispered, slowly wrapping his arms around her shoulders. "I've seen enough tears recently; do not make me the cause of yours as well." She was shocked to feel the warmth radiating from him, and the steady pulse of his heartbeat when her face brushed momentarily across the fabric of his suit. She could smell him, and Lavi, and something like soap – it was all too much for her to think about. It would have been so much easier to say yes if he had stayed back, stayed inhuman, and not moved to comfort her in her moment of weakness. Her forehead hit his shoulder with the force of an ill-suppressed sob. "It will be fine," He said softly, trying to soothe her by running his hands back and forth across her shoulders. "I promise."

Lenalee shook her head into him without looking up. "I hate you."

He chuckled. "That should make it easier."

"No." Her fists came up and hit him in the chest with a bruising force. "I _hate_ you but _he_ doesn't. And… I can't…" He looked up at him and took a step back toward his arms, shaking, eyes wild. "Why did you have to be a Noah?! Why did it have to be _you_ he fell for?! Why?! I don't understand!" She hit him again, harder than before as she continued to cry. "How come?! What did _you_ do to deserve him?! What didn't I… What didn't I…" Her hand stopped with the fourth swing and she collapsed, her legs folded and Tyke struggled to guide them to the floor, his arms never once failing to support her. "What didn't I do?"

"I wish I knew, Lenalee." He said quietly. "But at this point I can't change anything. If I had more time… I might have changed into the kind of person you wouldn't mind losing to."

"What?"

"Nothing." He lied. "But I can tell you this: if it meant being with him forever I would give up being a Noah. It's selfish of me, but I don't care how corrupt the world is if it can make someone like him."

"Like him?"

He nodded and pulled his hands back slightly, not bothering to mention that her fists still rested on his shoulders. "He did something I never thought would happen. He accepted me for what I am, the dark and the light, without condemning a single part of me. Lavi understands that I love him with both halves of myself, even if they have different ways of showing it." When she blinked at him in confusion he smiled, lowering her hands from her no longer quaking shoulders and hung his feet off of the porch. "Depending which part of me is closer I will want to hold him and coo sweet nothings or… tie him down to perform my ministrations – which is a light way of putting it."

"That's right… the bruise on his eye… and on his collar bone."

"Eh?! Oh, yes. The first was a miss and the second… hmm… I guess that happened how we wanted it. He would never admit to it, but he is not adverse to pain in the right places. But I ramble. Will you help him?"

Lenalee nodded, her dark hair shifting over her eyes with the motion. "Just one thing though."

"Hm?"

"If… if you really aren't going to do evil things, and you really do care… I'd like to ensure that you don't die." She looked away from him so he couldn't see the emotions on her face anymore than she could his, her hands fell to her lap for the moment and her fingers twirled in the edge of her skirt, the same way Rhode did. "We won't forgive you for what you've done but you might be able to work for it somehow and, if you did die, Lavi would…"

He nodded and she caught the motion for the corner of her eye. "I understand. If you think turning myself in to the Order is a better plan, we shall do it."

"They'll kill you." She looked at him again, lavender eyes shining, and reached out with a shaking hand to touch him. It was a light brush against the back of his hand, nothing extreme, just enough contact for him to know she was really there; just enough contact to show her trust. "I think… I have a better idea."

0x0x0x0

**WAAAH! It's not smut on plot it's smut on angst! I feel so terrible! But it's only this bad for a little while… I hope…**

**  
Next time: The Plan, The Action, and The Nap -- YAY!**


	65. Whole

"If you keep staring at me I'll never be able to eat normally again

**O.o so sooooooon.**

**But it's shorter than normal. And plot-tastic. I love plot… though you'll see where it's going in… one or two chapters…**

**Disclaimer of D'typos: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Skin wouldn't do that freakin' stupid ass laugh every five seconds when he fights Kanda. God, that makes me want to take back every good thing I've said about Japanese voice actors.**

**WARNING: Violence and implied man-lovin'.**

0x0x0x0x0

Whole

"If you keep staring at me I'll never be able to eat normally again."

"Why? I watched you at eat every meal at my house."

"Yeah, but now I'm self conscious. Just… look at your plate for a minute, Jesus."

"I'd rather look at your eyes."

"_Stop it._ I know very well that you'd like to stare at my chest. You keep thinking about it._"_

Hitori giggle and turned to his face slightly away, just so Sable didn't think he was looking, and she began to scarf her food, inhaling it with the speed only an Exorcist could reach. In a matter of moments her plate was gone, and she took the time to sigh at him to show that she was finished. He looked back and turned to the meager rations on his plate.

"Two questions." He said, sliding his bread across his plate. "Answer them both honestly and you can have my bread."

"Ha…" She waved at him as if he were being stupid. "I just finished my food. I don't need yo—" Her stomach let out a low, embarrassing rumble and she frowned at it, seriously disappointed. Two table spoons of powdered ginger and suddenly it was perfectly happy to eat for days, even when she didn't want it to. Hitori grinned at her. "Fine."

"When's your birthday?"

"January twenty-third."

"Whore."

She smiled.

"How old did you turn?"

"Is that the second question, or is there something more pressing?"

He shook his head with a sigh. "Just answer."

"Eighteen." She snatched the bread off of his plate and ripped it in half, mouth already watering. She crammed the first half between her lips without even attempting to make him look away.

"You let your birthday go by without saying a word? And you're… one year, seven months, and sixteen days older than me…" He pushed his plate away and let his forehead sink to the tabletop in shame. "It's _illegal!!_"

Sable laughed at him before eating the rest of her bread in a single bite. He was especially cute to her when he was pouting. "So? That never stopped your brother."

"I'm not Yuu and I don't live by his morals."

"Or lack there of."

Hitori snickered and lifted his face so his chin rested on the corner of the table, a tiny little grin starting on his face. "Did you just encourage me?"

0x0x0x0

They fell asleep in a mess of playing cards and clothing, folded together with Kanda's lips hardly touching Allen's forehead. Their arms were hooked delicately around one another, the Japanese man holding the smaller boy close even while he was sleeping. The sunlight that came in the window dyed their sad brown blanket a sick shade of orange and painted their gray pillowcase with little lines of yellow. The light slowly encouraged Allen to blink open his tired eyes.

His gaze wandered first to Kanda, sleeping beside him. His face was calm, and the sweep of his bangs brought Allen's eyes to the pair of pants lying beside his head. His lips quirked in a smile. They hadn't been all that picky about cleaning up when they were done – indeed Kanda had threatened him with bodily harm before he had had the chance to even say a word about it – so the room was in something of a state of disarray. There, just where he could see the cap, was their friendly bottle of oil, and beside Kanda's face tucked under the edge of the pillow was the queen of hearts. They hadn't even wiped themselves down when they were finished.

'_If I weren't tired from that lousy lay, I'd screw you into the mattress.'_

That asshole. If it really _had_ been a lousy lay he would have been much more energetic – and much more willing to scrub clean before cuddling. Leaving themselves dirty, not bothering with the mess they'd made, snuggling in his sleep, it all pointed at the single fact that Kanda wouldn't mind waking up and remembering what they had done. It had not been that bad.

A triumphant smile crawled slowly across Allen's lips.

But that was only half of it. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe, when it was over, Kanda had just needed him there. Maybe they had finally crossed that terrible gap that had separated them and he would never think he saw something broken in those eyes again. That was the word he had not been able to find before: broken. Jealous. But Kanda wouldn't lie about something like that. Kanda wouldn't pretend he was fine for Allen's benefit. Not after everything. Not after it had hurt Allen as much as it already had.

He lifted a sweat sticky arm and laid it completely across Kanda's back, letting himself lean all of his weight on the larger man. He felt Kanda stir a little and sighed into him, there was no use hiding the fact that he had woken up, but he wasn't going to pretend he wanted to get up either.

"Che, bath?"

"Nope. Snuggle."

"Hm." He let Allen pull him a little across the mattress, not opening his eyes. "Perfect."

"Kanda."

"Snuggle does not mean talk."

"Shut up."

"My point exactly."

Allen lifted his hand a little and brought it down in a tiny slap on his lover's ribcage. "Want me to ask later?"

He fingers on his spine drummed lightly, almost as if Kanda had to think about it. "No… when you don't talk things bother you. Talk."

Allen smiled a little and felt his foot unconsciously slide across Kanda's ankles. Was he getting taller? "You're…happy. Aren't you?" There wasn't anything in it to make it a question, he was just observing. Kanda felt the corners of his mouth turn up a little at it. "You're just…completely content to be with me."

"Your powers of observation now rival that stupid rabbit's. Now quiet, we're snuggling."

He giggled into Kanda's chest, breathing hot air across his skin. "Hmm… I feel… warm and fuzzy…and… hee…Like I'm the luckiest person alive."

"Heh," Kanda smiled from ear to ear but kept his eyes shut as tightly as he could; maybe Allen wouldn't see if he didn't. "No. The luckiest person alive would let me sleep."

"And now you're grinning."

"Sleep."

"_Denial…"_

0x0x0x0x0

Cross sipped his alcohol and lifted an eyebrow at the woman lying flat on her back on the bottom bunk, throwing a short dagger straight over her face before catching it every time. Up and down. Up and down. Toss and catch. She never even thought about what would happen if she missed and the blade caught that smooth, delicate face of hers. Her ebony hair shone blue in the lamp light; her gray eyes glinted near white. It didn't take a scientist to understand that she was mightily pissed at something, but it took more brain power than Cross Marian possessed to decide talking was not a good plan.

"Who did what this time?" He inquired, setting down his glass. He was back to wine again – the ship had loads of it and they were more than willing to add to Allen's tab. "Surely it's not your boy-daughter and my idiot disciple that's bothering you."

"Che!" She threw the dagger hard enough to bury it in the wood above her, eyes narrowed. "Yuu told me I was wrong."

He laughed a little, reaching into his coat for something besides the glass to occupy his hands with, preferably something short and tobacco filled. "I bet those slobs are fucking each other silly," He smiled when he found one before working it between his lips and picked up the matchbook. The knife was going up and down again before he spoke. "Hm. Stupid boy, getting more ass than I am."

"Mari-chan. You asked me what's wrong; don't go off the fucking deep end before I can tell you shit."

"Don't call me that." The match was struck and the cigarette lit. He shook it out before casting the stick aside, inhaling the smoke he craved. Ah, that made sitting so close to that beautiful woman so much easier. "And fine. What are you wrong about?"

She growled low in her throat and threw the weapon at the bed again so that it stuck. "Here I am, trying to keep the Goddamn line going in the middle of a war, and that bastard… he meets the sweetest most retarded little limey I've ever seen. And falls in love. What the hell kind of shit _is that?_"

"Terrible."

"And he's a boy, on top of being a retarded limey."

"Travesty."

"So I think to myself, _well that's fine, Hito-baka will make a fine head of the house when he's older_, and – that _whore_ came along. Blonde hair, green eyes – I bet she's _American_ – comes along and crushes my dreams with those boobs of hers."

"Hitori has seen boobs before. Yumeko and you both have them."

"We are _not_ talking about my boobs. Or Yumeko's boobs. These are boobs he's not related to. These are _foreign fucking boobs._" She yanked the blade down with a slight twist. "And now he likes her."

Cross shrugged a little and yawned before he spoke. "This kid's got the right idea."

She shot him a death glare. "Yuu about told me the same shit. Pansy. Love has changed his world or some bull like that. The next thing I know he'll cut his hair."

"Hmph," He replaced the glass with his cigarette against his lips. "What of Yumeko's spawn?"

"Che!" She frowned, turned again from him and seemed to think for a moment. When she spoke her voice was calmer. "I don't know if she has any little demons yet."

He breathed out the smoke and slumped into his chair, looking at her as seductively as he could from beneath the brim of his hat. "You should find out. If not… I'm sure you could have at least one more child."

"Not yours Mari-chan." She half-smiled. "Migigawa would be jealous."

0x0x0x0

Lenalee had taken the time to explain everything in detail – everything – and the entire time she had let her fingers rest on the back of the Noah's hand, his eyes never left her face. It surprised her how attentive he was, and how willing, and it made her feel somewhat sad for what had happened and what he had become. It was as if he didn't belong in this world where Exorcists were supposed to be his prey, he didn't belong because he was too connected to just one of them and that one had ruined his fate.

He was like a reverse Fallen. Or something.

"I'm not sure when my next mission will be, or where, but if I demand to go Nii-san will let me." She swallowed hard, still shaking when she thought about it. "It will be a week at the most."

He nodded slowly. "He may be wounded when I get him to you." Her fingers closed more tightly on his hand and he squeezed back ever so slightly. "Which I'm sorry for."

She shook her head, her pigtails danced back and forth on either side of her head. "It doesn't matter. If he can recover, he will."

"Thank you." He tried to smile, tried to show how much it meant to him, but it the expression was too hard too hold. He settled for something between a frown and neutrality and thankfulness, none of which were honestly how he felt. With a small sigh he tilted his head a little, trying to be soothing. "Would you… mind if I hugged you again?"

Lenalee almost laughed. When he asked her he seemed so helpless. In fact, he seemed almost weak. "Go ahead."

He smiled thankfully and pulled her into a loose embrace, careful not to be too friendly or too close. With his right hand he patted her lightly on the top of her head, just the way her brother would, and spoke so she could here the doubt in his voice. "We will all get through this, won't we?"

She nodded, feeling his grip tighten just a little. "One way or another."

He smiled again and gave her one last pat before pulled away. "I should go. He will be hungry eventually."

"Yeah," She smiled back, barely. "Just… be careful."

"Always, Lenita_._" He pushed himself from the porch with a sprightliness that didn't quite fit a man in a suit before reaching back to retrieve his top hat. "You can trust me not to do something irrational when we're so close."

"Crowley and I will be back at Headquarters the day after tomorrow so… no more communication."

"Of course." He nodded. "Good luck."

0x0x0x0

He had stopped listening. He had been reduced to nothing by the pain on his skin and in his throat, the tears had soaked into his blindfold until it was warm against his face. It was almost over. Two more lashes and he'd be out of it, drifting on a sea of nothingness, and when he woke he'd find himself recovering in his lover's bed – because that was the way of things. Tyki would cry when he opened his eye at him. Cry and tell him to hold on, to hold out, to endure until he could be saved.

But what if he couldn't be saved?

It didn't matter. If he couldn't be saved he wouldn't be saved, and he would hold on to the fool's hope that maybe, it might happen. Because if he didn't let himself hope, he would stop breathing. And then pass out and start breathing again. But wasn't that the idea? Pass out? So… really, giving up was looking like an astoundingly good idea.

Vaguely he was aware of a hand touching the bottom of his chin, dragging his head a little bit upward, but not very far. His breath caught in his throat at the softness of it, and then he felt something press against his cheek, something pointed, directly below his left eye, and his lungs grew still. He couldn't hear the question posed to him – indeed he could hardly understand that the faint whimper that filled his ears was his own – but he did know when the point moved slowly upward, threatening to sink into the soft flesh and root his eye from the socket.

"Stop!" The word was less than a whisper his voice was so hoarse. "Please… not my eyes… don't…" A slipped plural. He hadn't even thought about seeing with his right eye since he was little – the realization made him wonder how far out of it he really was. "Anything…anything else… not…" The blade sailed downward, flicking off his chin with enough force to catch him in the collar bone. He shivered and air hissed through his lips, relief washing through him even when a fist struck him hard in the cheek, sending the room into dizzying circles. Any minute now and he was going to stop feeling all together. Any minute now and they'd be out of fun until he woke up.

_I'm so tired._ He thought with a sob. He had given up on holding them in, given up on stopping the pitiful reactions they wanted. It didn't matter if he made them so long as his mind was safe. Which it was at this point, though slightly oxygen deprived. _God, I just want to curl up and sleep for a few hours. Maybe a few days. Cuddle up with Ty-chan – hell, I'd settle for Yuu-chan – and just nap…_

His head was dropped back to his chest with a thump. His muscles wouldn't let him do much more than roll it back and forth against the force of gravity.

_Sleep…_

He felt a hand sliding across the top of his pants, slowly, as if testing his reactions. He didn't move.

_Sleep…_

It stopped at the fastener and a second hand grabbed at him through the fabric, not too tightly, just enough to make him flinch.

_Just… sleep…_

Something was sliding across his backside, there was breath on his right shoulder. He could feel the vibrations of spoken words but he couldn't understand them.

_Don't think. Just…_

The thought died before he could finish it. There was air, fresh air, washing over his face, bathing him in a scent he knew too well. He could taste the smoke on it, and the dust, and there, something different, something the other not-Tyki didn't smell like, something warm, something dark. For the first time in a number of minutes, he heard sound.

"_You are both dead men."_ Lavi knew the voice, but he had never heard anger so thick in it. _"I reject."_

Those two words were the only prelude they were given. The Noah of Pleasure raised his right hand at the younger men and the air grew suddenly cold, Lavi fell through the chains that held him before slipping through the dark haired twin that had been holding his pants. He landed on the floor in a heap, breathing in short, ragged gasps. The low, hardly quieted moan he unleashed almost drowned the sound of Tyki whispering the words again, this time pushing the heart from his replica's chest. It was easy for him to destroy Jasdebi's bond – he simply rejected it and killed it like he would any other creature hurting his lover.

For a moment the two looked at him with round eyes, mouths open, in the time it took for his hand turned to them, a thousand thoughts ran through his mind. Not a single one passed through theirs.

_**They had their hands where they should not be. No one does that but me. No one thinks to. No one can hurt him but me. No one. They hurt him. They are not me. They should be punished. They should be killed for this.**_

_**I love him.**_

_**They are not worth him.**_

_**No one is.**_

"_I reject."_

_**I no longer care for those marks against me.**_

_**I no longer wonder what will happen when this is finished.**_

_**I am Noah. I am not Noah. I am human.**_

_**And I love him.**_

Lavi felt the air against his skin turn colder than ice, the floor stopped feeling like stone and instead burned into his flesh with a freezing fire that reminded him of a stove against his face. He inhaled in surprise but his lungs found nothing to take in – as if the air around the three of them was gone and there was nothing to do but twitch in the chill quiet, blood freezing to the rock beneath him, shivers coursing through his shoulders, eye blinded by a cloth he didn't have the strength to move. He could feel it when he gasped again, the warmth running out of him, the life running out of him. There was blood in his mouth, seeping through his lips. Up and down had little meaning.

The dark was closing in.

A warm arm curled around his chest and the ground – it was ground even if gravity didn't make sense, right? – went sliding away beneath him. He was lifted farther and moved what felt like two steps before he was greeted with a wall of air so forceful he thought his lungs would explode. He gasped, head reeling, and closed his fingers on the nearest thing he could find – over his head, at a terrible awkward angle, the fabric of Tyki's lapel.

"_Lavi.."_ His voice was so worried, his hand perfectly warm when it momentarily brushed the back of his head before simple pulling the blindfold away without untying it; Lavi didn't open his eye for fear of what he'd see if he did. _"Oh God Lavi, please… don't die from this. Please."_ The world seemed to right itself suddenly when he was leaned against something hard, something like a wall of stone. His fingers couldn't hold onto the lapel he had found so his hand fell to the side, bashing harshly on the floor. _"Oh God…"_

"T'ee…" Lavi tried. It wasn't even a whisper, but it was enough. He fought with his eyelid and won a tiny, bleary crack of dim light and there, in front of him, the unfocused face of his lover, golden yellow eyes wide, hand reaching for the sliced side of his face. Lavi felt a sudden rush of warmth for the man and couldn't fight the tears that flooded down his face, blinding him once more. The only desire he felt in that moment was the one he had felt on moments before, this time more keenly; he wanted to be close to him, and he wanted to forget that any of this had happened. "Ty-ch…"

Tyki shook his head from side to side, anger and fear and love and hope all morphing together in his heart, demanding that he do something – anything – to keep Lavi safe. The moment his eyes had found the bedroom empty he'd known to come here, because it was the least likely place for sound to reach the rest of the house and it seemed just the room to stain with blood one more time. Rhode would have come here, even if it were only casual play.

And then he had seen the blood, the cuts, the bruises, and his two family members with their hands in places they shouldn't have been. He had nearly lost himself in that moment, or the self that he had become, but he had found instead something he hadn't counted on – he had found a place he could be whole. Here, with Lavi, he didn't have to be black or white, he didn't have to kill or cheat or hide a thing; he could be violent and caring without thinking beyond the contradiction. Because the contradiction was what saved him.

In this moment, he loved him. In this moment no part of him wanted anything different.

"Close your eye, _amante,_" He said softly, pushing the blood soaked hair from Lavi's forehead. "Don't record this. Don't look at it. Forget it happened."

"Ty…"

When he spoke again there was no doubt in his voice but it cracked all the same. "Don't worry… I told you I would kill them with my own hands."

"_What the hell are you thinking?!"_ The scream came from behind him, annoyingly shrill. He didn't care which of them it was, he was going to kill them now. "Attackin' us?! What'er you doing!? Turning for some fucking carrot top pirate?! We oughta—"

He was tired of hearing it. Gracefully he turned to face the coughing, sputtering, bloody, duo and lifted his palm. _"I reject."_ As expected they scrambled and tripped over each other to get out of the way, swinging their pistols from their pockets and pointing them at anything that didn't move. No matter. They couldn't hit him if they tried.

And they did try.

He stood in front of his lover, rejecting bomb after bomb, perfect calm washing over him. Somehow he wanted to laugh at what he was doing, at the irony of it, but he would not do that until everything was safe, until Lavi was safe. For now it did not matter that he had aided in breaking Uri in this room anymore than it mattered to him that he was a traitor. They were things of lesser importance.

A well aimed ball of fire sailed passed his head and struck the wall behind him, filling the air with the scent of burnt dust and smoke. The granite crumbled but he did not stop, not when he could see them both clearly.

"_I re—"_

A crash and a horrible scream drowned out the word but did not stop him from finishing. The ground beneath the panting, aiming pair vanished with an audible _bang_ and the two fell through it to the next floor, screaming to high heaven and cursing him to Hell.

They could curse all they wanted, there was going to be much more than a floor between them by the time they thought to tell someone important what he had done. In that respect, they were not bright. The room gave a horrible shutter at having lost one wall and part of the floor, but it did not seem on the verge of collapse just yet, so he turned back to Lavi, blinking at the dust, in order to assess what had caused him to make that terrible sound just moments before.

What greeted his eyes made the air catch in his throat.

When the wall had fallen apart a large slab of ceiling had fallen with it. Part of that slab lay harmlessly to the side, the remainder rested crookedly on Lavi's right knee. His head was thrown back against the wall, eye too wide, mouth formed into a perfect O. His skin was washed white with pain, tiny tremors shook the muscles of his neck and shoulders; he appeared as a broken thing, stare blank, breath hardly moving in his lungs. Tyki could see that it was almost too much for him, it might have been a blessing if it had been.

The redhead made a harsh sound in the back of his throat and his eye snapped shut, he leaned forward enough to bring his head back to the wall with a little force, which enough to break the spell that had settled over him; a breathy moan pressed past his lips and his bloodied hands curled into fists against the floor.

"Lavi," Tyki wanted to touch him but he could see a safe place to put his hands, so he took up his right fist and held it in his. "Listen to me, please. I know it hurts and I know you don't want to, but we need to get out of here. That would be a lot easier if you stopped fighting and passed out."

"_Sh-uh' up."_ He half whimpered through clenched teeth. "An' do sumfin'."

"Please. I don't want you to feel what happens when I move your leg."

"I wone." He seethed again. "Fuckin' pain'll ham me ou'n…hap secon'."

"Odd. Your curse words come out just fine, the rest is muddled."

"_So not th'time."_

"You don't want me to knock you out?"

"Tyki, fo' th'lob ob God, mof th'God'amn rock."

"Alright, patience is not a virtue. I'll get to it."

"Gud."

The Noah knelt beside the Exorcist and leaned to inspect the damage to his leg. The slab lay over his knee, crushing it, and partly on the bones beneath it. A jagged edge of stone had cut the skin of his shin, and the numerous knife and whip marks made knowing exactly what else was wrong more difficult, but he saw what he needed to see nonetheless. Broken patella, fibula, and tibia; moving him without care would ruin it completely; letting it heal wrong would ensure that he never walked without a cane. It was too horrible. He wouldn't let that sort of thing happen. Not to Lavi.

"Move it, don't stare at it."

"Wow, that was very clear."

"Don't make me angry I'm in _pain._"

Tyki glanced at him for a moment to see if anything had changed. Lavi's head was still bent back into the wall, his eye was closed, but his breathing had evened out. Slowly in and even more slowly out, each breath calculated so he had a moment to speak without losing rhythm. Vaguely Tyki wondered where he'd learned to soothe himself like that – and also how long it would last.

"It's bad. Really bad. I don't think I can get you out without causing more pain." He reached out and sank his fingers through the stone until he found the curve of his knee, which he gently hooked his fingers around. "Will you bear with it?"

"Nope." He breathed in again and spoke on his exhalation. "You're gonna move it, I'm gonna lose concentration, and then I'm gonna pass out. I'm guessing you've got something in mind after that."

"Yes. Run like hell."

0x0x0x0

Cole dropped his ice cream after a measly three licks – all because there was suddenly a rather desperate voice in his head, calling to him specifically and no one else. It was hard to hear it when it was just for him, even more difficult now, for some reason. It wasn't that it was quiet and it wasn't as if it hurt either. There was simply another will within him, and it made his mind feel far too full to function.

'_I need you to find Lenalee-san. Tell her the plan is ruined. Tell her I will meet her outside of the Order in a day's time. Then come find me.'_

"Wh-whewe…"

'_Durnshire.'_

"I'll…b-e…"

'_Good boy.'_

The voice stopped. Cole sank to his knees on the cool pavement, his ice cream between his knees, and let his head sag against his chest. "Stupid ice cweam."

0x0x0x0

"Moyashi," Kanda said softly, shaking his lover. He found it a twinge ironic that after he had finally gotten him to shut up Allen had fallen asleep again – and snored. It wasn't a cute snore either; it was an all-out snore, the kind that belonged primarily to overweight men in their forties. "Moyashi, wake up."

Allen groaned and buried his face in Kanda's hair. "Lasagna… dango…"

Just like him to dream about food. "Moyashi-_kun_, wake up."

"Hmm…" He rolled still closer and didn't stop until his lips were pressed against the skin of Kanda's shoulder. "Yummy Kanda."

"Che. I know you're awake, stop pretending." A tongue flicked out hot and wet across his skin. Kanda rolled away, glaring. _"Moyashi!"_

Allen blinked up at him with bright silver eyes and smiled. "Salty, but still good."

Kanda fought to but did not manage to suppress his blush. "Up. Now."

"You'll have to give me ten minutes; it's kind of hard to get up after sleeping for a few hours." Allen explained gently. "Well, unless I dreamed about you, then I might wake up standing."

Kanda wondered if his face was glowing. "Stop talking and _get_ – _out _– _of_ –_ bed._"

Allen frowned. "What? Why? When you're blushing like that I just want to taste you more…"

"If you're going to be licking me you should lick a clean me. Out." Kanda gave his shoulder a little push. "And if you keep at it you might make me do something stupid."

"Ugh…"

"Now."

"Love…"

"Do you want to sleep in your room when we get back to the Order – without me?" Kanda's voice held no real threat to it, even if he wasn't smiling.

"Not specifically."

"Then move. We're getting clean. Now."

Allen scooted as slowly as he could toward the edge of the bed, but he was moving. "Can I lick you afterward? And during?"

Kanda did all he could to frown at him. "Che. If I say yes will you get out of bed faster?"

"Let's go!"

0x0x0x0x0

"Should I give you a countdown?" Tyki asked softly, moving his free hand to rest on Lavi's hip. The redhead signaled negative without opening his eyes.

"Just do it. If I expect it things will be worse."

"Alright." He gave the cold hip beneath his fingers a little squeeze, just enough to try and calm the wounded young man under his hands. Even if Lavi was calm he was getting paler as time went on, his breathing was shallow, and sweat glinted from his forehead, warning that if left to get colder he'd most likely become ill. As if to prove Tyki right his lower jaw quivered with the onset of the chills.

He needed help. More help than Tyki would be able to provide alone.

Lavi licked his lips and pulled his eyelid up once more. Things didn't look that great. From what he could see part of the floor was gone, and that not-Tyki thing the twins had made was nowhere in sight, his hatless lover was looking at him with an expression that made him feel as if he were really dying. His fingers were numb, as was his right foot, and he had the distinct feeling that no matter how hard he tried to he was not going to get the words he was thinking out of his mouth before the darkness came back again. As alert as he was it was all adrenaline. As soon as it ran out, he would be sleeping for at least two days.

"I love you." He started. "And…if we don't get out of here—" Then, when he least expected it, Tyki chose to move his leg.

The cry shook the Noah in more ways than one. It wasn't a sound fit for a person to make; it was too ragged, too harsh. The tiny hairs on the back of his head stood on end as his shaking hands pulled the limb completely away from the thing that had broke it, they shook worse when he laid it as gently as he could on the floor. The scream died out, replaced by a sound that was somewhere between sobbing and laughing, though there was no happiness in it. He didn't have time for that now, not when there was blood running down Lavi's leg and he didn't know where it was coming from.

"Lavi, if I ask you to, will you try to stay awake until we get out of here?"

The apprentice Bookman bit back a curse. Why wasn't he unconscious? Why did Tyki have to be too careful and keep him awake? When he tried to speak it was a voice that didn't have anything but air behind it. "Why?"

"Because if you don't," There was something large and warm on his battered chest, something soft. Vaguely he recognized that it was black, oddly shaped, and Tyki was missing his coat. "You might go into shock. I need you to not do that until we get you a doctor."

Lavi tried to bark out a laugh. "Then…hur…" He couldn't finish it. His voice was dead, not even a shred of sound left. He was kind of glad of it – he could groan all he wanted and never make a sound.

"I will." The Noah answered. "I swear I will."

0x0x0x0x0

**I know, it's short. Well, not EPICLY short, but still not as long as the last few. Why? Because it's plot!! That's why!!**

**And so it shall be, even if Allen decides to lick Kanda into cleanliness. XD**

**Look! Look! I see the light at the end of the dark tunnel of BAD LUCKY EXPERIENCES!**

**I think. Love for readers!!**


	66. Resolve

**Hello! Greeting ye readers of The Now Plot Heavy Fine Line, I hope you are having a splendid weekend. First off, I would like to say that this chapter is a little lighter on description – I couldn't get everything in it that I wanted AND be a description whore, so the whoring died away.**

**Secondly – I slept for about 4 hours, so if you see a mistake, tell me. And it's NOT MY FAULT!**

**Disclaimer of D'lick: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I'm sure I would have more money than I do.**

**WARNING: Licking…and touching… between boys. And a little emoness. And some gore.**

0x0x0x0

Resolve

"Allen _Baka-Moyashi _Walker."

"Hm?"

"If you do that again, I swear… I'll…"

Kanda stopped talking when he felt hands pressed into his hips, just hardly touching, and the warmness of Allen's tongue sliding delicately across the back of his neck. With a shiver he flipped his hair over his shoulder in a meek attempt to make Allen stop before he wasted his turn, but he failed. His hair didn't even get close to his lover's mouth.

Allen giggled at his reaction and rocked forward, slipping his arms around Kanda's waist and rocking them into the stream of steaming water. "If it really annoys you I'll stop."

"Che." Kanda pretended to grumble. "If it was that bad I wouldn't call you Moyashi-kun."

"Love."

"What?"

"Turn around."

The Japanese Exorcist leaned back a little into the smaller boy, and was silently amazed that Allen could lean up and rest his chin on his shoulder. It wasn't that comfortable, but it was an improvement. "Why? I'll never get all of my hair wet at this point."

"Oh come on, just turn around."

Kanda sighed and did what he was told. Allen smiled up at him for a moment, just drinking in the sight of Kanda's face beaded with little droplets of water, until he tilted up to lay his lips gently on his lover's, delicately, hardly more than a brush. He felt Kanda part for him, a little, but he didn't take the invitation. Instead he touched each lip with his tongue softly and drew away, satisfied with the stunned expression his actions got him.

"What was that for?" Kanda ask with an air of seriousness that only served to make him look flustered.

"Nothing. Just…" He shrugged. "Felt like it."

_Well, if you ever feel like doing it again, warn me so I don't pin you._ Kanda thought but didn't say. It seemed that Allen was back to his normal, happy, horny self, and as a result Kanda would have to suffer through invitation after invitation, and he was going to accept none of them until they were across the sea and fed. It was getting harder though. Harder to say no, harder not to touch, and _much_ harder not to respond to the little things that made him feel like it was now or never. And if he kept looking at his half-soaking lover in the steam, things were only going to get worse.

"Moyashi, can I ask you something?"

"Ha." Allen faked a laugh as he took a gentle hold on Kanda's hands and guided him away from the water, replacing the empty space with himself. "Sure."

Kanda's eyes became interested in the tops of his feet. "Che… can you… not test my self control… until we're in China?" He shifted back and forth, not looking at the adorable expression he knew Allen was making. "I love you, but I don't want to do anything until you've been fed well. Besides... I have some things in mind…" He trailed off, not willing to go on. It was too embarrassing to say that he was weak enough to be under minded by Allen's seductiveness.

"Well, Love," Allen cooed up at him. "Can I still kiss you? And… put my hands on you?" He leaned closer, laying his palms on the taller man's shoulders. "And..." His hands slid downward, careful not to miss his nipples, until they came to Kanda's hips. "Lick – you?"

The Japanese man stood in stark silence for a moment, fighting himself. Could he pounce now and still get away with topping when he really wanted to? Was it even worth the risk? And what would Allen do when it happened? After a moment of contemplation an interesting thought crossed his mind. _Hell Yuu,_ He thought at last. _If he wants to be like that, he deserves it._ Even as he thought it the British boy ran his tongue over the skin of Kanda's throat, making every muscle in his shoulders tense. The next thing Allen knew his wrists were captured in a pair of strong hands and he was pressed backward the three steps that were needed to place his back against the wall. They were both out of the water, and the large, communal expanse gave them a clear wall with no knobs to back into. That did not, however, make the contact of cold tile against his back any less shocking.

"I swear you don't know what's good for you." Kanda husked at him before closing his teeth on the sensitive skin of his neck. Allen squirmed against him as a shocked gasp broke through his lips. He loved that sound. He sucked lightly, rubbed his tongue over the place even as he bruised it, reveling in the completely ridiculous way Allen tried to fight him. Was he really going to stop when everything he said had that needy, panting quality to it? No. He was going to keep doing it until Allen couldn't stand on his own anymore and then he was going to walk away, because he _was not_ going to do that until they got to China. It was mean, it was low, but what did he care? It was perfect.

"Love…" Allen clenched his hands and wiggled his arms back and forth, weakly trying to get free. Some part of him – a large part – liked this, but the rest was thinking that these showers were communal. At any moment some other man could walk in and find them, two young men in a priesthood, necking like there was no tomorrow. The idea was not pleasant, but the danger made his head spin. _"Stop… _or_… don't…_" He moaned, moving his head to the side to give Kanda better access. "I'm… going to have matching love marks…"

_No shit._ Kanda thought as his lips migrated to the next inch of flesh that required biting. _And I hope you have a hard-on when I'm finished. I'll teach you to seduce me when I ask you not to…_

A sensitive lick rewarded him with a long groan of impatience. He felt Allen's knees buckle. _Almost…_

"God Love, if you don't _stop_… we'll… I'll have to…" Another gasp and his legs gave out for a moment; he stopped himself before he could slide too far. _"Please_…please…"

"Please what, Moyashi?" Kanda asked, pulling away from his lover's neck to look at his lust glazed eyes. "Stop? Or touch you more?"

For a moment Allen gasped and pouted, unable to answer. "Touch me…more?"

That's what Kanda had wanted to hear.

And what Cross had not.

The General had been tired out from his counseling session with Hiro and had decided there was no better way to unwind than a hot shower, a bottle of wine, and the nearest willing pair of legs. The first on that list had been something he was looking forward to – until he spotted the Japanese Exorcist restraining his pupil and exploring the curve of his neck with his teeth. That was new. As far as he knew Allen had always been annoyed and adverse to the women who asked Cross to do that very thing – hold them down – and yet there he was, enjoying the pastime himself. How ironic.

He had heard the last exchange though, and he thought it was odd. If the words were right it meant the older boy-woman was doing what Allen wanted – but if they were said for the reason of having the opposite done…

It was better to be safe than sorry.

"Che." Kanda grinned at his near-victim with hunger in his eyes before capturing his lips one last time. One good, long, promising kiss and then he was out of here. The way Allen's lips parted under his let him know that he was invited, wanted, and he thought about _not_ being mean for that reason, but it was too little too late. When they did sleep together again, it was going to be on his terms.

Allen, on the other hand, was enjoying himself. Even if Kanda walked away from him and went back to showering he would try his damnedest to crack him before they got to China. He had his ways too. He brought his left arm forward, fighting Kanda's strength, and eventually got it to the other man's shoulder, which he took a firm hold off. He deepened the kiss, relishing in it, fighting a moan of pleasure. He was winning. He was winning and he knew it.

And then Kanda's teeth bashed violently into his, cutting his lips and smashing his head momentarily into the wall. Shock brought his eyes open, fear made his heart suddenly race in his chest. It felt like an eternity for the lips against his to fall away, the hands went limp against his wrists, and Kanda fell forward into him. It was only a fast reaction that kept the Japanese man from falling to the floor.

Behind him, the red haired explanation smiled at his disciple.

"Ma-Master!? Wha-why-wha…" He didn't have interrogatives. "What the Hell did you do that for!?" He got out at last. "I was enjoying myself you ass! What's wrong with you?!"

Cross shrugged indifferently. "It looked to me like you weren't enjoying yourself. I see now that I was wrong." He straightened his coat – which he had not taken off because he always checked to see if there was anyone in the bath before deciding if it was safe to bring in a glass of wine – and raised an eyebrow at the blushing boy before him. "Careful with that tongue of yours kid, you keep it up and I'll have to make my authority known."

Allen's eyes narrowed. He had had enough. The younger years of his life hadn't been that fantastic because of this man, he had knocked out his lover indirectly once, directly another time, and now he was threatening him. Allen found himself as angry and daring as a naked person could be without feeling ridiculous.

"I don't care what you do to me – or try – I need to make one thing clear, or maybe two. Kanda would never hurt me. And if you keep this up…if you keep hurting him, being rude, getting between us, I will never pay your bills again. No poker. No dancing. No begging. No singing. I don't care."

Cross blinked at him. "Right." He shrugged and turned away. "So much for a shower… hmm… legs…"

Allen glared at the back of his head and shifted Kanda's limb body in his arms. "I'm not kidding!" He yelled. _"I won't pay your bills!"_

The General chuckled under his breath as he reached the door, a small smile paying on his lips. _Yes you will. Every last one of them._

0x0x0x0

"Stay with me, you can do it. Stay with me."

How many times had he said those words? He didn't know. And how long had it been since Lavi hadn't had the strength to twitch in answer? He didn't know that either. He knew, however, that he was less than a room away from the ark and the dead run he was traveling at didn't seem fast enough. They passed through walls without pause, his feet didn't even touch the ground before he was pushing off again, moving faster than he ever had before.

There was no time.

He moved through the last wall, pulling the boy in his arms closer to his chest. He could see it, right there in front of him, and he made for it. No more obstacles. Just him, the ark, and freedom.

But, unfortunately, from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of purple and black striped stockings and a pair of shiny Mary Janes. His feet slowed of their own volition not three steps from where he wanted to be and he turned to face their girl who had caused this to happen. She was standing in the doorway, lollipop in hand, large eyes blinking at him as if she did not quite understand what was happening. It wasn't a large room, but the space between them was wide enough for her to miss the glimmer of tears in his eyes.

"What…" She started, but the question hung open in the air, filling the space between them. Her eyes recognized that this was Tyki, her sibling, and the boy in his arms was the one she was just going to see, but what she didn't understand was the look on his face. Pain. Impossible pain. And anger. "What…" For a second time the question remained unfinished. Her voice rang through the near empty room like a struck bell, making the man's eyes narrow.

"I trusted you." He said at last. "And you betrayed me."

"He's just an Exo—"

"You bitch." He spat at her, cutting off her protest, not really caring what it was. She could see the tears burning in his eyes now, and the blood dripping from his hands. He hadn't kept it off of his clothes or himself, he had accepted it, and now he was nearly covered. She felt herself cringe. "How could you do this to me? We had an arrangement! I told you… I told you that I _loved_ him. Did you think I was lying? Or do you simply not understand what it is to love?"

"You loved humans before! We killed them everyday and you loved them!"

"You're _wrong_." His voice cracked on the word. "I loved them with half of myself. I loved them because I was one of them. I loved them because they are weak! Not him. Not Lavi. He isn't like me. He's better than me. I can… I…" He faltered for the first time since starting when his mentality resurfaced again in that way that it had before – that way that let him be violent and protective at once. It was a strange feeling, so his words paused when he felt the change come over him, like a black wave from the depths of his soul it engulfed him, but it didn't swallow him up. There was still his will. _"I can love him with all of myself."_

Rhode blinked at him. The Noah of Pleasure, it seemed, had started to wake himself for this… boy. That was interesting. But even if it were true it hurt to see this happen. They were siblings, after all. "If you leave here… you can't come back."

He nodded at her but the motion had no fear or regret in it. He wanted this. He wanted it and she was not going to stop him.

Even if she could she wouldn't. If he was waking, things would work out on their own.

"I don't want to come back." He said quietly. "Not to a betrayer like you."

He took the three steps he needed to go and she watched, silently amazed at how fast it happened. She had known Tyki for so long, seen him turn into the man he was, watched him fall, and somehow, knowing all of it kind of made her wish that he had tried to kill her. If that had happened – if he had lost his dark side entirely – she would not have to wonder when she would see him again. Or if she would need to kill him.

"Who is the betrayer, Tyki Mikk?" She whispered into the empty room. Her voice bouncing from the walls and coming back to her in a lonely echo was the only answer she got, a hollow version of what it had started as. "You should take a closer look at yourself before you start talking about them like something you hate."

0x0x0x0x0

The world was almost silent but for when the man who held him spoke, then it seemed like it was being torn apart by it. Everything hurt. Everything vibrated. He could feel that it was half his body's fault, tremors had started in ever limb and his jaw refused to set still; it was getting harder and harder to know when he was breathing and when he was drifting completely out of consciousness. This was bad. Very bad.

Lavi tried to form thoughts in his head, to give some response to the one long production of sound that his lover had made since picking him up, but it didn't want to work. Nothing worked. Not his voice or his hands or his eye would do what he told them no matter how hard he mentally screamed at them to function. It was annoying.

_Damn it, moan or something._ He thought after an especially long moment of speech against his skull. _Twitch! Sigh! Move!_ His heartbeat a little more quickly and he managed to sneak his eyelid open a crack. He was surprised to see bright light, like a summer day, and his lover's tear stained face not looking at him. He couldn't make out details or where they were or anything important, the buzzing of his skin would have made it hard to comprehend it if he could have.

'_Stay with me, Lavi.'_ Tyki's mouth said in rhythm with the humming in his ear. _'Stay with me.'_

_I'm trying._ He thought back. _I really am_._ But… I don't think… I have much longer._

0x0x0x0

Cole had spent perhaps a total of two minutes mourning the loss of his treat before Tyki's words willed him to get a move on. He had run blindly, trying to remember where that sad inn had been, dark hair blinding him when it flailed into his eyes. He knew he would be faster if he took the shape he was on the inside but he chose not to – if he was caught before he could get his mission finished, if he was noticed and killed, what would happen to that nice redhead he had talked to briefly and come to enjoy? He didn't know how to think about it.

His feet made loud clomping sounds as he went, pounding on the ground with a harshness that would have alerted any number of people to his presence. He recognized the street now and the knowledge made me go faster. He could see the inn at the end of the street and just outside the door a man in an Exorcist's jacket.

_He'll know where to find Lenalee!_ He thought in triumph. He slowed to a jog as he wheezed to a halt just short of the inn's steps, sweat soaking his red shirt. It wasn't as cold as it had been, and even if it was it didn't matter, he was over heating himself with all of this travel. His breathed wheezed as he tried to call to the dark haired Exorcist.

"Excuse me!" He yelled with a wave. The man looked at him and the strip of white hair at the front of his face gave an odd little twitch that didn't have to do with the wind. "Sir! Exowcist! I know it might seem a little odd, but could you point me to—_ugh!_" Before he could finish the sentence he found himself suddenly grabbed by the shirt collar and flung into a wall hard enough to dent it. He blinked teary eyes at the dark haired man who had moved against him, fingernails cutting the flesh under his shirt, fangs just inches from his neck. "Wait! Please! I know I'm an akuma! But plea—"

Crowley reigned himself in for a moment, teeth still extended. He could smell the blood in the boy and the scent made his mouth ache to bite him, even here, outside of an inn where someone might see. As long as they had been here there had been no akuma and no Innocence – he was dying for blood. When he spoke his words were shaped oddly from his fangs, his tambour nothing more a growl. "Was there something you wanted before I destroyed you?"

"Yes… please…let me see Lenalee-san! Please!" Cole's heart was pounding in his little chest, fear making him shake. He could feel tears starting in his eyes that he did not want to shed. "I need to see her… I need to tell her…"

"Lenalee's the target then." Crowley smirked at the little demon, unhindered by the tears. Too many times he had fallen victim to those sad faced people and their pitiful pleas – an akuma was stupid to think they would work on him anymore. "I will have to warn her."

Cole tensed when fangs punctured the skin of his neck. "No…"

_I want to fight him… I want to stop him… but Tyki said…_

The world was getting fuzzy. Innocence really did kill quickly. "Please… tell her that… Duwnshiwe… Tyki Mikk… in Duwnshiwe… Lavi…"

Crowley pulled away and took the boy by the shoulders, lifting him yet farther from the ground so he could look the boy-akuma in the eyes. He had heard Lavi's name – that was enough to draw his attention away from the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "What about Lavi-kun?" As he asked the creature's head lolled to the side, eyes distant. Even without him sucking brown blood was oozing down Cole's shoulder and soaking into his crimson shirt. Crowley shook him. "What do you know about Lavi-kun?"

"He's…Duwnshiwe…outside…Owdew… day's time…" Cole couldn't think anymore, it was too late. He was going to die here. He had to say enough to make it safe. "I'm… sowwy…I was…supposed to…fix 'im. I was supposed… t'be…" _Good._ His mind finished. The tears escaped down his cheeks and he blinked at the man who had done this to him, a small smile coming to his tiny lips. "Buh it's ok." He mumbled. "B'cause I tol' you. Duwnshiwe now. Owdew in a day. Fin' 'im thewe… fin' 'im…" He felt himself falling away, breaking, but he didn't care. He had done what he meant to. "So…so sowwy…"

Crowley stared in stark terror as the little akuma disintegrated in his hands. The akuma-boy had known. He had known where to find Lavi. And Crowley had slain him out of bloodlust and his defensive nature. But it was not all a loss. Lavi was in Durnshire for the moment, and he would be outside of Order in a day's time. That was a two day window they had been given. A window that was most likely a trap.

He dropped the dust filled clothing from his hands and scowled at them, the swath of hair that had taken to standing on his forehead fell down to his eyes. As he turned away a strange, horrible thought filled his mind. The akuma had cried.

So had Eliade.

0x0x0x0

Tyki stumbled through the streets of Durnshire with his burden shivering non-stop against him, his blood slicked hands growing tired from holding still so long. He knew where he was going and he told his feet to get them there as quickly as they could – he didn't care how many people saw or asked questions or wondered how he got to town – Lavi was more important.

The nearest medical facility was on Main Street. The street was relatively busy now that it was a few hours after noon, but the sea of people parted when they saw the state of the young man in his arms, though none stopped to help. He pressed the front door of the establishment inward with his shoulder and slid in as quickly and quietly as he could, hoping that Lavi's state would be enough to get the attention of whoever was watching the door.

There was a desk in the middle of the large first room and a wide hall that went off of it, chairs filled the first half of the room that were more than three-forth's empty, and no one looked as sever as his lover did. The man behind the desk stood at once, crossing the distance between them with a curious, scared look on his face, skin white. He was new to this, Tyki could tell.

"What happened?" Tyki didn't pay attention to what the man looked like beyond his pallor, but he was aware that the man had to push his glasses up on his nose to keep them on.

"I don't know." He lied. "I just found him like this…his leg's been crushed… and the lacerations…" He bit his lip. "Help."

"Yes. Bring him back this way." The man guided him down the wide hall, the yellow-white tiles made loud clicking sounds under his feet. He pointed a long arm toward an empty room and an empty, white sheeted bed. "You can put him in there – Gloria! Gloria! Get Doctor Bennett! _NOW!_"

Tyki wandered into the room that had been provided and turned away from the shouting man. Gently he laid Lavi on the white sheeted bed – a bed that looked to more of a table than anything else. His coat fell away from him and the bright white light over head made the wounds on Lavi's chest shine like lines of rubies against his too pale skin; Tyki could plainly see the shaking rise and fall of his ribcage, and the slight hitch when he laid him softly on the hard surface. Lavi uncurled without hindrance, but his eye opened enough for Tyki to see that despite his unresponsiveness he was aware of what was going on around him.

When the older man pulled his arms away Lavi's shaking increased. The air on his lips hissed with every breath. A nurse came in hurriedly, saying everything and nothing as she did, and turned her attention back and forth between the standing, forlorn looking man, and the younger one on the table. Tyki didn't care if she was watching, or if she was asking him if he was wounded, or if she was asking him if he knew anything about Lavi's injuries, all he cared about was the eye that looked up at him and slowly filled with tears.

"Don't cry…" He said, softly bringing his palm to the right side of Lavi's face. "Please… don't cry…" With his right hand he straightened his jacket in a way that covered more of his lover. "You are safe now. Once we are done here I will take you back to the Order. If I can find Lenalee I will give you to her and hide, otherwise…I will take you there myself." The tears welled up and spilled down the side of Lavi's face, hardly missing the angry red knife mark across his cheek.

Tyki knew that if he could speak at that moment, he would have argued.

"I'm sorry." He whispered, running his thumb over the old scab that had formed on his forehead. "I love you."

That single emerald blinked closed with enough force to dislodge the moisture that had gathered beneath the lid. He brought it open again and his lips parted ever so little, his gaze never leaving Tyki. The Noah leaned down, still ignoring the woman who had gone so far as to lay a hand gently on his shoulder, and held his ear just above Lavi's lips.

The words were less than sound when he heard them, just the click of his tongue on his teeth. _"Love…you…"_ He breathed in a throat that did not particularly enjoy the pastime. _"S-stay…"_

The word almost made him cry. "If they make me leave you, _amante_, I will sleep in the hall tonight and check you as soon as they let me." He saw the eye smile at him for a moment before it blinked closed again, this time without opening again, and laid his lips softly on Lavi's forehead. He would stay forever if he had to. Maybe longer. He could tell by the sudden raggedness of his breathing Lavi had lost his concentration, or simply passed out, in either case the shivers that ran through him increased for a second time.

"Sir," The nurse persisted. "Are you hurt at all?"

He shook his head and attempted to wipe the tears from his eyes with hands too red with blood to do much. "But I'd like to stay with him."

She nodded and guided him to the corner of the room to wait. He stood in silence while a tall, wide man came in, two nurses and the man from the front desk behind him, face serious, large hands gloved and ready. He had round, kind eyes, a smooth face, but stood head and shoulder over his companions, seemingly prepared for the worst. When those eyes of his – which were the color of sea water – fell on the redhead's form they widened in comprehension. He turned to each of his assistance and assigned them orders, but the man from before worked only as his shadow, watching everything he did even when he did nothing.

Tyki could only observe as the two women set about washing and numbing and stitching while the doctor turned his attention to Lavi's leg. The pants were cut away quickly, revealing cuts and bruises that Tyki didn't even know where there, each one bleeding a bit more life onto the white sheet beneath him. It hurt to see. It sickened him.

A flurry of anger erupted in his chest and threatened to consume him. Rhode. She had done this to him whether she had touched him or not. She deserved nothing short of having the same done to her twice over.

"Gloria, warm a blanket and bring it in." The doctor spoke to the dark haired nurse, frowning all the while. "Sir," He said to Tyki, without moving his eyes. "How did you say this happened?"

Tyki licked his lips before answering. "I… I'm not sure. But I think something heavy might have fallen on him."

The doctor nodded, feeling the bones through Lavi's skin with a strange expression. "I think you're right. Lucky young man, nothing is crooked. If all of these wounds are superficial and he does not go into shock… he will live. And walk." He finished. Gloria scampered back into the room and removed the bloodied coat from his chest, threw a light blanket over him, leaving the worst gashes on his face shoulders uncovered. "Knives… and… perhaps a whip? Do you know him personally?"

Tyki blinked and nodded. He found it odd that the doctor could work and talk at the same time, but he wasn't going to argue with his methods. Not now, at least. "Well."

"Then you wouldn't happen to know what someone could gain by torturing him to death, would you?"

The question was not a question, it was an accusation. He did not want to be accused. "He is an Exorcist with the Black Order. I am his colleague. Your guess is as good as mine as to who would do this to him." The lies came easily now, when they mattered, when they were more truth than fiction. "I would assume it was someone unfriendly though."

"Hmm…" The doctor seemed to mull over his answer, thinking. "No emblems."

Tyki narrowed his eyes and turned to the woman beside him with an idea building in his mind. "Hold out your clipboard."

"What?" She fumbled for a moment as if she had expected him to forget that she was there.

"Hold it out at arms length."

After a moment and a glance at the doctor, she did as she was told. Without thinking too much about the consequences, Tyki reached out and slid his hand through the paper and the metal to the wrist, still looking at the man who was paying far too little attention to his lover. "Is there any more proof that you need?"

The woman squawked in surprise and dropped the clipboard. It fell through his arm, landing on the floor with a clatter.

"No." Doctor Bennett said with a sureness befitting a man who had seen a miracle. "I am sorry. Please, refresh yourself as best you can, you can see your comrade again when we are finished."

Tyki nodded. He turned back to the woman and knelt to retrieve her abandoned item, a small smile on his face when she leaned back as far as she could before taking it out of his hands. "Well Miss…" He read her nametag and smiled, "Jessica. Care to show me to the facilities?"

"Ugh…ri-right this way…"

0x0x0x0x0

Everything felt like it was miles away, happening to someone else, felt through a void. Everything but the light shining in his eye. Everything but the vague pain in his leg. Everything but the fingers twined through his. So really, everything was right there, only it wasn't.

"Should we wake him? Visiting hours are long over."

"Naw, leave 'im. Ain't hurtin' anythin' bein' there. 'Sides, they're cute."

"Yeah… Come on. We don't want to wake them." He heard footsteps and slowly blinked his eye open, brilliant hospital lights at once making him wish that he hadn't. "Wait, wait! He's awake!"

He grimaced a little, closing his eye again only to blink twice more before he had it comfortable. Feeling was back. And slowly, so were the memories.

He had been with the Noahs. Some horrible things had happened that he didn't want to think about. And then Tyki had saved him. Saved him from what would have been the worst day of his life. So where was he know? He vaguely remembered a confession of love, buzzing in his bones, a hand on his face, crying… it was all out of order – it was all…

"Hey!" There was a face leaning over him, too close after what had happened. He instinctually pressed himself back into his pillow to get away but stopped himself when he saw the nurse's hat pinned on top of a bed of curly red hair, a sprinkling of freckles over a long nose and wide, crystal clear eyes that reminded him of a summer sky. "Whatchya jumpin' for, I ain't gonna bite ya."

"You're too close Marlette, think of what the guy's been through…"

The face, Marlette's face, broke into a smile as she leaned back. "Sorry. You've been out f'hours! When Ophelia saw ya wakin' I had t'ask what happened."

"Sh… not so loud…"

"Sorry."

Lavi felt the corners of his mouth rise at her and his fingers closed more tightly on those in his hand. He knew they were Tyki's even if he hadn't lifted his head to see. He opened his mouth a little and spoke in a voice that was still too rough to be his own. "A ceiling… fell on me."

"Well I'll be damned." Marlette smiled. "Here I thought it hadda been muggers… aw well. Git better Sweetums – hate ta see a cutie like you bite the dust."

He grinned at her, felt his face protest beneath the heavy bandage that covered the left side of his cheek. "I will." She gave a little nod and took the other nurse – Ophelia – who he hadn't seen, by the hand and started out of the room, closing the door behind them. He sighed and let his eye fall closed, encouraging his neck to relax against his pillow. He was tired, but that didn't stop him from grinning to himself, and softly, just for the sake of it, muttering, _"Strike!"_

"How are you feeling?" Tyki – who he had assumed to be sleeping – asked from his side.

He looked as far as he could to the right without moving his head and caught sight of Tyki's hair, but nothing else. "Lemme see you." He husked without answer. He felt the hand in his tighten when the Noah stood up and leaned closer, but not too close, his dark eyes deep with concern and sleepiness. Lavi squeezed his hand and gave a lopsided look of appreciation. He didn't know how terrible it looked on a face so haggard. "Good. Now kiss me. Please."

Tyki leaned down and gently brushed their lips together, taking his free hand to touch his lover's hair. He broke away before they could do anything dramatic – he did not want to break into tears from thinking the things the contact made him think. So instead he pulled away and let his fingers wander back and forth, his expression vague. "Now will you answer?"

"Yeah. I feel like I was beaten for six hours and then I had a ceiling fall on me." He grinned at the look that got him. "My throat hurts…"

"You screamed yourself hoarse. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't speak properly for a few days." He lowered himself so that one knee rested on the cold tile floor and the rest of him leaned across the mattress, his head in the perfect place to sleep if he dropped it. "I suggest speaking less, if you want it to come back faster."

Lavi barked out a laugh and the hand in his hair slid down the side of his face and across his slightly clothed and covered chest until it came to his stomach. As it moved Tyki's head turned to the side and landed on the covers next to his hip, eyes hooded, mouth gaping in a yawn. Lavi worked his hand free so he could run it through Tyki's hair before letting it go back again, perfectly content.

"Can we sleep like this?" He asked softly.

"Does my hand hurt you sitting there?"

"Nope. I can hardly feel my skin."

"Then yes." Tyki half-smiled. "We can."

"You could get up here…"

"Don't even try it. You know as well as I do that your leg is broken."

Lavi seemed to sag again the mattress at that. "Ok. Then…we'll have to talk in the morning. You look way too tired for anything serious."

"Hm," His blinks were slow and separated, as if he were having trouble keeping them open. "Nice of you to notice."

"Did you wear yourself out?"

"It's hard… being two people at once. But you make me do it. You make me…" His eyes drifted shut and his fingers grew a little looser as he sighed. "Whole."

The apprentice Bookman smiled as he struggled to move his left hand to the palm on his stomach and cover it with his own. Such simple things felt like more work that they should have been. "If I didn't, I wouldn't be fit to love you."

0x0x0x0

**I'm sorry that I killed him! I am! But… but… but…**

**I am an evil authoress and it had to happen for the sake of the plot. QQ**

**AND! Thank you all for reading! And for those of you who read for the smut… no worries. They will be in China eventually XD**


	67. Want

By the time dinner came around Kanda had blinked his eyes open, but the swelling of Allen's lips hadn't gone down

**Ok. Longishness. I'll make it fast.**

**Outcast – I'm really sad that Cole had to die too! But I did describe him in Chapter 55, Promises. I also tried to send you a more detailed description knowing that I wouldn't have time to cover his looks again before he died. I guess it didn't work.**

**Ok! And now, ON with the fic!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gra-man. If I did… it would be a lot more like that doujin I read the other day XD**

**WARNING: Implied man-lovin'. And again… plot movement. Also, taking some liberties with the Earls powers. Sorry if I'm wrong.**

0x0x0x0x0

Want

By the time the galley closed for the night Kanda blinked his eyes open, but the swelling of Allen's lips hadn't gone down. The swelling was partly Allen's fault – he hadn't been too careful about devouring his late lunch and he had been even less so with his early dinner. Partly he had wanted to be there when his lover recovered, but mostly he had simply been hungry.

But, when those sapphire eyes opened to in the dim light, he was thankful that he had rushed through it all, especially when Kanda grimaced at the bed above him. Without thinking about it too much Allen slid himself closer, twining his arms around the older boy's chest and scooting beneath the arm that was offered. He curled close, sighing into Kanda.

"How long was I out for?" He asked softly, squeezing his eyes shut before opening them again at the silver haired boy in his arms. His head felt like a he'd been hit in the back of it with a bat, or kicked with too much enthusiasm, or Lavi had missed with his hammer. That last thought made him frown. "And what the Hell got me?"

"Master got you. He hit you in the back of the head with his gun when he thought… when he _assumed_ that you were touching me against my will. I _hate_ him sometimes. And you've been out for… a while. I was worried." His eyes caught his lovers and stayed there, watching him as if expecting something to happen. Kanda simply frowned with his eyebrows in a feeble attempt to appear pain-free. It was a lie, his head hurt worse than he could ever remember, though the pain was quickly fading. Allen tilted up a little and gently kissed his lips, without lust or yearning, and looked at him as if expecting an explanation."

"Che. What?"

"How come it took so long… for you to wake up?"

Kanda's frown melted into an expression akin to fear. He wouldn't lie about this, not when Allen was looking at him with eyes filled with worry. "Life force isn't replaceable. I've died enough that little wounds like that don't take priority – I recover faster than normal, but slower than I did before."

"So… you're dying?"

"_No, baka."_ He let himself half-smile at Allen, even if the expression was hardly fitting. "Maybe just nearing the end of a petal."

"How many is that?"

"When it's gone, three."

"Good. Plenty of time to call it quits before you kick the bucket." But even as he said it he blinked slowly up at him as if he didn't belief it was true.

Kanda reached over to pet the snow white bangs away from Allen's forehead, seeing how tired he was, how deprived of nourishment. He remembered the boat to Sweden how weak he had been and thanked heaven the trip wasn't going to be that long, he'd kill the cook if it was. "Che. Don't pout at me, Moyashi, you make me think there's something else."

Slowly, the British boy nodded. "I… brought you dinner but… I ate it." He said in dismay. "I didn't mean to! I was just hungry and your plate was next to mine and I got carried away and I swear I'll be more careful next time. It wasn't even something you'd like, I'm sure. Not that I remember what it was. But still! I really didn't mean to eat it…"

Kanda laughed at him before playfully running his hand down the side of his face to his shoulder. Allen didn't even flinch when he rolled sideways to throw a leg over his hips so he could straddle Allen's stomach, in fact the small boy's expression went from sleepy to hopeful. "I'll forgive you if you let me tie your hands behind your back and do whatever I wish."

"Ka-Kanda I don't think you've ever been that straight forward before." Allen gaped. A blush was on his face and his hands found their way to his lover's stomach, rested there as he thought about it. "Why? What do you want to do?"

The Japanese man grinned. "If I told you, the deal would be pointless. Agree or I'll just have to wrestle you into submission."

"As if you could."

"Want to try it?"

"No." Allen answered at once. He sighed, trying to imagine what Kanda had in mind and finding himself perfectly incapable of reading his face. He had gone back into stoic mode – a mode that Allen had not seen for a while. But at the same time there were hands gently touching his, soothing him in a way that old Kanda never would, in a way that made him feel safe. A way that made him feel guilty for doubting. He nodded.

The creepy smile that spread across his lover's lips started to make him regret the decision but Kanda spoke before he could say a word about it. "Stay here, Moyashi-kun, I'll get rope." He leaned down and pecked Allen on the lips, squeezing his hands, smiling. "I love you. Breathe."

He smiled up at Kanda and kissed him back, longer, drawing his hands back with Kanda's caught within them until they touched his chest. He held them there for a moment until the kiss broke. "Ok, Love. Don't get lost."

"Che. Only you would."

0x0x0x0

"Hito." Sable spoke from her place on the top bunk, not really reading the book in her hands.

"Hm?"

"What do you want to do with your life?"

"What?"

Sable sighed and let her book fall onto her face like she always did when she was talking to someone instead of training. "I mean, your mom's been thinking about the family line a lot, and I'd hate to screw up whatever you have planned."

"Sable-chan—"

"I mean really. I'm part Noah, I'm a mutt, I'm pretty much the mouthiest person I know, and if – way down the line – we _did_ get married and have children and all that jazz, you'd never know if I bit the dust. I'd just vanish and never come home. You can't want that for yourself." She sighed against the pages on her face and closed her eyes, trying to say it all evenly, logically, without feeling a thing. "I can't want that for you."

Sable gasped when the book was pulled off of her face by a hand that wasn't hers, her green eyes went wide when she found him looking down at her, standing on the bottom bunk, gray gaze shining. He hadn't made a sound getting there. She stared at him, not moving her hands from either side of her head where they had landed upon abandoning her reading material, and waited for him to say something.

He didn't speak. He looked at her for a moment, eyes drifting over her features until the came to her eyes where they paused. "I don't care about heritage and I don't care about Noah – and anyone can die, Sable. I can die, you can die, Okaasan can die, it's a risk we take in living. If you think that's going to stop me, you are lying to yourself." He leaned forward over the edge of the mattress until his face was only inches from hers – the lack of fear in his eyes rendered her speechless. "What I care about, is you."

"Hito…"

"Shush…"

"Hi—" He cut her off by kissing her softly on the lips, chastely, cutely, hurriedly. But that little bit of contact left her lips tingling. He pulled back and swallowed hard, fear sinking in at last.

After a moment he blushed deeply and blithered out a single, half recognizable word, "S-sorry." He turned away.

Sable felt herself smile at him and reached out take him but the shirt collar before he could step down, because she wasn't going let him move away after that. She wasn't going to let him go. She wasn't going to pretend that she didn't feel anything when he did that. Not anymore. She had made that mistake with Lavi; she wasn't going to make it with Hito too. She pulled him into a fearless kiss that shocked his eyes open for a moment before he realized what was happening. Hito floundered for a moment, unsure what do with his mouth or hands until she prompted him to part his lips just a little and he felt her softly touch his tongue with hers.

Hitori thought he was going to die.

When Sable pulled away she could see the stunned expression on his face, the blush on his cheeks, and the happiness in his eyes. It made her giggle.

"Teach me." He stated baldly.

"What?" She was taken aback so much that she hardly noticed her book dropping on the mattress so that it closed. He was only vaguely aware of how the Japanese boy's hands closed on the edge of the bed, ready to pull him up.

"Teach me how to kiss you."

0x0x0x0

It was well past midnight when Kanda came back frowning and empty handed. He didn't let the lack of rope on this ship bother him overly much – he had simply hoped that he would have to use a belt in case Allen broke it. Because he was going to want to break it when he was done with him, he was sure of it.

After all, he still had that one trick up his sleeve.

Allen pushed himself from the mattress when Kanda came silently in and looked at him with round expectant eyes, searching for whatever he had brought back with him. He felt his face fall when he saw empty hands.

"You didn't find any." He said flatly.

"Che. It doesn't mater." His lover answered as his hands fell to his belt and started unbuckling it, dark eyes shining in the gloom. "Off with your shirt, Moyashi."

Allen blinked at him in disbelief even as he started pulling his buttons open, eyes never wandering. He thought it odd that Kanda would do this after what had happened in the shower. And with a belt? Hadn't he been patient enough? Or maybe, just maybe, Kanda was coming out of his shell and finally telling him the one thing that he couldn't say before? Was it bondage? "Love, aren't you a little eager after what you said earlier? I won't argue with you, but it's kind of confusing. I don't know if you're trying to distract me from something else or what." By the time he was finished speaking he had his shirt undone and hanging off his shoulders while Kanda stood two steps in front of him, belt in hand, not smiling. He looked up at the Japanese Exorcist with an expression he hoped was trusting. "So… is there anything… bothering you?"

Kanda shook his head and touched the side of Allen's face with his free palm, smiling at his innocence. "If there was something bothering me I wouldn't want to do this."

"Right. You'd be walking away brooding. Like normal."

"Moyashi, give me more credit than that."

"It is hard to when you confuse me. Promise me you are not doing this because of something I did."

"Something you did?" Kanda hoped Allen hadn't figured it out.

"Yes. Tell me you aren't doing this because I broke your determination."

Kanda licked his lips and tried to find the right words. It was obvious what Allen thought and it kind of hurt a little to realize just how off the mark he was. So he sighed and sank down on the bed beside him, sliding his free hand down the boy's neck and across his shoulder, divesting him as he went. With a tenderness he hardly showed Allen's neck he kissed his flesh, pulling him closer when he reached the curve of his throat. He heard a caught moan and stopped what he was doing to look at Allen's face, a small smile playing on his lips.

"I am not doing this because you broke my determination." _I'm doing it to teach you not to try to._

Allen face broke in a bright, relieved smile. "Good. So…" His brushed his shirt the rest of the way off and dropped in a small heap next to the bed. "Did you want me supine or prone?"

0x0x0x0

It was always the same kind of bright in the hospital, so when Lavi woke at the sound of the door opening and closing he didn't know if it was morning or night. What he did know was that Tyki's hands were still in his, comfortingly, solid, and the sound of something being set on the bedside table made his fingers close more tightly before he could will himself calm. He knew the symptoms of a traumatic experience and observed a few in himself, an observation that made him slightly fearful. The last thing he needed as an Exorcist was to be afraid of loud noises and knives, that was for sure.

To make matters someone worse for his opinion of his mental state, the bedside table was on his left whereas Tyki was on his right. Having not heard the footsteps that brought the person there made him feel entirely too vulnerable.

When a hand touched the wounded side of his face all thoughts of not being scared went out the window. His eye flicked open without him thinking about it, his heart gave a flutter in his chest until he realized it was a dark haired nurse leaning over him, eyes serious, fingers still.

"Sorry." She said in a heavy whisper. "I wanted to change the bad ones before the midnight shift switch; I didn't mean to wake you." Her voice, even when she was whispering, was one that he remembered belonged to Ophelia and somehow the name seemed to fit her face, though he couldn't tell how. She was all harsh angles and lines not too thin, just lithe, and the way she looked at him with owl-like eyes made him think that she never slept, or at least never got tired. "I'll make it quick so you can get back to sleep."

He nodded and her fingers peeled the bandage off delicately, making him wince. He could see a line of gore on the once perfectly white gauze, but it wasn't all blood. His face was healing. Vaguely he wondered if it was going to scar.

After a moment she spoke again, this time a little more loudly. "Might go faster if we talked a little, don't you think?" She dropped the bandage in bucket and pulled out a roll of fresh, which she started to undo with her long fingered hands, measuring with her fingers. "Your friend never told us either of your names." She tilted her head toward Tyki and gave a little smile. "Or what happened."

Lavi tried to smile back, even if it hurt. "Lavi." He rasped. To him it sounded like his voice had gotten worse from sleeping. "He's…Tiago. Ty-chan." He tilted his head a little when she pulled out a bottle of salve and wet a cotton ball with it before coming for his face. "What happen… isn't something I should talk about, you know?"

The nurse's fingers were very gentle and her eyes never left them, even when she spoke. "Doctor Bennett said they looked like knife and whip wounds…he said that whoever did it must have wanted you to suffer before you died. I can't imagine anyone wanting that for another person. Or what you did to deserve it." She drew her thin fingers back and picked up the gauze before coming back to his face. "Can I ask… how?"

He bit his lip while she secured the bandage, trying not to think about it when he spoke. "The two of us ran into trouble a few towns over…we had two others with us, but they were a street back. I don't know where we went. The one who founded us wanted… I don't even know what she wanted. And the other…he kept asking me the same stupid question and hitting me when I didn't answer…" He bit his lip again but this time it wasn't to keep from thinking about it, it was to keep from crying. He couldn't explain it but somehow her willingness to question him let him realize that it _had_ happened and that it wasn't going to anymore. He was safe. He could finally do the one thing he hadn't let himself do – he could feel.

He went on while she moved to the stab wound at his collar bone. "Ty-chan saved me. And we…but that's not important. I don't remember when it was but two of them took me back and… they didn't even ask me questions. They chained me up and did this to me. And they had hands. With those hands they…and I…I…" His fingers let go of the hands in his and he pulled them up to his face to place on his forehead, a shiver that started in his toes and moved up his left leg to his spine shook him into a sitting position. The hand on his stomach slid into his lap and the nurse had to pull away from his collar bone. "My God, it all happened to me. It all happened.

"I thought that…" He could not longer say it. _I thought that maybe it had all been some sort of dream when I woke up. It was so vague. Forgotten. But now I know. It all happened. Those two men… they would have… they were going to…_ "I'm gonna be sick."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth he turned his head and rolled the six inches necessary to empty the contents of his stomach directly beside Ophelia's feet. Tyki was jerked awake by the motion and the sound, and the racking dry heaves that curled Lavi's toes had him on the bed beside him even before the nurse could think about getting a bucket. There were tears streaming down the wounded side of his face and his hands clutched desperately at the sheets beneath him as he choked, vomit and tears making it near impossible to breathe. Two coughs and a retch later and pain registered in more than his abdomen, every wound he had received hurt like someone had poured salt in it, his leg throbbed vaguely. It was there again, that hand on the belt he wasn't wearing, the bite of steal on his wrists, a ribcage so bruised it hurt to draw breath. It was all there, and was reliving it.

His heart felt like it was beating too softly with blood too hot for his body, but his feet felt as cold as they had against the stone floor. His fingers were cramping against the linen in his hands.

A warm palm on his back moved back and forth in slow circles as he moaned through another wave of sickness, there was nothing left in his stomach but something bitter and burning that made his tongue curl when he tasted it, and even that ran out by the time Ophelia came back with something to clean with. He breathed in shaking gasps that came out as equally unsteady sobs before swallowing in a throat that felt as if it were lined with daggers. He curled his hands to his chest and rocked against them.

Tyki's hand on his back slid up to his shoulder as the older man shifter behind him, hands gliding to his shoulders to turn him around and pull him away from the mess he had made on the floor. It was hard for Lavi to explain but the touch frightened him even if he knew who it was, even if he trusted him. His mind was still in that room with those two… Noah, nearing violation. He retched even when he felt the hands glide down to his sides, arms pulling him close, a warm chest pressed to his right side and his face just inches from the warm skin of Tyki's neck. The arms around him were like vices, the legs his lower back was laid across a foundation to relax into.

Distantly he heard that he was being shushed but he couldn't imagine why. After a moment he realized he was still crying, whimpering softly, nonsensical things tumbling from his lips as he struggled to bring his body under control.

"It's alight, we aren't there anymore…"

"_No. Not my eyes. Please, anything but my eyes."_

Rocking back and forth gently. Back and forth. He could feel them rocking.

_I must be worse than I thought. I've never heard of thinking clearly and still… being like this. Maybe it's a hidden talent. Part of me just records what happened and… doesn't feel it._

"I'm sorry." The nurse spoke from behind him. "I didn't know this would happen. All I asked him was how."

He felt Tyki shake his head and Lavi delved his fingers into the man's shirt. It wasn't his shirt, it was someone else's. It smelled differently. He much rather would have touched the other man's skin.

"It's alright. I knew it would happen before long. I wondered how he stayed so strong…now…" Another shake of his head and the rocking motioned continued, back and forth, in a rhythm he was beginning to find soothing. Lavi's hands found the skin behind his lover's buttons and he stroked it softly, drawing his eyes away from the nurse. "Oh? Are you back?"

He signaled a negative and let his fingers grow still. "I… it happened. What they did to me. They… were going to… their hands…" He swallowed hard and willed himself to be calm, to say things the way he was thinking them, to remember where they were. "They were going to rape me, weren't they?"

He saw a shadow cross his lovers face and Tyki's right arm left Lavi's side to brush his forehead, his fingers playing delicately in his hair. He nodded stiffly.

Lavi pressed his lips together and leaned closer, letting his palm spread against the warm skin in had uncovered. "I didn't think about it… I didn't tell them not to… I just…"

Tyki shushed him and took up rocking again, his dark eyes focused on the sideways young man in his arms. He had known that this moment would come, but he didn't think it would happen so fast. There were only two ways for Lavi to have been completely functional for so long and the first was to pretend it wasn't happening, the second not to recognize it for what it was. It seemed that Lavi had done both to some extent, and had now come to realize what it actually meant. He wished he had waited for the Order. "You did what you could. You survived."

"Did I?"

"Yes Lavi," He said quietly, bringing his forehead to the younger man's and closing his eyes. "You will be safe. No one here wants to hurt you."

"It's a hospital; they'd be fired if they did."

He allowed himself a light chuckle as he lifted his head to kiss the boy on the forehead. "Indeed. And if anyone of my idiotic relatives decides that you are worth my wrath I will hinder them with my life if need be – don't make that face, I am trying to help you. I attacked those nitwit siblings when I saw what they had done; I'll do the same a thousand times over if I must."

"Then… do you think you can…" Lavi closed his eye to the sudden onslaught of tears and the quavering of his voice. He sounded so small to himself, so weak. He sounded like someone who couldn't handle what had happened. "Start with a glass of water and then…stay. Closer than the floor."

Tyki's eyes flicked to the nurse and she gave a sad, knowing smile before reaching for the water pitcher and pouring a half full glass. She nearly had the floor clean and she hadn't said a word of complaint about it, which both of them appreciated for more reasons than they could count. Her spiderlike fingers offered the cup with an eagerness to help that made the older man smile lopsidedly; just the motion with which she moved insisted that she still blamed herself.

"If you let your lovely caretaker here see to your wounds and drink everything in this glass, and she doesn't protest too strongly, I will be perfectly content to curl up beside you until morning. The floors here aren't good on my knees anyways."

"Heh. Old man knees."

Tyki gave a half-frown that had a smile lingering just below the surface. "I'm not _that_ much older than you. Eight years? Hardly worth mentioning."

"Eighty percent of a decade?"

"Less than two hundred."

"Two hundred? That doesn't make any… oh. Twenty years. I'd be two years unborn."

"Here. Drink." He half offered Lavi the glass and half didn't, to see if he would reach for it. A trembling right hand worked from between them to take a less than secure hold and guide the cup to his lips, his left hand stayed firmly planted in Tyki's shirt, feeling his skin. Distantly, as he watched Lavi empty the glass, Tyki wondered how long it would be before he was back to himself, back to being calm and confident in more than just his mind.

Lavi made a strange sound of pleasure when there was no water left and offered it steadily back to the nurse. "Thanks. Sorry about the floor." He gave a little smile and she took the proffered container, trying to smile back.

"It's alright. I…didn't mean to make you remember."

Lavi snuggled closer to his lover's side, glad for the knees beneath his spine. "It was going to happen eventually. Better now than… around Lenalee. If she ever heard me say something like that, I think she'd be so angry her head would implode."

Tyki snorted in order to avoid laughing. "To say the least."

"Ugh… now I'm tired…"

"Dry heaving does that."

"Any protest from my lovely nurse?"

Ophelia picked up her cleaning supplies and shook her head at them. "Be careful. I wouldn't if one of you kicks."

"Yay…"

"Thank you."

"And, I would like to ask before I go put this away…please don't be insulted if it's not true but…are you two…together? Ah! Never mind. It's none of my business." She waved at them with the hand that wasn't holding the bucket, taking two steps toward the door. It was Lavi's voice that caused her to pause.

"Yeah." He husked quietly. "We're…together."

She turned and shot them both a winning smile. "Good. If it weren't the case, I'd have to hit you both for being stupid. Be back in a jiffy!"

0x0x0x0x0

_Damn it Aleister, you made her cry. She comes back to the inn and the first thing you do is make her cry. I feel awful._

"Lenalee-san…" The two were sitting in the front room of the inn in front of the dying fire, completely alone but for the cricket that occupied the far corner by the stairs. He had sank his fingernails into the edge of the table the moment tears had started to fill her eyes and spill down her face. He wished that she had just hit him – it would have been better than sitting here watching her try to reign in her emotions like that.

_Please stop soon, I will never be able to forgive myself._

"I'm fine Crowley. I'm happy that we know where Lavi-kun is. But…" She fought of the tears this time and simply sighed at him. "But… that akuma you killed…he could heal people. It might have been better to take him with us, in case Lavi is… in case he is…"

Crowley nodded, distraught. "My teeth got the better of me. I am sorry."

"It's fine. We can still get to Durnshire tomorrow and find him in time, even if he is…"

"But Lenalee-san," He said quietly. "How do you know what that akuma could have done?"

She blinked at him; eyes wide, mouth suddenly open in a surprise. After a moment she shook herself enough to reach into the folds of her jacket and pull out the letter Tyki had sent her, as well as the two Lavi had written before. She slid them across the table in a stack, waited for him to pick up the first one. "Lavi and Tyki Mikk have been…seeing each other intimately. Cole was the means by which I received the last letter in that stack after Lavi went missing. He… told me that he had healed his wrist. And that the two had spoken. I…trusted him and let him go."

Crowley remained silent as he read through Lavi's notes, eyes bulging.

"I know I should have told someone. I know I should have stopped him. I tried, once. But… the two love each other. I couldn't stand between that." She breathed in deeply before letting her air out again, trying to think. "Tyki…and I... we came up with a plan to get Lavi out. He was willing to die if he had to, but… Lavi would never forgive me if I let that happen. But it's ruined. We simply must get to Durnshire." She sighed as he turned at last to Tyki's note, eyes still shocked, blushing. "I know it makes both Lavi and I traitors but please, don't say anything until we have him back. Once that happens, I intend to tell Nii-san everything."

Crowley nodded distantly as he finished the last note. "How terrible." He said quietly. "Opposite sides of a war and yet they would cross the line for each other. And you…you let them try and do what Eliade and I never could have done. Two men, two sides, with the world between."

She shook her head and buried her head in her hands. Her eyes refused to cry anymore. "It's not as large of a line as it seems to be." She said distantly. "Not for love."

0x0x0x0

"Love, I specifically recall you saying you wanted my hands _behind_ me, not over my head."

"Che. This gives me more to work with."

"Should I be frightened? I kind of think I should be."

"No. Not yet."

"Yet?"

Kanda sighed. Allen hands were held securely above his head by his belt to the railing of the bunk above him, legs folded up beneath him so he teetered precariously on the edge of the bed, swinging back and forth a little. "Do you think I should blindfold you, or will you be surprised as it is?"

Allen's eyes went wide. "I'm perfectly fine seeing, thanks. Now what's going on? What do you mean yet?"

Kanda smiled a little as he reached out and gently ran his fingers gently down the curve of Allen's side, just enough to make him twitch. "Che. Do you remember our shower, Moyashi? When I asked you ever so kindly _not_ to do something?"

"Yes…" He snorted a little when Kanda found a sensitive place. "That tickles…"

Kanda grinned. "Do you remember what I asked?"

Allen nodded. "You asked me not to seduce you until we got to China. But…_Love that really tickles…_ha! What does that – _stop!_ – have to do with – _ha!_ – this?!" Kanda stopped tickling that place and moved on in the hope of finding others while Allen gasped at him, still not understanding what was going on. "Seriously, Love, I don't understand… that's why I'm confused about you doing this now…"

"This, Moyashi?"

He blinked in confusion.

"What exactly do you think is happening here?" As he asked Kanda leaned behind Allen where he couldn't see and started rifling through a suit case. Allen felt himself stiffen. He couldn't turn with his hands bound up like that.

"Um… some kind of sex, I hope."

The laugh Kanda unleashed did nothing for his feeling of safety. "Che. No, I'm afraid this lesson requires something a little less intimate."

"Lesson?" Allen felt himself go pale. Something soft and light twitched across his ear and he shivered away from it with a tiny gasp only to be hit in the back of the neck with it, and then the other ear. He heard himself giggle at it even though he hadn't the slightest idea what it was.

"Yes. You need to learn the difference between a genuine stop and…whatever it is that you do when you pant at me and say 'don't.'" He came back around to face his lover, tickler in hand, eyebrows raised in half-amusement, lips curling at the surprised expression Allen made. He had been right, a blindfold would have ruined this moment. "If you get the message there might be sex later, but it's not counting against me, understand?"

"_No…"_ Allen continued to blink. "What are you going to do? How do I – how do I stop you?"

The feathered end of Kanda's Christmas present caught Allen beneath his chin and guided his face up into a gentle kiss. It made the fear run out of him like water through a strainer. He leaned into it; the hand that touched the side of his face soothingly ran down to his neck, playing on his bruised skin. He let Kanda have the kiss for his own but he was surprised when it lead to two more, each one deeper than the last, he moaned appreciatively when the hand that held the feather object fell to his side, spreading across his ribcage. He wanted more.

Kanda pulled back and looked at Allen's eyes to see nothing there he didn't expect and nothing there he didn't feel himself. Yearning, love, hope, fear, understanding – it seemed to him that he was losing the lesson just by look at him. He was losing the need for one. "Che. Damn it Allen, I wanted to make this a lesson. I wanted you to understand how it feels…but…" His lips drifted back to Allen's neck, which he proceeded to kiss so gently that his lover shivered against him. The present went to the floor.

"But what, Love?" Allen questioned when a hand migrated to his chest and proceed to tweak a nipple. He leaned forward as Kanda placed all of his weight on the bed and slid his knees over his lover's lap, mouth searching for any bit of flesh he could place against it. A tongue flurried against his neck before Kanda sank under him, effectively placing his mouth at the perfect place to leave little love marks all across his abdomen. He arched closer and gasped at the sensation.

"I think you've already learned." He rocked forward, lifting himself so he could once again kiss the smaller boy's mouth, this time lingeringly. His fingernails traced delicate lines down Allen's back and he growled into his lips, aware that if this kept up, things were going to get out of hand very, very quickly. When he pulled back he rested his forehead on his lover's shoulder and breathed in a slow, needy breath, letting his hands fall. "Enough."

Allen hardly heard the word breathed against his skin. "No it's not, Kanda. Please… don't tease me like this…" He felt very depraved when the man he was straddling slid from beneath him and stood on the floor beside the bed, looked down at him, and placed hand on the side of his face. "Kanda…"

The Japanese man's expression was so complicated the British boy couldn't even begin to read it. What he could tell, however, was that self control had a lot to do with it. "No, Moyashi. I didn't mean for that to happen."

"But it did. Now deal with it."

A hint of amusement crossed Kanda's face before he stifled it with a glare and a frown. His fingers left Allen's skin and starting working the buckle by his wrists until he slipped out of the belt and plopped down on the bed, looking up expectantly. "Love…"

"Not yet." Kanda sat beside him, but even as he said it he leaned in for another brush of Allen's lips. "Not until we're on dry land." But his lips still followed the line of his lover's jaw and his hands still followed Allen's chest to his hips. "But… I am going to kiss you for a while…regardless."

The white haired boy smiled at him and kissed back, letting his hands wander to Kanda's neck so he could draw him closer. "Can I try to seduce you? Please?"

"Che. Only if you can do it without me noticing."

Allen frowned. "No fair."

"Shut up and come here."

"So rude…"

0x0x0x0x0

When Lavi's bandages were finished and he had fallen asleep in Tyki's arms, the Noah had decided it would be best to slink away to contact Cole while he was sleeping – to see how long they would have to wait for him to come to Durnshire and heal Lavi's leg. So he laid a soft kiss on the boy's forehead and caressed his hair before sliding off of the too thin hospital mattress and walking a quarter inch off the floor to the door.

_Far enough, he won't hear me if I have to whisper._ He closed his eyes and thought of the little akuma-boy. If some other akuma overheard things could get hairy – though he doubted that would happen with his target being so specific. He reached out with his mind and searched.

Nothing.

A frown creased his lips and he tried again, listening to the stillness that filled his mind, the cold emptiness where Cole should have been. There was nothing. Not even a blip.

'_Looking for something, Tyki-pon?'_ The voice had its characteristic smile, even in his mind. He felt his eyes go wide but he dare not leave without saying a word. It would be a death wish on top over everything he had already done.

'_I asked you not to call me that. And yes, a lovely little akuma with a power I could use at the moment, Earl-sama.'_ He felt as if something were holding him still besides the fear coursing through him. How much had Rhode and the twins told him? How little? Did he even have a chance?

'_Rather idiotic of you to do that isn't it, Ty-pon? After what you've done to poor Jasdebi-kun.'_ The smile never faded, even when his voice went cold.

'_You might think so. I am going now, Earl-sama. If I can't find him, he must have been destroyed.'_

'_Oh, but Tyki-pon! I have something for you before you go…'_ He felt a creeping sensation the back of his neck, like he were being watched, and the muscles across the top of his back went rigid of their own will, making him stand straight. _'I wanted to give you a parting gift, Pleasure Child, and tell you that you can come back if you kill the Bookman you stole. He knows too much about us to let him go back to them. Here you are, Ty-pon. A present from my heart, to yours!'_

**I WANT TO KILL.**

It was so sudden he collapsed on the floor, hands pressed to the sides of his head, blood running from his face and across the tile. It was so loud he didn't know if he had screamed or not. He didn't know anything but the ringing in his skull and the pounding of his heart in his chest. He hardly felt the pain of contact on his knees.

**I WANT TO KILL.**  
**I WANT TO KILL.  
I WANT TO KILL.  
I WANT TO KILL.**

"No…" Never could he remember the voice being so strong before, so different from his own, so far reaching. Something stirred in him, sending coils of pain down his spine all the way to his forehead, blinding him. The voice repeated its twisted litany again and he rocked forward, pressing with his hands, and closing his eyes to it, willing it away. "No!"

"Ty-chan?"

0x0x0x0x0

**I'm sorry it's a cliffhanger. I am. But…but… :'S**

**I HAD to! It's how it's supposed to be!**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! **


	68. Help

"Ty-chan

**Niamh must be losing her mind to update this quickly… but that's ok, she doesn't need a mind… Does she?**

**Blegh! More plot! Though… soon… there will be service 8D**

**Disclaimer of D'horror: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda would never be able to meditate properly again.**

**WARNING: This is a yaoi story. That means men touching each other intimately. You are warned.**

0x0x0x0x0

Help

"Ty-chan?" Lavi turned in the empty bed until he saw his lover sitting on his knees on the floor, head between his hands, blood running down his face in long lines. He watched him shake, eyes round with fear, and felt the breath catch in his throat. There were black tears flowing from his ebony eyes.

Black tears that were blood. Too-thick blood. Black holes where his eyes should have been. Soulless. It was the same.

"Ty…"

The older man hunched in on himself and buried his fingers in his hair. When he spoke his voice was the same as it had ever been, though the tone was laced with fear and pain Lavi had never heard there. And yearning. _"Hide from…me."_ He held more tightly, trying to rip the voice from his head with his fingers, trying to find anything that would distract him from it. _"I…want to kill…"_

**I WANT TO KILL.  
I WANT TO KILL.  
IWANTTOKILLIWANTTOKILLIWANTTOKILL.**

"No!" He made a sound like a sob and pulled his hands from his hair only to bring them back to his face, fighting to keep his legs from moving. Every muscle wanted to follow that simple desire, to kill, but he would not let himself. Not while Lavi was there. Not while he was in a hospital. Not while some part of him was human. "Go…"

Lavi pushed himself up on his elbows and scooted to the edge of the bed. He had lost a lot of blood, thrown up the only meal he'd hand in two days, broken a leg, but that wasn't going to stop him from finding out what the hell was going on. It was going to be hard, but he was going to do it.

"What is it? What's going on?" When he asked the questions his lover tensed, his hands coming away from his face so he could look at the black blood on them. "Ty-chan, talk to me."

"_I want to kill."_ He growled, turning to face him. _"I want to kill. I want to lick the blood from my fingers once I have soaked them in the life of your kin. I want to see them beg for death before I kill them. I want to see them all suffer. I want to enjoy the moment before the light fades in a human's eyes, hope lost, dreams destroyed, and the darkness seeping in from all sides until it takes them. I want to feast on the flesh of my enemies. I want to kill. I want to—"_ He let out a feral snarl and brought his left hand to his face again, this time in a fist. "No!"

The apprentice Bookman didn't understand. It was more than two sides of one person; it was two creatures fighting for control of the same body. His arms shook when he used them to help his casted leg to the floor, grimacing as it juggled within its plaster prison. He placed an arm on the bedside table and his left leg on the floor, and then gave one painful, weak heave. He wobbled onto his left foot, holding his right hip so his foot didn't even touch the floor, and attempted a slow, risky hop. He moved six inches. He leaned on the table again and gave another hop, still cringing, and nearly tottered over, but saved himself with a flail from his left arm. It was slow, agonizing progress, but each inch he moved was an inch closer to Tyki – and a step closer to confidence.

By the time he ran out of table he was nearly out of breath, but he managed the two steps to the door knob before he stopped.

The man on the floor no longer looked human. Lavi felt fear curl around his heart at the sight of him writhing so desperately, fighting so hard. But he couldn't be afraid. Even if he did not understand, even if his heart was pounding in his chest, even if his palms where slicked with cold sweat, this was still the Noah he loved. This was still someone he needed to protect, even if that meant protecting him from within.

A deep breath was all he need to know that he was not going to give up that easily.

"Go…La-vi…" Tyki mumbled, his hands came down softly on the floor, sticky with inhuman looking blood, and he looked up with his strange black eyes to see the redhead lean against the door and lock it. "Lavi, what are you—" This time Lavi saw the blood well in his eyes before it spilled down his face, plopping sickeningly on the backs of his hands. He saw the muscles tense through his body, hunger fill his eyes, a lust so deep it made him lick the blood from his lips to sate it. There was hardly anything left but the pleasure-seeking beast that thrived beneath the man's skin, hardly anything that seemed savable, but Lavi didn't care. He sank against the door until his wounded leg lay throbbing on the cool floor, Tyki crouched between his knees.

"I'm staying here. I don't know what happened, and I don't know what you're feeling, and I don't know why, but I'm staying here with you. If you want to kill someone it's gong to be me."

His eyes flicked back to the odd black version of human features. "No. I won't kill you."

Lavi leaned his head forward and reached out with his right hand, cursing himself for letting it shake. "Give me your hand."

**I WANT TO KILL.**

"Lavi…no! I…" More tears landed on the backs of his hands. _"No one hurts Lavi. I love him. I won't kill Lavi. I want to kill. I will not kill…I will not…Lavi…"_

That, it seemed, was something the feral beast and the man he knew agreed on. The Noah's left hand reached out and took a firm hold on his fingers. Something came over Tyki, something soothing that originated with his lover's touch, he painfully half-crawled his way to the younger man, letting the hand guide him. Another hand found his forehead and caressed his blood sticky hair, almost as if he hadn't said those terrible things, or even thought them.

"What happened?"

"Cole…is—"

**LET ME KILL. I WANT TO KILL.**

**I WANT TO KILL. LET ME KILL.**

The words were destroying his reason.

He lunged forward so his right hand hit the door by Lavi's head, hard, rattling it like thunder. The redhead was taken aback by the show of force but he was more frightened by his lover's face, so close to his, so dangerous looking. He could see the pain and fear in those colorless eyes, different from anything he had seen before. "It's alright." He said with far more confidence than he felt. "It's you, isn't it? The other half of you. The dark. That side – this side – all of you – loves me, doesn't it?"

Tyki nodded slowly at him. "If…you don't go…I will kill. I will lose it. My mind. There will be…" His arm shook as he leaned against it, his eyes regained a measure of the focus they used to have, he breathed a shaking breathe and closed his fingers against the door, gouging five inch deep scores in the wood.

"Sh…" Lavi laid his fingers on his blood soaked lips and squeezed the hand in his. "If I asked you, Ty-chan, would you tell me when the urge is closest?"

Tyki swallowed hard and nodded. "I will… speak…the words…" He leaned forward lowering his bloodied face to Lavi's chest, breathing him in, feeling his heartbeat on his face. _I won't hurt Lavi. I love Lavi. This is Lavi._ "Lavi, I've… gotten blood on your gown."

"Don't worry about it; I'm sure there are more."

He breathed in deeply, closing his eyes to the scent, bathing in it. "I can't… I can't think. The voice is there. Even when it's silent. You. You're keeping me. You are my sanity."

"I'm not good for much else at the moment."

"Cole was destroyed. I don't know if Lenalee-san got my message. But—I—kill. _I want to kill. I want to kill. I want to kill…_" As he said the words he leaned closer, trying to soothe the urge with Lavi's presence, he was hardly aware that Lavi was speaking to him over the sound of his own voice.

"Tyki Mikk, I want to ask you a favor. Even though you want to kill, promise you will not kill anyone. It might be a troublesome request but I'd really like it if you—"

**I WANT TO KILL. I WANT TO PLEASE. **_**HE WANTS ME NOT TO KILL.  
I love him.**_

He felt the voice grow angry for a moment, rearing against him, but the annoyance smoldered out almost at once – replaced with something like longing. The desire was not dead – indeed it was far from it – but it was on longer his purpose. There was a promise holding the pain in his back and the ache in his heart at bay.

The voice would agree.

"_Yes."_ Tyki collapsed against him; the hand he had left on the door fell to his lover's shoulder. _"Not kill for you."_ He blinked his eyes opened and pulled Lavi's torso closer, holding him like a life raft in a squall, aware that the arms encircling him were bruised and battered and in no condition to be holding him so tightly. A sob so deep it made him cry out shook him, spilling one last wave of bloody tears on Lavi's chest. That simple request was all it had taken to reduce the voice to nothing but a distant whisper, echoing in the back of his head. One promise and it was over. One simple word. "Yes."

Lavi ran a sticky hand through Tyki's sweaty, bloody hair, and coaxed his face out of his chest. "You okay?" He asked the pair of brown eyes looking at him, smiled at the clear tears gathering in the corners of them. "You look kind of tired."

Tyki refused to chuckle at that sorry excuse for a joke. "Thank you."

"Naw, it was nothing. You didn't have me ready to crawl under the bed and hide at any point."

"Hmm." Tyki leaned down and placed his face on the skin of his lover's neck, curling into his embrace like a child cuddling his favorite toy. "I tried to find Cole but I couldn't. The Earl found me instead. It's hard to explain. He told me that I could come back if I killed you and then… he did that to me. He called me out... he…made me want that. I still..." He felt rush of blood thirst but it was not the same as before – it stopped itself from taking over before he had to fight it. He sighed again, closing his eyes. "But for you I can ignore it. If you had not have been here, I do not want to image what would have happened." He felt Lavi's face bury itself in his hair and fought the urge to lean up and kiss him. No one wanted to kiss a man drenched in his own blood whom had gone on a rather dark tirade about killing humanity and watching them die. Instead he folded his hands in the fabric on Lavi's hospital gown and closed his eyes to the lights, feeling spent.

"Ty-chan." Lavi said softly.

"Yes, dear?"

"I love you. Though sometimes you scare me."

"I love you too."

Lavi sighed into the top of his head, letting his eye lid fall shut to the brightness, calming himself from the inside out. "Are we gonna sleep here? I can't get up and you don't look like you can lift me."

Tyki nodded into him, not looking up. "Give me a moment before I get a blanket for us. I am terribly sorry that I can't put you back in bed."

"Can I be sappy for a moment before you pass out?"

"Hm?"

"My bed is wherever you are sleeping."

Tyki actually did laugh this time, the sound a strange, half-hollow version of what it had been before. It was enough to make him look at Lavi's blood smeared face and lean in, but not enough to make him kiss him. "Sappy indeed. Now help push me up, I'm not sure how well my old man knees are working at the moment."

0x0x0x0

Breakfast was an interesting meal.

Hitori and Sable remained as quiet as corpses, munching the meals they were given, hiding from Hiroko's ever present eyes – even when she wasn't at the table. Neither felt guilty about what had transpired between them – indeed the only thing they really felt was that their lips were slightly chapped – but they did not know what would come of them once she knew. It was all Hito could do to keep from blushing at Sable every time she looked at him, and it was all she could do to keep from squeezing him for his adorable blush. In short, though both tried, they managed to hide very little.

By the time Sable's plate was half empty Kanda and Allen joined them, both looking as if sleep had been elusive the night before, Allen occasionally rubbing the place where his lover's teeth had caught him in the shower. He was rather disappointed with the fact that Kanda had indeed kissed and sucked and nibbled on him until sunrise, but he hadn't openly protested – the more Kanda touched the more likely he was to lose it one day, and Allen was looking forward to it.

Though his tiny, pathetic breakfast kind of made him change his mind. Who would want to do _that_ on an empty stomach anyways?

Kanda was a quarter ways through his toast when Cross sat down beside him, wine bottle and glass in hand, a sigh on his lips. Hiroko plopped down opposite him, scowling. Her presence was like a dark cloud over the table for everyone but Cross.

The seating was awkward with the long benches provided be the galley. On the one side of their shared table were Sable, Kanda, and Cross, while Hitori, Allen, and Hiroko occupied the space on across from them. Silence was inevitable.

Until Allen opened his mouth.

"Kanda," He said in a voice quiet enough to make everyone turn away from their nearly finished meals. "Can I have your bread?"

Everyone blinked at him.

"You ate my dinner." The Japanese man responded coolly, lowering his chopsticks to capture a deep fried carrot. Distantly, as he brought the food to his mouth, he wondered how it was that this was the first soba and tempura that he'd had since he'd been in Japan. It was a little sad, all things considered.

"And you tied me to the bed to make up for it!" Allen said too loudly.

"Che. No, that was for what you did in the shower. I explained that to you." Kanda responded calmly.

"But I'm… hungry…"

Hiroko blinked at the boy's outburst, pictures filling her mind at what could have happened that would require him to be tied to a bed. It was mildly disturbing, but what was more bothersome was the strange expression on Cross's face, and the even odder one on Sable's. When she leaned to see what they were staring at she saw Hitori offering Sable a shrimp with his chopsticks, ignoring Kanda and Allen. After a moment the girl shook her head and smiled, then – just as Hiroko thought she would – she leaned forward and took the food between her teeth gently before pulling away to chew it.

Hiroko felt her hands go cold. She wanted to maim that wench for doing something so seductive. She wanted to take those chopsticks and jab them into her eyes. But she didn't have the chance. Her other son, the one that was sleeping with a man, leaned forward and spoke to his brother in a harsh tone that dragged her attention away from Sable.

"Hito. What are you doing?"

"Hm?" The Japanese boy pinched another shrimp and offered it to the girl, a grin on his lips, eyes bright. "I'm just getting rid of the ones I don't like."

Kanda's expression turned into a glare that rivaled his mother's. "No. That's not what I meant. Are you two—" He couldn't finish. There was suddenly a lump of sea food hanging from his lips, blocking the flow of words. It took him a moment to realize that Sable had grabbed Hitori's wrist and diverted the fish into his mouth, forcing him into silence. Kanda was perfectly still for a moment, eyes focused on the girl who had shoved the crustacean between his teeth until he began to quietly wish death on her, which in turn guided his hand to Mugen's handle.

"Ah haha. Ha. Haha!" Sable faked a laugh as she released Hito's arm. "Looks like I missed. Oh well! C'mon Kanda – I'll…erm… just be borrowing your ears for a second." She took him by the collar and yanked him toward the end of the bench, attempting to ignore the odd look she was getting from Allen and the worried one she was getting from her… Hito. "Goddamn it, just stand up and come with me – I need to talk to you about… _oyay yay unay ersonapay_—"

"Spanish Pig Latin? I never thought you'd master that one." Cross mumbled into his glass.

"Shut it. Kanda. Move now."

After a moment he swallowed the shrimp, glared at his brother, and sighed in irritation. He jerked her hand away from his shirt. "Che. Let go of me woman. I'll follow you. Moyashi – if you touch my food, you won't be leaving bed until we get to China. And I don't mean sex either."

Allen mumbled something in agonized despair.

"Oi, Allen-kun," He was surprised when Hitori said his name so clearly, and even more so when two bits of tempura landed on his plate. "Can I ask you a favor?"

He fell on the food like a ravenous animal. "What?"

"When you're finished, tell me about the Order."

That was an odd request but Allen wasn't going to argue with it. He had no qualms about telling people anything that wasn't classified – if anything it made the world safer. "Sure."

0x0x0x0

Sable guided Kanda just outside the galley and sighed at him, trying to think of how exactly to word what she was going to say. _Damn Sabe, just say it. Don't beat around the bush. Be blatant. Rawr._

She sighed and threw her braid over her back, centering herself for what was to come. "Hitori likes me."

"Che."

"I like Hitori."

Silence.

"And I have no fucking idea what to tell your mother."

He blinked at her for a moment, his hair drifting in the salty sea breeze, eyes less than half surprised. "Why are you telling me?"

She sighed and ran a hand through her bangs, swallowed hard. "Because if she's not going to approve of me – which I might get her to eventually – I'd like you to."

"What?"

She looked up at him seriously and narrowed her eyes at him. "If your mother, sweet thing that she is, wants to say that Hitori and I can't see each other for whatever reason she has, we're going to ignore her. But I'd like at least one Kanda to give the go ahead." She moved her right hand in an expression of continuance, a delicate smile on her face. "Now give it to me or I'll never give you sex advice ever again."

Kanda raised an eyebrow at her and shook his head. _"Baka onna._ Like I care."

"What?"

He turned on heel, heading back for the galley. "You made me leave my meal for this? Idiot. I don't care what you and Hito do as long as he's happy. Have you not noticed that _I_ am sleeping with _Allen Walker?"_

Sable felt herself start to laugh and stopped to think about it for a moment. "I guess you're right. Hmm…I never thought that would happen."

"What?" He snapped at her, just inches from going back inside.

"Nothin'. Lead on, O Feminine One."

0x0x0x0

Everything was cold. More than anything that was what Tyki felt, cold. And there, in the back of his mind, that still present desire to kill someone. The voice was quiet, almost sad sounding, but it was still there.

There was something warm on his face, and wet, soft and soothing. It blocked the light from his eyes, which he was thankful for, and the pillow under his head served to muffle the sound of someone speaking quietly over him, drawing his mind away from that little nagging creature he housed. The last he remembered he had been on the floor with Lavi, the two of them determined not to let him murder a nurse. The world felt different now.

He reached up with his right hand and dragged the rag from his eyes, which caused much protest from the woman standing at his side. He blinked repeatedly at the hospital lights in a sad attempt to will the pain from his skull. The effort was wasted.

He pushed himself up to see where he was, his back gave a screaming protest but he ignored it – whatever was wrong with it would fix itself eventually, whether he moved or not.

"Sir?" He looked up to see Jessica from the day before, her face pale. "You should lay down…you're not—"

"I am sorry, but really I mustn't rest. Might I ask where Lavi…" As he asked he searched the room until he saw the redhead sleeping soundly in the same bed as before, two white blankets pulled up to his chest, left arm free from the covers so a small needle could feed the vein whatever was in the clear plastic bag hanging beside him. "Oh good. I was terrified that you had moved me too far away."

Jessica shook her head and stepped between them, her strawberry blond curls bounced with the motion, blue eyes burning with an argument. "The ladies on the midnight shift found you both collapsed by the door. There was so much blood – black blood – and they couldn't figure where it came from. But how could you move him? And why? You seem so concern but to do that in his condition…"

"Condition?"

She nodded, terrified, and hugged her clipboard to her chest. "He feverish." She said flatly. "Doctor Bennett said that nothing is infected that he can see and it might just be his body's reaction to so much damage…but…no what are you—"

Tyki turned and slid his legs off of the bed. He was surprised to find himself in another shirt and not a gown of his own, his pants were his own though, and clean. "We may have to leave here. Today."

"You can't. He is in no condition to travel."

He eased himself to his feet and gave her a look that told her everything. His dark eyes were sad. His lips formed a strange, broken smile, like a person who knew they were dying, like a person who knew and accepted something unpleasant. But what most frightened her was the way he determinedly stepped around her even though she protested. He would be a handful if he kept this up. "I know he shouldn't, but if this is being caused by what I think is causing it, we will have to. Your facility does not have the equipment or the understanding to fix what might be broken."

His feet made no sound on the floor. Jessica watched him take a firm hold on the edge of the bed before he sank down beside the younger man, looking longingly at his fluttering eyelid until it came open, the eye beneath seemed distant.

"Hey." The boy creaked. She felt her jaw fall open at the sight – they hadn't been able to rouse him all morning and all this man had to do was sit on his bed to get him to open his eye and speak. "How are you?"

The side of the Noah's mouth lifted in an expression of contentedness. "Better than you are, I am sure."

"Me? I just feel…lightheaded. And tired. And kind of like I shouldn't have gotten out of bed last night." Lavi said the words with a little smile on his lips, just the kind of expression his lover needed to see.

"Well, now you have a fever on top of everything else."

"Yeah… it's just not my week."

"I need to reach into you and check something, alright?"

"Go ahead. I like it when you feel me up."

Tyki ignored that little attempt at humor and slipped his fingers through his lover's ribcage, Jessica – who had seen him with the clipboard – took two steps closer to better see what he was doing. His hand glided over Lavi's lungs and by his heart until he found the place he had left the tease before. The place that had been bleeding so profusely. When he brushed it the little golem twitched in an attempt to speak to him. He got the message.

"Shit," Lavi muttered, closing his hand on the blanket across him.

"Sorry." He felt the tissue it was holding closed in an attempt to discover how much more healing it required before it would be alright. _Too much,_ He realized with a shiver. _If I take it out now we will have to leave for the Order at once. If I do not remove it his body will continue to reject it with the fever. I must take it out before the Earl turns it against me._ He sighed and pulled his hand away without trying to hide the fear on his face.

"What?"

He leaned forward and placed his lips on Lavi's forehead before he spoke. "The tease is causing your fever. If I take it out, you bleed to death, if I leave it you get worse. We can't stay here. We have to get you to the Order."

Lavi frowned at him. "But you'll—" Two fingers were laid across his lips, sealing them, stopping the words he had said too many times for the Noah not to know.

"No they won't Lavi. Not if they don't know who I am. Not if we don't tell them." He moved his fingers away from those too warm lips and kissed him – not specifically caring that Jessica was still trying to talk herself into believing that he had stuck his hand into the redhead's chest. "If we're careful – if you keep me sane – I can be nothing but a concerned prisoner myself." Tyki felt a hand on the side of his face and leaned into it, wanting to cry at the touch and not knowing why. "Will you lie with me?"

Lavi curled his left hand around the back of his lover's neck and yanked him down into an embrace. When he spoke his raspy voice was little more than a whisper. "After Rhode, and that dungeon, and what happened last night do you really think I could say no? You may want to kill people but you want to save me. You may be a Noah but you are an enemy of the Millennium Earl. And I love you. I won't let you leave me. Not after we've saved each other." He let his lips touch the skin of Tyki's neck as he spoke, raising goosebumps with the warmth of his breath. "Besides, if we get away with it, we're _so_ doing it in the library when my leg's strong enough. I don't care what Panda thinks."

Tyki chuckled into him, letting his head rest on the side of his lover's neck. "Who ever would have thought that you'd think of something like that so soon after Jasdebi…"

"Pfft! Are you kidding?" Lavi pushed him back and looked up at him as if he were nuts. "They're completely different from you. And as long as I can see you I'll be fine. Rope, handcuffs, use a belt if you're desperate, it doesn't matter; you're not short and you don't make that creepy _hii_ sound after you say something you agree with."

Tyki grinned.

"Furthermore, if you ever tried standing sex with me, I think you'd find a wall."

"You know me so well," The Noah said gently, kissing him again. "Sleep. I will find train tickets so we can leave by this evening before you get worse."

"Ok.'

"And tell Jessica if you need anything. I'm sure she'll have lots of questions when she realizes that I sank my hand into your body and you're fine."

"How should I explain that?"

"Tell her I'm with the Order."

"That works. Have fun." Another kiss, this one longer. "And think about the library while you're gone. Oh… standing in the library! We could use a shelf."

"In the children's section."

"Pervert."

"I promise not to kill anyone while I'm away. I'll be back soon."

"Love you."

"You also, _amante_."

0x0x0x0

After they had eaten, Kanda discovered that meditating was as useless as wasabi without soba. He had found a quiet place on the deck and claimed it as his own, retied his hair, closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and tried to clear his mind of everything. It had worked for a grand totally of five seconds before memories from the night before came back to haunt him. His eyebrow took to twitching. He did not need to imagine Allen tied to a bed right now, he needed inner peace.

So the image changed to Allen in a summer kimono, poised on his bed, blushing coyly. He didn't need that either. Peace – was it too much to ask for?

Allen in a bathtub, hair tied up in a bun, cheeks reddened by the heat. Kanda heard himself growl.

_This is all his fault._ He thought with a powerful tic of his eyebrow. _If he weren't _trying_ to make me lose it I wouldn't even be thinking about it. And he's only trying because I told him not to. Why would he…_

_DAMN IT I AM TRYING TO MEDITATE! STOP THINKING!_

He drew in a slow breath and let it out slower, focusing on the wind in his bangs. Soothing.

Soothing like a breeze through an open window. His window. With Allen curled in the sheets of their bed, partly on his back, pulling the ribbon out of his hair, lips gently parted. The fabric of his white shirt parted to reveal—

_He couldn't possibly know what he does to me. Not if he keeps…_

"Goddamn it!" He said out loud. _It's over. I don't care if he's half malnourished – if he's asking for it he's going to get it. Right now. I don't care about self control! If he doesn't want it I won't use it. _He grumbled under his breath as he pushed himself to his feet, annoyed. When he had returned to the galley Hitori had quickly stolen Allen away, which he didn't mind, and Cross had muttered something about swinging which he hadn't understood. That was fine though, Allen had said something in anger and Sable and pushed his hat down over his eyes; there was no need for him to understand. So he would have to search.

He picked up Mugen and walked determinedly toward the room, knowing that if Hitori and Allen weren't there they'd be just down the hall. He found the room empty though clean, all of the cards and clothes put away neatly where they belonged. He harrumphed at it and turned down the hall, intent on Sable and Hitori's door. It wasn't far and he didn't bother knocking – because he seriously doubted he'd walk in on any of them naked – and was greeted by his lover and his brother sitting on the bottom bunk, Hito burying his face in a pillow, Allen making a face that signified amusement.

"Che, Moyashi." He said lowly. "I am borrowing you for three hours."

"What? Why?" The British boy responded, turning to try and read the expression behind Kanda's impossibly strong glare. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks and his eyes go wide, there were only a few things that look could mean and one of them was one he was looking forward to, the others… not so much. He swallowed in a throat gone dry and slowly slithered his way to the floor, eyes focused on his lover's feet. "Ok…"

Hitori's eyes flicked from one to the other not understanding. "What are—ehem! What the _hell_ are you two—" His brother's glare cut him off. "Whatever. Fine. Don't tell. See you when you're unborrowed…"

Allen gave him a bright smile and a little wave before Kanda grabbed him by the sleeve and started dragging. He didn't fight his feet; instead he let the older boy pull him out of the room and down the hall, heading for their cabin. "Kanda… what are we… you have that look and… you said…"

"Shut up." Kanda commanded upon entering their shared living space. He turned the boy in his hands and used his foot to slam the door shut before smashing his lover against it, right hand going to his neck, left falling to his chest. He felt hands clench in his jacket but ignored them, choosing instead to pay attention to the wide silver eyes drinking him in from below. "I can't even meditate properly because of you. I can't think of anything else. I can't function."

"Kanda?"

"I don't think you realize what I'm saying."

Allen turned his face up a little, not sure if he should expect to be kissed or hit. "Do you want…me?"

The Japanese Exorcist leaned down so that his lips were nearly on his lover's but not touching, just so he could feel the catch in his breath. _"Yes,_ Allen. I want you so I'll stop thinking about you. I want you so you can't think of anything but me." He could see the growing realization in Allen's eyes with the same intensity as he could feel his restraint slipping, his control sliding through his fingers like water. "And it's _your_ fault. You licked me. You let me keep you up all night. You're looking at me like do don't like my clothes. It's _all_ your fault."

"I'm sorry." Allen hardly had any voice at all.

"Che." Kanda leaned down and caught the boy's mouth with his own, refusing to close his eyes to it and not caring that the mouth against his gave up all too soon to his questing tongue. He traced the inside of Allen's bottom lip, watching him shiver, felling the hands against his chest flounder for something besides fabric to hold onto. When Allen stepped forward Kanda pushed him back, rattling him against the door. Kanda pulled back and stepped closer, guiding his lover's face up to look at him. "No you aren't. _Baka._"

Allen blinked at him, stuck between feeling bad and feeling good about himself. He decided bad was the better idea in this case. "Love, really, I haven't even been trying to seduce you since last night – but you're acting like a hungry animal. I'm sorry. If you don't want to… if you can hold off until we get to China like you wanted if I'm not around…"

Kanda crushed their mouths together with a forcefulness that made Allen gasp into the contact. The hand that had been on his side drifted to the outside of his thigh and he closed his hands on Kanda's ribcage, feeling the other man's heat against his palms, his need. When the violent kiss ended Allen found himself panting, an open mouth trailing down his neck, shirt buttons coming open with the speed of his lover's hand. He heard himself moan.

"I'm going to do you now," Kanda growled into his shoulder. "And again when we land. And you aren't going to say a word about it if you want to walk in the first week we get back home." He had Allen's shirt undone and yanked it off of him none too gently before nipping at the skin of a shoulder. "Understand?"

Allen answered with a broken word of decent. "Wait – Love – self…control…"

"I don't need it." He almost closed his teeth on a swath of bare skin when he heard something like a high pitched whir above him, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He cursed silently in his head and turned away, eyes toward the porthole. The British boy dashed passed him and retrieved his coat from the top bunk, slipping it on over his bare shoulders as he could. "Che, how many? Five?"

Allen shook his head, left eye focusing on Kanda for a moment before it looked through the wood above them, darting back and forth, seeming to count. "No. More. I can't see them all. Can you control yourself for now?"

"Che." Kanda shot him a glare that was more of a promise than an expression of annoyance and started buttoning his jacket, feet moving to the door. "Let's go."

0x0x0x0

"Akuma! Now?! Why now?! We're having fun!"

"It can't be helped Sable. You should go."

"Yeah, yeah." She wriggled herself off of the bed with a groan, looking back at Hitori with a sigh. "I'll be careful so stop thinking about wishing me safety. And yes, you _are_ improving so don't bother asking."

He grinned down at her from the bunk when she got to the floor. "Even so… please… _do_ be careful."

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a little wink before reaching for her boots. "I will."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

With a sigh Hitori watched her go, wishing that somehow, someway, he could help.

0x0x0x0

**Lame-ish ending on my part… sorry… I hope to have 69 up by Sunday. I'm going on a trip for college, so I might not be able to update that weekend. If not… I will do what I can to write without being noticed by the people I'll be staying with :-S**

**Thanks for reading! And reviewing!**


	69. Fairness and Funding

**Hallo! Niamh updates early! And longishly (again). Because… she finished early! And… yeah….**

**Sorry. Sable's an odd sort of person. And Allen's whiny. And Hito… has balls.**

**Disclaimer of D'cough: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… chapters were have horrible, horrible titles that tell you nothing of what is really happening in the story.**

**WARNING: Um… cursing? Allusions to men touching each other…**

0x0x0x0x0

Fairness and Funding

If he wanted to, he could have looked at the white ceiling and counted the seconds in every minute as they went by, feeling them slip passed like sand through his tired fingers. Sleep would not come. He hated to admit it but here, in this fifteen foot box of a room, he was afraid of things he should not have even been thinking about. Things that had not happened. Things that would not happen. Things that made his hands quake with fear.

If the Order didn't kill Tyki, wouldn't the Noah do it for them?

His head was starting to hurt from the fever, his vision kept drifting out of focus when he did not concentrate. The tease, it seemed, was making him sicker faster than they had thought. Moving his hand for the water glass was like running a mile and bringing it to his lips was like five, putting it back another two. Yuu would have laughed at him. Lying in a bed with an IV running into his system, flushed with fear, shaking from the same reason, wishing he weren't alone. He let his sight go out of focus for a moment before he dragged his eyelid down with a short cough, the motion of which moved him enough to make him hate the lashes on his back.

The painkillers weren't working well enough for him to cough and be comfortable.

He wanted to sleep. He wanted to dream. But neither wanted to happen for him. Every time he tried was a minute he risked being sucked into the memory of what had happened and what hadn't – a memory that was half real and half twisted illusion. He did not want to dream about that. When he started to he would jerk upright and cough again, growing more tired.

_Dream about Ty-chan or Allen or Yuu or Lenalee – anyone. Not that._

But thinking the names made him wonder what would happen when he brought his lover into the Order. As far as he knew Sable was the only person who knew what Tyki looked like besides Lenalee – and she would talk to him before she said a word about who he was. She wasn't one to dive in without thinking or having a plan, so that wasn't a worry. What was a worry though, was what would happen if Komui found out. And if Komui was pressed from above to do something about it.

His hands started shaking. If they tried to hurt him Tyki would escape. But what then? The Earl…

_I don't want him to die. I don't want to die. But the odds are entirely too much against us. What can we hope for when things look so bad for both of us? What can dream of? I have to go back or I'll die – and even if that weren't the case I can't pretend that I can forget my friends and run away. I can't forget my Innocence._

"Lavi?" The nurse's voice made him look at the ceiling again. He hadn't heard the door come open to admit her. "Are you hungry? I can go get you something if you'd like."

He nodded slowly even though he closed his eye against the lights again. The headache was not improving. Nor was the feeling that soon the shaking in his hands was going to be more than thought induced. "Sure. Something light…please." He heard her start to leave and had to speak quickly to call a halt to her retreat. "And… could you bring something for Ty-chan too? I dunno how long it'll be before he's back, but I don't wanna leave 'im hungry." _Hey my voice sounds half-normal…but I must be really tired. I'm running words together._

"Sure thing."

"Thanks."

When the door closed again he did not open his eye to stair at the lights again. Instead he pressed his head further into his pillow and sighed into it, a few more hours, he knew, and he wouldn't dream at all.

0x0x0x0x0

Kanda's first response was to be irked at how many akuma had come to ruin his day. Admittedly it was half his fault – his inability to touch Allen without being interrupted – being he had called it off and managed to turn what could have been an all too satisfying event into something even more frustrating than it was before. Even now, with Mugen in hand, fighting the thirty or so machines that had found them, he could hardly pull his mind away from that fact.

But he could pull it away. So all was well.

The crew members understood Allen's message to stay out of the way until the danger was handled. They had dropped anchor, brought in the sails, and headed for cover. Indeed, only two of them managed to get close to harms way, and they were defended my an extended right palm before the British boy smiled and ushered them below deck, seemingly satisfied with what he had done.

That expression only lasted so long, however, and then he was back in the fray, hungry for more.

The last of their trio, Sable, could not have been more annoyed with the Earl at that moment if she had been in Kanda's situation. Normally she was rather indifferent to appearance of akuma – they were a nuisance to kill but really that was it – now though, when she had been enjoying the cute way Hitori pulled away when he thought a kiss was too intimate, she was angry with them. Angry and prepared to kill.

Between the three of them, sexually frustrated beings that they were, the akuma never stood a snow ball's chance in Hell.

It was easy work with Allen hacking and slashing through machine after machine, a contented smile on his lips. He watched Kanda fight for a tad as he went, amazed at the Japanese man's speed and accuracy despite everything that had to be on his mind. He was even more amazed that Kanda's eyes followed him every so often – which made him smile broader. _Let him look,_ He thought as he turned away, _It isn't as if I'm _trying_ to seduce him right now._

When there were four left Sable silently wondered where Cross was – as well as why all four turned their attention to Kanda without speaking. It seemed odd. And unfair. The General should have been more responsible than any of them for the lives of the crew, so where the hell was he in their time of need? And what was with the akuma? They had ruined everyone's day – it was unfair that Kanda would get to destroy the last of them! She would have enjoyed a wonderfully sadistic moment if they had gone for her instead! But no. They went for the most controlled person among them and lined up like stepping stones before his feet, stupid level twos. When the Japanese Exorcist's boots left the wood of the deck for the railing, Allen screamed something neither of them could understand, and then Kanda was leaping away again, feet headed for the nearest demon's shoulder.

"Kanda!" Allen yelled for a second time, but his lover didn't respond. Could he not see the akuma under the water? Could he not sense it? Was he too caught up in what he was doing? Was he just being stupid? "Kanda!"

Two explosions. _What could he want that can't wait until I'm done with these?_ Another.

"_Kanda!!"_ The last akuma rushed from the sea when his feet were just inches from the last, helpless looking akuma, moving so quickly he hardly had time to turn Mugen to defend himself. He saw as soon as he had blocked it that the thing was the same as the one Allen had destroyed by the house – and he was only blocking a hand. He pushed back, intent on kicking away to the ship again, but the thing snickered at him and caught him by the hair.

_Shit!_

"Kanda!" This time it was two voices – Allen's foot landed on the railing and slipped before he could jump properly, it was only a quick reach with his belt that kept him from falling into the sea. Sable sprinted as quickly as she could to help him, ignoring his demand that she help Kanda – he would hang on.

In the meantime the laughing akuma pulled Kanda's head back and sank its teeth into his neck, long fangs dripping something strange. Kanda lashed out with his sword before anything horrible could come of the wound but his sword didn't phase it. He pushed the blade an inch. The thing hissed at him and bit the flesh of his right shoulder.

"Love!"

He tried a different approach. Cursing he swung Mugen toward the hand that held him, intent on severing it at the wrist, but something strange stopped him. His arm felt heavy and slow, as if it were weighted by some invisible force. At once he frowned at it, trying again with more strength, but his arm fell uselessly to his side, his fingers hardly strong enough to hold the katana between them. The right side of his face felt numb and the feeling was spreading; his fingers twitched when he tried to make them into a fist.

"That's better, ain't it?" The akuma laughed. "Now the other side…"

"Kanda!" Allen finally had a foot on the deck. He watched the demon hold his lover by the collar and close its mouth firmly on the left side of his neck, making him call out. Blood glistened on the skin that the akuma punctured, seeping down his shoulders and into the fabric of his coat, hot and sticky. Allen watched mutely, Sable's hand on his shoulder, as Mugen slipped through his lover's fingers toward the sea. The akuma started moving west – faster than the ship was moving. "No! Kanda!"

"Allen." The girl said at his shoulder. "You can't jump that far, can you?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so, but I'll try."

"Just a minute. I think this might hurt a bit, but it should let you follow them."

He blinked at her, not understanding. "Sable-chan what are you—"

She slapped him on the back with bother her hands and closed her eyes, searching for the words her Innocence had told her. _"Alas."_ She pulled her hands apart and he caught himself on the railing, a startled exclamation escaped his lips at the sensation of something on his back, something large and spreading, something that was his and not his at once. It didn't hurt but it wasn't pleasant, and after a moment he glanced back to see Sable through a cloud of strange blue purple haze, breathing deeply. "Ok. I don't know how far they'll last, but it's the best I can do. I hope you can swim."

"What did you do?" He asked, turning around. He was startled when the haze moved aside, behind him, as if stuck to his back.

"I gave you wings. Go. Fly after him. If I'm right they should do whatever you think at them."

"But… what about you?" He propped a foot on the side and readied himself even as he asked – he was going, no matter what she said. Kanda and the akuma were moving so quickly they were already out of sight.

"I'll be trying to think of a word for air."

"What?"

"He dropped Mugen. I intend to get it back."

Allen's expression was more than half-unreadable. "Thank you."

"Go! He's getting farther away!"

Allen nodded and cast himself into the air.

Sable glanced back to see that the one remaining akuma – besides the one that had stolen Yuu – had gone east, so she spoke in a loud voice to the crew members, "Oi! No more akuma! And woman overboard in about five minutes! Don't let me drown!" And with that she yanked off her boots, threw off her coat, and dove into the sea.

0x0x0x0

The train station had not been overly busy but the woman had looked at him as if he were insane for asking for same day tickets. They were lucky – there were less than ten compartments empty and he was able to get one for the two of them. The Earl's money in his wallet came in rather handy.

A job. That was something he would have to find for himself if even for a day's time. He had enough money for train tickets yes, but food? And medical expenses? Not really. Not even for the twelve hours it would take to get to London and the four or so more it would take to get to the Tower – assuming it was where he thought it was. What on Earth could he do to get money quickly without drawing attention to himself? Mining wasn't an option. Neither was being a card shark. There had to be something logical for him to do – something that would draw in lots of cash quickly. But not illegal. Legality was necessary simply because if he were caught stealing, things would go down hill for Lavi. So what was there?

A one day job. Something to buy new clothes with – even with this odd, pale blue sweater someone had loaned him he still looked far too much like himself. He needed to look different. He needed to hide. And he needed money to do that.

He rubbed the tickets back and forth in his pocket, incapable of imagining something to make spare change. He watched a boy – about the age that Cole's body had looked – smile at his mother offer a coin. She grinned down at him and ruffled his dark hair before reaching behind his ear to magically produce a matching coin to the one he offered.

Something clicked.

With a chuckle that was almost audible enough to make him sound insane, Tyki turned on heel and headed for the nearest street of shops. If he were going to do this properly, he would need a number of accessories. A cape would be nice, a table, scarves, knives, candy for the children. Funding be damned – he was going to make a fortune as soon as he had what he needed.

_Well…_ He thought as he spotted a pet store. _We'll start with a rabbit._

0x0x0x0

_Ok, so I _did_ fall asleep. How ironic._ Lavi thought at his dreamscape, slightly perturbed. This time he was sitting in the galley of a ship, Allen in front of him, playing poker. It was odd though – he wasn't stupid enough to play poker against Allen, even in a dream, so why would he? Not that it mattered. He still was. And he was still losing.

'Moyashi-chan, why are we playing cards?' He asked, looking at his hand. 'In fact… I had a dream that Kanda was playing before and neither of us were. But why you? Why me? Here?'

'It's Allen.' The white haired boy smiled. 'I call.'

'Well, Allen-chan, same questions.'

The British boy sighed and laid down his hand, Lavi followed suit, yawned when Allen won – of course. His tablemate picked up the cards and began to shuffle them before dealing them again, but this time Lavi pushed his hand back at him, intent on getting answers, not going along with whatever this was supposed to be. Allen's silver eyes blinked at him in confusion, as if what he was doing was something horrible and strange.

'This is how it happened.' He said softly. 'We played seven hands of poker and I won them all. Then I went to lay on Kanda and Lavi took a nap. And then Sable saw the Noah.' He pushed Lavi's hand back at him, still looking stricken. 'We have to play. This is how it happened.'

Lavi frowned at him. 'Who am I?'

'What do you mean who are you? You are who you are, you're never anyone else.'

Lavi laid his palm across the back of Allen's right and stopped him from pushing on the deck. 'What is my name?'

'You're acting funny.'

'I'll play cards with you if you answer.'

'Please stop acting strangely! You're messing up how it happened!'

'I don't care!' Lavi stood up, clenching Allen's hand in his, yanking him up so he could look at his round, fear clouded eyes. 'This is just a dream, Allen! That's all it is! There is no _happened_, there's only what _is_! Who am I? Where are we?! What the Hell are you talking about!?' He shook his head back and forth, letting his anger run out of him – it didn't matter what he said anyways, this was just a dream. 'Don't give me stupid answers either! I want the truth.'

'This isn't a dream!' Allen screamed back at him, matching his fury. 'It's a memory! This is how it _happened!_ It was! How it ended! This is how _you_ remember it. You are everything. You are what is good. That's what you remember. Everything that was good.' He yanked his hand away, lifting a card from the table and turning it to him to look at – the ace of spades. 'This is something you enjoyed, that's why you're here.'

Lavi licked his lips and swallowed, not understanding. 'Then why are _you_ here?'

'We've always been together. It's how it is. We're family.'

Lavi froze. _Family?_

Allen kept talking, ignoring his shock. 'Fording the river? I was there too. You argued with me. You didn't understand then. It wasn't _me_ Allen, but it was still _me_. Me _then._ Me that time.' He started flipping cards, one at a time, and each one was the ace of spades, the same ace of spades, identical in every way possible, and each one made Lavi want to step away in fear. 'They're all the same card, aren't they? They're all one? But there are fifty-two of them. Different. The same. I hold one and I don't hold the others, even if they are the same. Just like you and I. Get it?'

Lavi didn't answer. He couldn't comprehend what Allen was saying. He had been at the river? Different and the same?

'But they're all part of the same deck. Without one of the same, you don't have the whole. Like us. If you're missing one of us, you might as well have none of us. That's how the memories are. I have mine, you have yours, but at this point you don't have them all. If you did, I wouldn't have to explain it like this. You would have played seven hands with me and it would have been fine. You weren't born to have these memories anymore than I was – but I don't have mine – mayhap I never will – that's not my fault though – yours is your fault – because you made him someone else. You made yourself fall in love. And now this has happened. You don't know who you are.'

'Allen.' Lavi said quietly, laying a hand on his shoulder. The boy who looked up at him looked very sad and angry, like Lavi had done something mean. Like he was lost. 'Who am I supposed to be?'

To his surprise, Allen smiled. 'You mean who are you supposed to remember?'

'Yes. Who am I supposed to remember? What am I remembering now?'

'What you are, idiot. The things that felt good.'

Lavi sat suddenly, realization hitting him like a swift blow to the gut. He looked down at his hands and was surprised to see his own turned up at him, still callused from his hammer. 'Are these… someone else's memories?' He asked softly, frowning at his fingers. 'If they are… why…'

Allen sat also, calmer now that Lavi wasn't raving at him. 'Not just someone else's. All of them. All of them that came before.'

Lavi frowned harder, looking at Allen with a terrible idea coming to mind. 'What will happen to me? And what about you? Why are you here?'

'Nothing will happen to you,' Allen smiled. 'All you get is memories. That's all he's willing to will to you.' Lavi blinked, trying to understand. 'Don't think about me.' He flipped another card over absentmindedly, grinning. 'I'm nothing but the black sheep.'

0x0x0x0x0

"I'm not going to kill you, Exorcist, because Noah-sama will kill _me_ if I do." The akuma babbled in a strange, half-scratchy voice, tightening its grip on Kanda's jacket. "I'd like to. I'd like to see you suffer too. But he wanted you breathing." The Japanese man grimaced when the machine brought him close to its bluish face and looked at him with eyes that rolled around in their sockets before blinking closed again. He couldn't lift his head or move his arms. He couldn't kick at it. He could hardly talk his lips into moving.

"Drop. Me."

"If I did that you would drown."

"Fuck. You."

The akuma smiled with lips far too wide to even pretend to be normal and ran its tongue down the side of his neck, lapping his blood. "You aren't my type. I'd rather see you squirm."

"Che…Where…"

"My poison must be working." It laughed. "My dark matter allows me to produce a poison that stops electrical impulses – if I bite you too much your heart will stop beating. Your brain will stop functioning also. I can kill you. But first you'll stop moving. Then you'll stop speaking. After that you'll lose the ability to blink… but you're so determined I'll tell you. China. We are flying to China."

"Wh…" His mouth wouldn't respond anymore. He had wanted to ask _why_ this was happening and then say something rude on top of it, but his lips were numb. Everything was numb. He could hardly blink his eyes shut to avoid leaving them frozen open. _Che,_ He scowled. _It had to be me. Baka Moyashi… why didn't he tell…_

_Oh. He tried._

_Stupid._ He concluded, struggling to swallow. _But it doesn't matter. I won't die here. I can't._ He couldn't open his eyes. _Can't…_

He felt like time was moving too slow, or maybe they were moving too fast. Whatever the case was, he knew they were farther than the ship would have been in a day's time by the angle of the sun.

Yet, just on the edge of hearing, he thought he might have heard his name.

0x0x0x0x0

Flying – if he had stopped to think about it – was very fun. The wind whipped in his hair the faster he went, and his eyes watered from the sting, but there was nothing difficult or painful about it. The wings did what he thought – just like his own Innocence – even though they had no connection too him, which was something he had never heard of. He willed himself faster and they flapped to accommodate him, bending in all the right places to increase their shape into something more aerodynamic. The waves beneath him passed so quickly the water looked like a dark, flat thing, and in the distance a dark spot blotted out a patch of blue sky.

His eye picked out a soul.

"KANDA!" He screamed, increasing speed again. How far had he gone? It didn't matter. He wasn't looking. He wasn't thinking about it. He needed to get to that large dot. Now.

The wings went flat against his back but he didn't lose altitude, instead he glided with them stretched behind him, too fast to see clearly, heart pounding in his chest, arms pressed to his sides, lungs fighting to breathe in the moving air. He could hardly stand to go that fast – it was all too much like being dragged around by Lenalee – but he would endure it. He would endure it and he would get to Kanda before the akuma could do what ever it was that it wanted. He would survive worse if he had to.

In a matter of seconds he could see his lover's limp form sagging from the akuma's hand, head lulling back, arms outstretched. He felt his heart give a spasm and pushed himself farther, harder, intent on his target. The akuma was fast but he was faster. He dared not look back to see how far they had come from the ship. A roar started in his throat and spread through him as he came closer, left hand extended, clawed fingers pointed for the akuma's back, anger pulsing through him. The speed, the anger, the whistle of wind in his ears – it was all enough to bring more adrenaline into his system than he had ever felt and send him crashing into the machine that held his lover.

Kanda felt the impact only because he told himself he felt it. His entire body felt dead. He could hear Allen yelling, and the scrapping of metal, and laughter, but he could not see it. And he could do less about it. How was Allen even here anyways? It wasn't as if his Innocence enabled him to fly.

It was over in less than an instant. The akuma had not expected the violence with which Allen shot his hand directly through its back, offering no chance for retaliation. The thing groaned, throwing back its head in anger, its fingers unwound from Kanda's jacket and he slipped from its grasp. The British boy abandoned the dying akuma in favor of grabbing his lover's wrist and holding him up – the wings accommodated his will and kept them hovering, one side slightly lower than the other from Kanda's weight. Allen guided them away from the akuma before it lashed out on last time and finally melted, its cries changing from rage to an odd sigh of pleasure, and then a laugh of appreciation.

When it was gone Allen felt himself smile.

"Love," He said softly, pulling him up until he could snake an arm across his back and hold him more steadily. Allen didn't know how far they had come but he couldn't see the ship anywhere, there was nothing but water to land in if his wings failed him now. The wind went passed and the sun glimmered in broken silver lines on the water, the world was silent before the sound of his breathing and the lapping of the swells, the beat of wings on air. There was nothing else. No marker for which way he had come, no sound. There was nothing. "Can you talk, Love? Are you alright?"

Kanda took a deep breath and focused on lips he still could not feel. He didn't need to feel to speak, did he? He tried it. A sigh escaped his nostrils.

"I'll take that as an annoyed yes." Allen pulled him closer, almost hugging. "Well, Kanda…" He turned slowly in the air, scanning the horizon, seeing nothing but sky and cloud and water for as far as he eyes could focus. "This might be a bad time for this to happen but… I'm lost…"

_Che. Baka._

"And I don't see…anything…" He kept turning, trying to find something to hold on to with his eyes. "Nothing. I'm _really_… Oh!" He exclaimed when his eyes fell on something dark behind a cloud. Dark and tall. Like a lump of chocolate pudding on the sea. "Hungry. But there's land! I must have flown farther than I thought. I guess that's our best bet, we just have to pray that Sable's wings keep us in the air that far. If they work like Miranda's Time Recovery…"

_We'll drown because you can't remember where the fuck the ship was?_

"We'll most likely drown because I can't remember where the ship is." He started toward the land, frowning, and instinctually drew Kanda up until he could wrap his arms comfortably around his waist and chest and place his face on the curve of his shoulder for a moment. "Please be ok, Love. I don't know if you can hear me but please…be ok."

_Che._

"I don't know what I'll do if you aren't." He said softly. "Love…"

Kanda dragged his eyes open even though they didn't want to move. He was facing away from his lover, so Allen didn't know he was awake, but the Japanese Exorcist aimed to make him see, even if his body and his brain weren't communicating properly. He managed to twitch his right hand against his lover's coat and pinch it between his fingers with just enough force for Allen to know it wasn't the wind. The white haired boy pulled him tighter and increased their speed, not sure if he wanted to smile or sob.

_Thank you, Kanda._ He thought calmly. _I'll hurry._

0x0x0x0x0

"Come one, come all! This is your once in a lifetime opportunity to see me, the Great Tiago Valente, perform the most wondrous magical feats the world has ever seen!" Tyki felt like a fool saying it, indeed he was half worried that he looked like one, but he wasn't about to stop because of that. They had six hours until the eleven o'clock train departed, and he had to make enough money for food and clothes in that time. A little foolishness wasn't going to make him decide against eating. "Gather around folks! You will never see an act quite like mine!"

At least his advertising was working well enough. Children guided their parents over from the nearby bakery, a number of young girls walking together paused to watch him spin his top hat – which was just as large as it had ever been – before bowing to the growing crowd, they giggled to each other and worked at their change purses. Eager. That would make things easier.

"You there!" He pointed at one of them, the one with the heaviest looking purse. He didn't care what she looked like; he wasn't interested in seducing audience members. The words were so harsh she pointed at herself and a few people on the street paused to see what was happening. He spoke louder, though more kindly. "Yes! You in the yellow dress! Allow me to ask for your assistance for a moment."

She turned to her friends and blushed at them until they coaxed her into getting closer to the table. She was shy. How perfect.

"What is your name, my lovely lady?" He asked politely, leaning closer.

"El-Eleanor.."

"Well, my lovely Lady Eleanor! Would you do me the service of searching my hat for holes?" He proffered the hat to her, smiling winningly, and watched her take it in shaking hands before turning it over and over again, looking at him with round as if she needed to be guided. "The top dear, that's the important part."

She poked at the top of it from the inside and out, proving that it was indeed nothing but a hat.

"Thank you," He smiled again and she blushingly handed it back. "And now! To start! A classic show of magical talent!" He looked back at the crowd to see that it had grown twice over since he had asked for a volunteer. People were easy to please. He placed the hat on the table top and reached into it. How simple it was to just let his fingers pass through the hat, through the table cloth, the table, and the rabbit cage sitting on the stool on the other side. By now his arm was shoulder deep in the hat and people were gasping in awe. He smiled.

"No need to worry! I know it's in here somewhere…" He grabbed the rabbit from behind the ears and gently lifted it through the cage and the table and the hat, much to the amusement of the children who had heard of but never seen a rabbit come out of a hat. There was mild applause – which warned him he'd have to do something more daring – and a few coins clinked into the exceedingly cheap suitcase he had bought.

A few coins. A glance and he counted about a fifth of what he had spent on supplies. Maybe it was possible after all.

Hurriedly he ushered the rabbit into a second cage and turned his attention to a case of knives. Daring indeed. They'd be rapt for the rest of the evening if he did this right. "Now! My friends and employers! For this I must ask that the squeamish look away and you cover the eyes of your small children. There is no telling when a magician might misjudge his hand and lose it in the processes." The people gathered closer. They always did find pleasure in fear and pain. They wanted to see. He grinned broader and pulled the longest knife from the case, tilting it to catch the sunlight. "This, my dear ducklings, is a blade sharp enough to cut the bones of a boar without pause." He flipped the lid of the case closed and laid his left hand against it before stabbing it mercilessly, hard enough to bury the blade three inches into the wood and pin his hand in place.

A woman fainted.

Now the crowed was entirely too entertained.

It was so easy.

_I should have thought of this before._ He thought as he lifted his hand up the blade. It wasn't really touching him – only enough so that he didn't move his hand in a way that would lead the people to believe he was faking. _Humans are such gullible creatures._

0x0x0x0

The ocean, Sable realized, was dark. It made sense with all that water and all of the things that lived in it and whatnot, but she had never really thought of it as _that_ dark. Not until she tried to swim to the bottom of it with her eyes open.

Light warped oddly in her hand and even more oddly when she threw it, bending in places and following the current in ways that she never would have thought of, having worked so much in air. And it was cold. _Insanely_ cold. She didn't think all the fire in her mind could warm it enough to make her comfortable for more than two seconds. Yet, despite how cold and dark it was, and how astoundingly silent, she liked it. Her brain could function when lost in that cold dark nothing.

_Aire._ She thought purposefully, placing her hands over her mouth and nose to breathe. She had been right about one thing – diving in and swimming until she ran out of oxygen made her Innocence give her the word she needed. It had a dangerous gamble but it had worked, just like she had hoped, and now she had taught herself to breathe underwater – so long as she had her hands there to manifest something to inhale. _Lovely…_ She mused to herself after two breathes. _I gain an ability or two and then I start thinking about how I can die regardless._

She swam deeper, trying to catch any sign of the bottom, any glint of metal. Why did Mugen have to have a black handle anyway? That just made life harder.

The thought made her think of Allen and Kanda, both of whom were suspended over the sea somewhere, flying. _Alas_ – a word she had found when reading the Bible in Spanish. It had never occurred to her that it would be a useable word – not until she had read it – and she had never thought to use it for fear it would manifest angel wings from her back, and rip whatever she was wearing. She had also not expected it to work when she tried it on Allen. How that possible, anyways? It was _her_ Innocence, why would it follow his orders? Was it because she had told it to? Or something else?

Whatever. It wasn't important. She could feel that he was still flying, that was one thing, and that he was getting farther and farther away. What did she care about the reason it had worked? If it worked that was what counted.

She saw sand. Kelp covered, rocky, completely not pretty sand. And some fish. Mentally she added creepy to the list of things the ocean was. Dark, cold, quiet, and creepy – it was Kanda! The ocean was Kanda! She would have laughed if something long, dark, and bladed had not have caught her eye that moment, protruding from the gross looking sand, blade down. It amazed her. She thought she would have to search all day to find it and there it was, right where he had dropped it.

_Aire._ Two more breathes and she went for it. She grinned to herself when the katana slipped from the ground with more ease that she thought possible. _And now we go back._ She would have sighed if it wouldn't have wasted her breath. _Goodbye ocean floor… hello hypothermia._

0x0x0x0

Hitori pounded on the door to his mother's cabin with enough strength to wake the dead – or nearly. He was angry. He was _more_ than angry. He wanted answers.

When Cross answered the door Hitori's anger flared in his chest. He reached up and took the older, taller, scarier man by the collar and yanked him down, ignoring the cigarette in his right hand and the surprise in his left eye.

"Why aren't you out there?!" He demanded, dragging the general's face lower. It was hard to get him to eye level, but Hitori managed. Cross frowned at him and tried to jerk away, Timcampy – who had not been seen in a long time – fluttered around the older man's head before resting daintily on Hito's hair, seeming to enjoy the view.

"Excuse me?" The words were a growl.

"Akuma! You drunken bastard!" Hito yelled. "Why didn't you fight them?! They could have used you!" He shook the man, refusing the let go even when his left hand touched the doorframe. "Allen and Nii-chan are _gone_ because you didn't help them! And Sable hasn't come up since she went looking for Mugen! It's all your fault if they die! You're the one you didn't fucking help! You're the one that could!" He gave a jerk that he didn't really mean and rocked back on his feet.

He hated himself at this moment more than he could ever hate the man he was yelling at. _He_ hadn't done anything either. But this man could have. That was the difference. Knowing what akuma were, made Hitori sad – he would have destroyed them if he could – so he had watched, knowing that he could do nothing to assist the Exorcists. It hurt. He had wanted to run out and save his brother when he had been bitten, he had wanted to pull up Allen when he had fallen from the ship, he had wanted to jump in after Sable when she had gone after his brother's sword – but he could do none of it. He could standby and watch it happen. Powerless. Unlike Cross. Cross watched for no reason Hitori cared to see or understand.

The tears that burned in his eyes made him want to hit something, but he would resist the urge.

"Look kid," Cross said coolly, bringing his cigarette to his lips before taking a long drag and exhaling it slightly to the side of the boy's face. "My Innocence isn't something that does well on a ship of people. And even if it did, it's none of your business why I keep out of a fight. Now let go of me if you want to use that hand again, boy."

"They weren't _on_ the ship! They were over the—"

Cross glared at him and ground the cigarette on the doorframe before taking a firm grip on Hito's shirt and pushing him to arm's length, effectively freeing his collar. "Listen kid, if you want to whine to me about helping, how about you try yourself, eh? Join the Order, then I'll listen." With that Cross turned on heel and slammed the door in his face, leaving him alone with Timcampy in the quiet hall, angry tears refusing to leave his eyes.

"Fine." He said quietly. "I will."

0x0x0x0x0x0

**Whaaa! Ok. So… I'm not gonna lie. The likelihood on 70 being up by Sunday is… 1 in 50k.**

**But that's ok! It gives time for reviews to build up! YAY!! Also… it's not really a cliffhanger… it kind of is… I'm sorry…**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! Love!**


	70. Falling and Memories

**LONG! Sorry gone. 70!**

**I don't own DGM.**

**WARNING: Men sexual relations each other. Might confuse without manga. More later. **

0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0

Falling and Memories

When Tyki came back to the hospital he took the rabbit in with him, electing to leave his other supplies in the waiting room in the care of Ophelia. She was just as spidery as ever, and smiley and glad to see that he was in good health. She still looked half-hollow, but he figured that was why she worked until midnight.

He straightened his new clothes as best he could as he headed down the hall, which was rather difficult with Lavi's garments and a rabbit cage in one hand. He'd made four times what he had spent with knife tricks alone and another half again repeating the first one for the woman who had fainted the first time. They would eat well for the next few hours, and he could pay for his own medical expenses; he figured the Order would be much more willing to pay for Lavi's care than his own. All things considered, they would still think of him as an enemy after all he had done to prove otherwise.

He opened the door and came into Lavi's room to find Marlette sitting on the bed that had been his, her nurse's cap in her hands, looking sad. She had to be between thirty and thirty-five, but she held herself like a woman in her eighties, tiredly, as if she had seen too much – and then he caught her eye and she brightened a thousand times over, a grin so wide it made him feel sympathy for her lips split her face.

"Well hidey-ho, Tiago." She chimed. "I hear th' two of ya are leavin'?"

He nodded and placed the cage beside her, trying to be casual. He felt seriously odd in his khaki colored pants and plain white shirt. He had kept his shoes and belt and thrown away his coat – a heavy traveling cloak was waiting with the folding table and whatnot with Ophelia. No hat, no gloves, just clothes that made him feel plain and clean. "How's he been?"

"Jes'ca brough' 'im supper a couple hours go. 'Asn't been awake t'eat it."

"The fever?"

"High. You're right 'bout it. Nuthin' we give 'im helps." She sighed and her crystalline eyes wandered back to Lavi's bed, a frown creasing her features. Her fingers flipped her cap around and around until finally she crushed it between her palms. "What d'ja say he did? I can't imagine what a kid like 'im could do t'have all those knife marks… and then sayin' a ceilin' fell on 'im. Heh. I'm dumb but I ain't that stupid. There's more t'it than that." Her eyes flicked back to Tyki, expecting an answer.

He was looking longingly at his lover, watching his breathing, watching him sleep. His expression a perfect embodiment protective instinct; it made her grin. "He's an Exorcist." He said flatly. "And he didn't do anything for this to happen. I did."

Her brow furrowed. "It won't help nuthin' if ya blame yerself for sumthin' like this Ty-chan. Ya di'n put th'knife t'is skin, so it ain't yer doin'. Don't punish yerself for it."

He shook his head and sighed, trying to cast aside his melancholy. In the brightness of the hospital lights she could see the dark circles beneath his eyes and the hollowness to his cheeks that he usually hid so well with his manners and dashing smile. There was something wrong and she could sense it, more wrong than a boy being jumped in an alley. Something twisted.

"Are you a good secret keeper, Marlette?" He asked quietly before he looked back at her, his face neutral. He needed to tell someone in case they failed, in case they died, in case a million things happened. It felt right.

"If'n I need t'be."

"For thousands ofyears a war has been raging that – for the most part – humans do not know of. He and I… we are on opposite sides of that war. He seeks to keep the world as it is; I have always sought to destroy it. But now… those sides don't matter. The sides have changed. There is our side and the forces that seek to separate us. Good and evil, prophecy, will – none of it means anything to us anymore. They are just words men use to justify their deeds." He sighed, letting himself sag against the bed until he was sitting next to her, the rabbit between them, and he let his head fall into his hands. "I am a dead man if I am not careful. He… I don't know what will happen if his side discovers what has come of us."

"If he's an Exorcist and you're against 'im, what does that make ya?"

He let a mirthless laugh escape his throat. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I am one of them." He rubbed at his eyes with his hands before turning them to her tiredly, trying to smile. "We are fools for doing this but what else is there? We can turn to no man; for if he knows what we are he will kill one of us for our evil. We can turn to no woman; for if she sees what we have done she will try to defend us with the men who would slay us. We can turn to no God; for the ones we serve will smite us in turn for being nonbelievers. So what have we? We have our foolery and our hope. We have nothing, and in nothing we have everything we need."

"But not a home."

He blinked at her. "How insightful."

"Thanks. I said I'm dumb but I ain't that stupid." She leaned gently over the cage and laid a hand on his shoulder, smiling at him, and gave an encouraging little pat. "Well, I dunno if yer 'is brother or 'is lover or even 'is father figger, but whateve' ya are, I jus' know things'll turn for the good in the end. Even if they get worse before they get better, they _will_ get better." She squeezed none-too-gently and grinned when he let his head sag against his chest, more out of appreciation than pain or fear or defeat. "Jus' take things as th'come. If tha' dun work, refuse t'take 'em."

"Thank you, Marlette." Tyki mumbled. "If we get away with this I'll come back someday to thank you formally. If we don't… I might be back to hide." He said the second half in an almost joking tone of voice even though they both knew it was true, she gave him a lopsided smile. "Well, until I move off to the next town with the same act."

"Heh." She gave him one last pat. "You'll make it, I'm sure. Anyhow, when's yer train leave?"

"Two hours."

She gave a curt nod that jiggled her curls back and forth around the sides of her face, she let her hand drop to the rabbit cage. "Ya best be off then. If ya wan' a compartment worth havin'."

He sighed and he raised his head before pushing off of the mattress, taking Lavi's clothes with him. He walked slowly to his lover's bed and sank down on it, looking thoughtful, the garments across his knees as if he didn't want to actually use them. With a steady hand he reached out and brushed the hair from Lavi's forehead, feeling the heat from his skin against his palm, the slight way he pulled away before he opened his eye. And then he smiled too weakly for Tyki's sake.

"Thanks for waking me. My dreams are nuts." He muttered, blinking. "How is it that you're always here when I get up?"

"You have a tendency not to rouse when others try. I brought you clothes. And train tickets. And my newest friend." He smiled, lifted the green sweater from his lap, and extended it toward the sick young man in front of him as if it were the best present he could ever give. "It's warm…"

Lavi gave a chuckle that made him wish his skin would just fall off of his back all together. Stupid painkillers. Weren't they good for anything but making his face feel like it was about ready to tingle off of his skull? It didn't seem like it. Not after all this time. Not after he'd coughed himself into wondering if his back even had scabs left under the bandages.

"Thanks." He croaked the word and reached out with his right hand to take the garment only to find his arm perfectly unwilling to move more than six inches without shaking. His fingers found the fabric and he closed his hand against it, letting his fingers hold the weight of the appendage against the pull of gravity. He blinked at his hand. It looked normal – a little pale, but normal – but it reminded him of something, something important, something he had wanted to talk to Tyki about that he couldn't remember now. What had it been? Had it even had to do with his hands?

"Lavi?" Tyki's voice pulled his stare from the back of his palm to his lover's face. He breathed a shaking breath, trying to understand what was wrong.

"I don't…feel very good. And… I had a dream… that made me think…" His hand slid off of the sweater and plopped into his lover's lap before curling gently into the fabric of his pants. "How come I remember playing poker with Allen? How come I remember fording a river what should have been forded a long time ago? How come… I dreamed your eyes were black… and then they were?" He swallowed in a dry throat and sagged against his pillow; Tyki watched the blood drain from Lavi's cheeks and immediately moved closer, dropping the sweater in favor of touching his neck and face, terror filling him as he lifted his lover closer. The hand that had fallen away a moment before came up to twine in his shirt and fight to pull him closer.

"Don't faint just yet dear, not if you want answers."

The redhead's eye was held opened so wide Marlette thought he would never close it. "I know the answers Tyki. I…was you…I was…someone else…and I don't…I have…now…"

Tyki shushed him gently, stroking the side of his face to the same rhythm that he began to rock them in, soothing them both as he moved. "I should have told you. I should have warned you."

"War. You've seen so much war."

"I should have done so much that I haven't done for you."

"And you enjoyed yourself until the change. When that man ran you through with his sword." Lavi couldn't feel him shaking but he could feel himself change memories, the room had no meaning to him anymore, all that mattered was the feeling that he was suddenly lying flat on his back on a hill, the moon looking down on him, a cool spring breeze playing on his face. He could feel it. He could feel it and he knew that it was his and not his – it was someone else's, and they had enjoyed it. "Why now? I'm… awake…or am I…"

"Look at me." Tyki said seriously, forcing Lavi back and turning his face so he had to. "Do you see me, Lavi? If you can I need to you tell me that it is so."

"Yes. I can see you." Lavi breathed at him, closing his fingers on his shirt. "Ty-chan…" He blinked slowly, his gaze finally resting on his lover's. "My sight…"

"Listen to me. If you try, you can stop them. Not forever, but you can stop them for now." Tyki paused when a hand fell on his shoulder that wasn't Lavi's and glanced for a moment to see Marlette standing beside him, a questioning look on her face. He paid her no heed.

"How?"

Tyki brushed the skin of his forehead with his right thumb and slowed their rocking to a gradual halt, his expression grim. "Right now, tell me who you are. Tell me who is in my arms. And look at me. Touch me if you can. Feel only now, what's here, in this moment, in this _now_." He leaned forward, placing his lips just inches from his lover's, drawing him closer. "Can you do that, Lavi?"

"Yeah." He nodded as if the act required some great effort. "I'm Lavi. Apprentice Bookman. Exorcist. This is my forty-ninth alias. And you're Tyki Mikk. The Noah of Pleasure. And I love you." When he had finished Lavi felt his lover's arms curl around his back and the mouth that had been so very close finally pressed fiercely into his lips, driving his weak fingers to seek more of his lover's flesh. He closed his eye to it, feeling the cool lips against his, the caress against his cheek, the soft beating of the Noah's heart under his palms. He tried to lose himself in it.

It was like being in two places at once. He could smell the sea and Tyki's cigarettes, feel wind on his face moving in time with the gentle caress of a finger, hear Marlette's gasp in time with the crash the surf, and it was all too much for him. He could taste blood in his mouth and hear a laugh gathering in his throat at the uselessness of the wound before the feeling was gone – replaced by the feel of sheets on his bare skin and soft kisses on the skin of his jaw. He almost stopped what he was doing but instead willed himself only to know what was happening in this moment. Now, in this hospital, in Ty-chan's arms.

Slowly, the memories that were not his felt as if it were fading. The touch of flesh felt more real and the sound of the sea diminished into a muted murmur in his mind, leaving him cold. He could not maintain the kiss and fell away with a shiver, the air in his lungs felt too thick, his head too heavy. Yet, somehow, when it was over he knew what it had been that he had wanted to talk about. He had wanted to tell him about the dreams, and about his vision, and about how worried he was. Because no matter how he looked at it something was happening, and everything pointed to one simple thing that made his future very unclear – something that frightened him for his lover's safety as well as his own.

Tyki leaned his forehead against his lover's and closed his eyes to the heat that radiated from his skin, tried to ignore the ragged way he drew breath. When he spoke, the words were in a half-whisper that carried just barely to Marlette's ears. "I'm so sorry. I should have told you before – what it is for us to love." He felt the hands that had clawed their way under his shirt clutch at his skin and responded with a soft squeeze of his left hand on Lavi's shoulder, attempting to be reassuring. "Because I love you, because we are fools, this is the cost. The memories." He swallowed hard in attempt to keep his voice from sounding strained. "I have done what I can to keep them from you, but there is naught else I can do to defend you from them."

"So they _are_ yours." Lavi said softly. "And the ones that came before…"

Tyki nodded. "Only the white."

"The good." Lavi half echoed. "Allen told me."

"Allen?" Tyki frowned at him.

"Yeah… long story…" He closed his eye and his fingers slipped to his lover's hips, a sigh slipped passed his lips that made Tyki worry more than anything else ever could have. "Maybe…some other time, 'kay?"

"Lavi," Tyki said boldly, cupping his face in his right hand. "Listen to me, Lavi. Can you listen?"

"Talk faster…"

"No matter what you remember, never forget who you are. Never forget that this is the moment you belong in."

Lavi snorted at him. "I'm not…stup…" The word trailed off even though his mouth completed it. He sighed again and sagged against his pillow, red hair pressed oddly up behind him, eye rolling restlessly. "I'm tired." Tyki leaned forward and gently kissed the lid; let his hand run soothingly through those short locks before trailing his fingers over the boy's lips.

"Then sleep my dear."

_My God, I wish you were better. If you were well and inheriting my will, I would make you live now in more ways that I care to think of. Well, that's not entirely true. I care to think of them without a gaping nurse beside me. And without my leg tucked at this angle._

"Tyki, eh?" Marlette brought him back to the moment. He glanced up to see her scratching at her chin with her thumb, eyebrows furrowed. She shot him a mocking half-scowl.

"Yes?"

Her face broke into a sly grin. "With a name like that, no wunner you switched t'Tiago."

He gave her a tiny, pathetic attempt at a grin and shook his head.

"An' now! Tykago Miklente, I'll help ya with 'is clothes."

0x0x0x0x0

Even before he had willed the tears from his eyes Hito went back to the ship side and watched to see what had come of Sable, Allen, and his brother. He was seething silently at the sea, damning it, damning Cross, damning the creator of akuma that Sable and Allen had told him about – it was, in the end, his fault after all. Without the Earl there would be no akuma. Without akuma there would be no need for Exorcists but to find Innocence and use it to improve the world. If he were gone… if he were dead… if he were put out of commission…

"Man overboard! _Ladder!_" The cry was directly beside him and he leapt at the sound, nearly tripping in the processes. He looked to where the man was pointing and immediately spotted a bobbing Sable head, mouth shut to the roiling waves, arms parting the water as she swam. After a moment of staring he turned and dashed toward their cabin, feet pounding on the deck and down the stairs toward their room. He threw open the door and, ignoring the mess on the floor, ripped the blanket from the bottom bed before galloping out the door again. His footfalls reminded him of thunder.

By the time he was sprinting across the deck she fumbled onto it also, shaking from head to toe, Mugen tucked into her belt. Her braid had come undone and her hair hung around her shoulders in thick dark gold strains, her lips were purple, teeth chattering together with the force of her shivering jaw. He felt himself frown and slowed his pace a little – there were people gathering around her, offering towels to dry her with.

She shook her head at them. "Lemme go take off some clothes first. I'll just get them—" The nearest man attacked her hair with a towel and she stopped protesting, let her back be somewhat patted and her legs violently rubbed before she stepped away from them, waving them away dismissingly. "It is not going to help until I get dry clothes. Please… just let me to my…" She stopped short without finishing, her hands suddenly to her sides, eyes blinking, feet unsteady for a moment. The crew members frowned at her sudden pose and stepped back, waiting for her to explain. "Sorry. Looks like – or doesn't look like – I might have been underwater for just a little too long…"

"Sable-chan?" He finally ventured, stepping forward to take her cold hand in his. Her head tilted at him but her eyes were vacant, her gaze seemed to go completely over his head from where he was standing. Dead eyes and nearly lifeless lips; it made him shiver. "You… can't see can you?"

She shook her head slowly and her fingers closed tightly on his hand, but a sly smile slid across her lips nonetheless. "No. Not a thing. It's fine though, it shouldn't last more than twelve hours."

"What is it?"

"Rebound." She said flatly. "I used my Innocence a lot to breathe – and for Allen's wings – and my face isn't used to it. It's happened before, but I've never been completely blind."

Hitori found it odd that there was no fear in her voice. She could stand there, suddenly blind, dripping on the deck, quivering with cold, and smile at him like there was nothing strange about it at all. Not at him, really, just in his direction. He was somewhat saddened by her bravery before he came to the fatalistic realization that it was all she really had. It was all any of the Exorcists had but each other. They would face blindness, injury, death – anything, and he could do nothing to stop it.

"Come on." He gave her a little pull and she stepped forward. He tucked the sad gray blanket under his arm and took her firmly by the elbow as well as the fingers – the better to guide her – and set out slowly toward their room. He was amazed by her steadiness, her willingness to follow, her memory of the two steps down to the hall. But still, even if she was courageous and had a good memory, she was shaking.

"I never knew the ocean was that cold."

He let himself chuckle. "It's kind of big to be warm isn't it?"

She shook her head at him, face tilted at a slightly more correct angle now that he had spoken again. "It's not like a beach out there – it's like a swimming through your brother's personality."

He snorted loudly at her, a sound that made her grin it was so not fitting of his looks. Even if she couldn't see him she knew that he was just as attractive looking as he had been the last she had set eyes on him, and the sound was just as ugly as the last time she had made him make it. She knew that they were nearing their door but reached out anyways, intent on touching his face in this instant – when it meant more to her than warmth. With her right hand, which he wasn't holding, she caught a strand of his hair between her fingers and gave a tiny tug.

"Hitori." She said softly, following the hair with her fingers until her palm came to the side of his face. She felt him slow to a halt, his bare feet silent on the wooden floor.

"Sable." He always did that when he did not hum in response – he repeated her name as if saying it somehow made her calling him less demanding. He called her back.

Her fingers glided to his lips and across the curve of his elegant, almost narrow jaw, then up to the curve of his left eye. _Wow,_ She mused to herself. _He might look a little like Kanda but his face is shaped differently underneath. Besides what I've noticed – and what I like – it's…more than that._ "Your expression…" She traced his eyebrows one at a time. "It's pretty worried."

"You could have just asked me if I was worried."

"But then I wouldn't get to touch you."

He was thankful she couldn't see him blush. "It's no big deal. It is hard not to be worried with you and Nii-chan and Nee-san missing. At least you're back now." He explained, a smile coming into his voice. "That makes things a little easier to bear." He gave her hand a little tug and started walking again, determined to get her warm. "But enough of that! You need dry clothes and warmth."

"Touching you makes me warm."

"Sable-chan…"

"It does. I'm chilly enough that heat transfer is—" A door came open and closed again behind her, momentarily interrupting her scientific explanation. "Rapid. It takes very little energy too—" This time she was cut off with a gentle, hot kiss to her lips, a silky, questing tongue sweeping delicately over her lips before fluttering patiently into her mouth, heating her still cold insides. She hummed appreciatively into it, pulling the Japanese boy almost close enough to dampen him on her sopping clothes.

When they parted he spoke to her in a voice so quiet she barely heard it, even with her forehead touching his. "I know, I've read a few books on chemistry since I was five. It's not important right now anyway. I am going to go get your coat and your boots from the deck – can you change into something dry on your own?"

"Yeah. If not… we'd be in deep shit with your mother."

He kissed her lightly this time, just a peck of contact on her skin. "Like I give a damn. Alright, you change, I will get belongings, and come back to keep you warm."

"Oh? Do I see touching in the future?"

His shoulders slumped. "Yes. You see yourself touching a blanket and me touching the other side of it."

She pouted at the place his voice was coming from. "Skin works better…"

"Whore."

"Only because you tease me!"

"Whatever. I'm going. Get on the bottom bunk if you're all set by the time I get back. I don't want to risk your life on the ladder." He let her give him one last kiss – this one on the side of his mouth (which he _hated_ because it made him want _more_) before he went off to do what he aimed. It was only when he was out of ear shot – and hopefully out of sight – that Sable slumped onto the floor, fingers curled up into strange fists against her face.

A sad whimper parted her lips and her arms shook uncontrollably. "I hate you rebound." She muttered. "You know what you did, Innocence. I know you kept me from being crushed by the sea, I know you gave me air, I know you kept Allen and Kanda in flight…" She trailed off, her quivering hands falling slowly to her wet knees. "Kept?"

0x0x0x0x0

A half mile out from land Allen felt the wings leave him. At first he only felt oddly bereft at their loss – and then he understood what losing them meant. Losing them meant swimming with a half-incapacitated Kanda for a half mile until the crawled up on the beach of that oddly pudding shaped landmass in front of them. And they would have to fall a good thirty feet before they started.

For a moment he hated gravity.

The fall took enough time for him to think about how he was going to hopefully survive. It also took enough time for Kanda to figure out that Allen was not controlling their dissent and suck in a slightly larger breath of air.

And then there was impact.

Hitting the sea was like smashing onto a silver flecked marble floor, the flat surface of a water valley was shattered with their contact, and the sound of rushing bubbles filled Allen's ears even before he could comprehend that they were under the water. Far under the water. Allen squeezed his arms tightly around his lover's chest and took a moment to get his bearings in the dark, bone splintering cold around them; he could hear his heart pounding in his eardrums and ignored it, ignored the feeling of his ears growing pained with pressure. It did not matter that his left ankle felt twisted or that his right knee was half numb – all that mattered was that last half mile to land. All that mattered was which way was up.

And food.

The land had looked like a scoop of chocolate pudding on the sea, after all. Maybe he had gotten lucky and stumbled upon some secret, God-sized dessert plate in the middle of nowhere.

_Ridiculous._ He thought with finality. _If it were real, I'd never be the first._

Filtered light caught the metal of Kanda's jacket and he turned his face upward until he found the sun gleaming oddly gold through the water, nearly blinding. The imperfect circle looked so far away – felt so distant – that his first kick toward it made him wonder if he'd ever make it in his jacket and boots, Kanda in his arms. He didn't think it was possible, even if he was a strong swimmer.

He kicked as hard as he was able, driving them for the surface at a pace that was – if anything – disheartening. He kept at it thought, desperately fighting the pull of his boots toward the bottom, the drag of his coat, simply willing them to get there as quickly as possible. Without panicking.

Kanda's eyes were half open in the water mostly because he couldn't force himself to open them any more than that. The water tasted like blood against his tongue and the burn of salt on his neck almost made him grimace; his face would not quite respond to that demand just yet. His limbs would not help them move higher. He was dead weight. He hated being dead weight.

_Che. Hold your breath Moyashi and kick harder._

It felt like twenty minutes before they broke the surface in the middle of a wave. Allen flopped onto his back in an attempt to keep Kanda's face above the water, which was hard when they both had a tendency to sink like rocks. The sun glared into Allen's silver eyes and burned them with the ferocity of brands; he closed them to it and gasped in air that felt like knives in his lungs, chills running up and down his arms madly. He heard Kanda cough but couldn't ask if he was alright, not with a half mile of water to deal with.

"Moyashi." The Japanese man said weakly. Allen ignored the call for a moment to hook his right arm crossways under Kanda's shoulder, reaching for the opposing collarbone. Like that he could kick without striking his lover and he could keep both of them from falling, if he looked over his right shoulder he could see the curve of the island or continent that he had seen before – and he could see trees on it, white sand, and a waterfall. From here, as foodless and tired as he was, it looked like heaven. "Moyashi."

"Swimming, Love." He responded with a gasp. He wasn't lying either. Swimming and talking was work.

"Che." Kanda half growled. "Fine."

"Tell me when we get to land."

_I plan on it. And I plan on a lot of other things – as soon as my body's working._

The British boy kept his head turned over his shoulder, watching the land, and sealed his chapping lips to the salty water around then. _Don't waste your strength on speaking._

0x0x0x0

Lavi felt very warm, warm and oddly happy. His head still hurt, his whole body felt as if it were going to disintegrate into a million pieces, but he had not dreamed a thing that wasn't his minds twisted creation; the presence of a blanket around his shoulders and a scarf around his neck made him even more content. He sighed without opening his eye and leaned closer to the oddly soft, oddly breathing seat against his back.

"Are you awake, Lavi?" His pillow inquired, arms snaked their way around his chest and pulled him a little closer, a face buried itself in the fabric of his scarf.

He signaled an only slightly verbal negative. He leaned his head back a little and a pair of gentle lips pressed into his throat, making him sigh. "Well, maybe a little."

Tyki laughed softly against his lover's skin, smiling at the little line of goosebumps his breath produced. It was terribly evil of him to do such a thing to his sick lover but he still did it regardless – it was better than killing him after all. "I took the liberty of changing your clothes. I hope you do not mind. I also hauled you to the train station and arranged us in this car, not that you could have guessed that if you would simply open your eye to see." The entire time he spoke Tyki kept his lips on his lover's skin, let his right hand glide to the felsh of Lavi's hip, just under his shirt. "It was dreadfully hard to balance so many belongings and you, I might add."

"I'm sorry," Lavi sighed at him, leaning his head yet further to the side to expose yet more of his neck. "I'm not really good for carrying anything right now. What did you do, by the way? I thought we only had what we were wearing when you broke me out."

Tyki gently sucked at the inviting flesh he was offered, hating himself for doing it, before he suddenly pulled away to speak again. "I stood on a corner and sold myself to the public."

"What?!" Lavi actually opened his eye and tried to turn and look at him but teeth on his skin stopped him short. God that felt wonderful. It had been so long since they had touched each other with more than just delicate embraces and kisses that the touch of pain was bliss to his flesh, making him gasp. He leaned into it, rolling his head back until he was looking at the roof of the train above them. "Mmmm… that feels…great…"

The Noah almost laughed at his response. Instead he gave one long caress with his tongue that led all the way to Lavi's ear, which he spoke into softly. "I performed a magic show for the townsfolk, much of which was made far easier by my abilities. You would be amazed at how much humans will pay to see a man stab himself mercilessly through the hand with a blade." He let his mouth close around the edge of his lover's earlobe, his right hand drifted up that too hot chest, lifting the shirt against it until Lavi caught his wrist and pulled the limb first away from his heart and up to his neck. "Twisted creatures."

"Ty-chan… can we…"

He hummed into his ear in a way that gave no answer at all. Lightning shot down Lavi's side and his back arched against the older man, he dragged the hand to his jaw.

"Please…"

"You would have us do that here, darling? With you as you are? With your leg broken?" Even as he asked his free hand traced the skin above the boy's pants line, making him moan. "Is that a good—" He was cut off when two of his fingers slid delicately into the redhead's mouth, the inside of which was far hotter than he expected, and moister that he had imagined. A silky tongue slid across the tips of his fingers, tickling, and his lips defended Tyki's finger from his teeth. The sensation almost drove the Noah to do something stupid.

**I WANT.**

"Yes. If we're careful it should be fine." Lavi half-pleaded, "I want you so bad… I have been for a long time. Remember when I called Lenalee? I wanted you then." He licked each finger tip in turn before blowing on them, slowing his speech. "And when you tried to tell me what's going on with my mind – I wanted you before I got carried away with too many memories."

**I WANT.**

Tyki shivered for a moment, fighting the urge to bite into Lavi's neck mercilessly. He felt something in his back turn suddenly, painfully, twisting in a way that made him tense from waist to neck. His arms pulled his lover closer and his jaw fell open, the thing within him seemed to wrap around his spine and bend his neck so his face was at the perfect angle. He wanted to do this. The voice wanted to do this. Lavi wanted him to do this. But all the same fear made his heart slap against his ribcage like a trapped bird's wings, fighting for escape.

"La…vi…" He managed. "Let me…run to the bathroom for a moment." He whispered. "I'll hurry back."

"And can we…"

He chuckled and the sound was easier than he thought it would be to produce. _"I want to."_ He husked. "But we will have to see."

0x0x0x0

Allen had tried to swim up onto the beach and instead buried his hand in the sand, just inside the tide line. He didn't care that he was breathing too hard; he still heaved both of them out of the water before collapsing onto his chest in the sand, face toward his supine lover, heaving. He watched the Japanese Exorcist slow his breathing; eyes closed, and gradually turn his face against the pure white sand, eyes gently hooded.

"Moyashi," He said for the third time since they had fallen into the sea. Allen lifted himself on shaking, sand coated arms and crawled slowly closer, ignoring the grime he had accumulated in his hair and on his face, ignoring the scent of decaying seaweed and wet leather in sunlight. The ground felt like fire on his palms but he still shook when the wind blew.

"It's Moyashi-kun." He corrected, laying his head on his lover's chest with a sigh. He felt so heavy, like he was ready to lose his limbs entirely.

"Che. You have a crab in your hair."

"What?!" Allen looked at him disbelievingly. "How long as it been there!? Can you get it out!? Don't let it pinch me!" He blinked at him, specifically ignoring the creepy feeling of something small clinging to the back of his head. If there was a crab in his hair he wasn't going to pull it out and risk injury – that was Kanda's job.

"Heh. I can't move my arms remember?"

"I can't move mine! I'm too tired! Please try, Kanda. It's creepy… What if it decides to make a home and stay there?! What will it eat!?"

"Maybe it will trim your hair for you."

Allen glared at him.

Kanda laughed a little at him before scooping the little hermit crab gently away with his unsteady right hand and placing it back on the beach. "There."

"You just moved your arm."

"And?"

"But… you said…"

"I was teasing. It's just a harmless hermit crab; it couldn't cut your hair if it tried."

The British boy seethed at him, glaring with silver eyes from his place, eyes closing slowly. "What did you want to tell me on the way here?"

Kanda's lips turned up a little at the edges, his dark eyes twinkled a little in the sun. "I love you."

Allen inclined his head a little and sighed into his lover's wet, sandy chest, eyes half hooded. "I love you too. And it's sweet that you'd say that in the middle of the ocean when I'm trying to save us both from drowning."

Kanda narrowed his eyes at him. "It was important."

"You know what else is important?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"You waking my up before your skin burns off in the sun, alright?"

0x0x0x0

Tyki locked the bathroom door behind him and stood with his hands on either side of the sink, staring down the drain, breathing hard. The pain was almost unbearable, the images flashing through his mind too real, the sinking feeling that at any moment he was going to lose to that voice too strong. He braced himself against the counter, feeling the voice start again, starting in the base of his spine.

**I WANT.**

"You can't have. Not unless you have on my terms."

**I WANT. I WANT. I WANT.**

"So do I!" He said too loudly, slamming his hands. "If we have him… if we do that… we cannot hurt him. We cannot let you hurt or kill."

**I want to kill…**

That was quieter. Not a demand, just a reminder. He shivered.

"But you won't. If we do this, you will do nothing without me wanting you to. No biting, touching, nipping, scratching—_ah…_" He leaned heavily on the sink, suddenly feeling even more pained than before, a wave of nausea threatened to spill his dinner into the drain. "Stop – it…"

**I WANT HIM. I WANT HIM NOW.**

"You can't have him…"

**I CAN.**

His hand fisted itself without him trying and hit the mirror with nearly enough force to break it. He swayed on his feet for a moment, stopping himself from stepping toward the door. "No. You can't. I said you can't." His arm shook as he brought it down again, glaring at the drain. "This is _my_ body. You're along for the ride for now."

**I WANT HIM. I WANT HIM. I CAN.**

"Shut _up!_" He ordered. "Shut up. I won't listen. If you keep this up, I won't touch him at all. I swear to God I won't."

**I WANT.**

"I know."

**GIVE.**

He leaned forward suddenly, pain ripping through his back, shredding his reason for a moment, a horrible groan filling his throat. He choked on it, blood splattered from behind his lips, spilling down his chin and onto the pure white porcelain, staining it crimson. He breathed in ragged gasps so deep they seared his lungs rattled his frame, driving his fingers against the wood under his palms.

"You – can't – have." He grated, spitting. _I want him as much as you do, but you must understand – this will not work unless we cooperate. Take the backseat. If he asks me to hurt him… if he asks me to tie him down… if he insists that I take him as forcefully and painfully as you want to—"_

**I WILL.**

"No." _You will tell me what to do and I will do it. If he finds out that I'm having trouble with half of my soul, he'll never touch me again._

**POINT MADE.**

"Understood?" He looked up at the mirror and cringed at his blood stained lips, the dark circles under his eyes. There really was no way to hide what was happening if it kept up.

_**I want.**_

--OMAKE!--

Kanda approached the cafeteria window slowly, mulling over what he was about to do like a man contemplating suicide. He had never ordered anything besides soba and tempura from Jerry – he was presented with it without saying a word sometimes – and he wondered what the man would do when he say his sudden change in taste.

"Good morning, Kanda-san!" The frilly man said with a sparkle. "What can I get for you?"

"Ichigo. For Moyashi's bed. In a box."

The Indian man blinked at him. "That's a little odd for you isn't it? Sounds like something Crow-kun would want. But alright! Just a moment!" Ten minutes later he was offered a small white box with a tight lid. He did an about face and headed for his room.

He did not bother knocking – instead he opened the door to find his half-naked lover waiting expectantly on the bed, smiling lopsidedly. He offered him the container and watched the smaller boy pull open the lid and frown.

"Kanda…"

"What?"

"This is so not sexy."

"It's what Lavi suggested."

"Strawberries on a bed of bean sprouts?"

"What?!" He leaned down, gaping at the little red berries on their plush of greenery, and fumed.

"It's fine, Love." Allen smiled, picking one from the box and placing it on his collar bone. "Strawberries on a bed of Moyashi…it works."

--OWARI--

**Awwwkward. Thanks reading! DING 70!!**

**Smut come.**


	71. China

**I had to remove a scene (that will be the start of the next chapter) but it IS shorter than the last one! YAY!**

**Recently a good friend of mine decided to write his first ever fanfiction! Yay! His name on here is Josep Crea and he has authored Insurrection – an interesting creepy DGM fic that may or may not have any yaoi in it. He hasn't really told me either way. I do know he was thinking about it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Cross would shave. Just because.**

**WARNINGS: MAN SEX. Cursing. **

0x0x0x0x0x0

China

Sable pulled the blanket firmly around herself and buried her face in Hitori's shoulder, letting herself smile. He was so warm, a little boney, but far nicer than her actual pillow. And the presence of an arm around her shoulders made her sigh, burrow deeper, and eventually grin up at where she knew his face had to be.

"Sorry. You're comfy."

"It's fine." She could hear the grin in his voice and was glad of it, amazingly glad. Sometimes, when things got horizontal, she worried that he was frightened of what might happen if one of them stopped kissing and started moving their hands to other places. She wasn't though – she knew they both had self control. "Warm yet?"

"Meh, I'm getting there. Doesn't mean I want to move though." She yawned and closed her sightless eyes, thinking silently before she spoke again. "I think they're ok, Allen and Yuu-chan I mean. If something had happened while Allen was flying I would have felt it."

He was quiet for a moment; her face went up and down with his breath, slowly. "I know…I still worry though. It's hard not to. I just wish I could do something."

She chortled into his shirt and let her left hand come out enough to curl around the fabric a little, her icy fingers brushing his skin. "I won't tell you that I've been hearing a lot of your thoughts recently – or that I know what you're thinking of doing – but I will tell you that you'll figure something out. Eventually." She was unaware that with her eyes closed like that he wanted to run his hands through her bangs and mess with her hair.

"Thanks," He gave in to the urge and ran his fingers through her bangs, watching her slowly fall asleep in his embrace. "If I don't…" _All of my research will be pointless._

0x0x0x0x0

Allen woke to find himself curled on a bed of leafy tree branches, his jacket and boots missing, his pants slightly damp against his skin. He made a small groaning sound as he yawned and blinked at the light, glad for the presence of a few trees to block the sun. Beside him a low burning fire kept him from noticing the wind more than a little and offered a gentle scent that made his stomach rumble in his gut.

_Wow… Kanda must have recovered._ He thought, pushing himself up. His stomach growled at him, forcing his mind from his missing lover to whatever looked edible in the area – his eyes scanned the rocks around the outside of the make-shift fire pit and found three medium size fish, whole, browning in the heat. He felt his mouth water.

"If you eat them all I won't catch anymore until you pay me for the first meal you stole from me." He turned at once toward the water, jumping at the sound of his now completely functional lover's voice, and stared in half-awe at the Japanese man standing knee deep in the water, hands to either side of him, eyes focused between his feet. Allen noted his rolled up pant legs, bare feet, and the fact that at one point or another his hair had come loose and now hung down around him, occasionally lifting in the breeze. He was perfectly beautiful standing like that in the sunlight.

"Kanda wha—" Before he could finish a hand went into the sea and came out again with so much speed he could hardly follow it. A fish came out of the water with it, sailed across the sand and hit him squarely in the face, flapping and gasping in the air. He sputtered for a moment, ignored the dying fish to gag, and blinked blearily at his lover – sleepiness and shock and fish goo making his eyes water in the bright light. By the time he recovered he was feeling bad for letting their potential meal lie there and suffocate on the beach, so he crushed its skull on a rock before lying it next to the other, slightly more cooked, fish.

They smelled wonderful. It was all he could do not to reach out and eat all four of them whole.

"Kanda…"

"Wait. There's fruit too, on the other side of the fire. Eat _some_ of that." He said without looking and turned his head slightly to the side, exposing a number of slightly less than healed puncture marks on his skin, glistening deep red in the sunlight. "Fish are work to catch. Even you could pick those if you tried."

Allen scowled at him. "What are you saying?"

The Japanese Exorcist shrugged. "Che. Nothing."

Another fish came sailing across the sand – this time Allen caught it. "How many are you planning to tickle out of the sea before I can eat?" He bashed the fish's head, just like the last one, and laid it next to the fire with the rest. The salty, warm scent was driving him insane.

"Will that fill you?"

"I will starve to death before you catch enough to make me full. Love… I'm dying of hunger… this is just mean…" He sagged against his makeshift bed, the fingers of his right hand unconsciously drifting toward one of the small, reddish fruit without him thinking about it. "If you let me eat I can help you get more…" His fingers closed on the slightly hard yet still squishy fruit and brought it to his lips. It smelled like it was going to be good but it didn't matter, flavor never mattered much and now it mattered even less. He bit into it and was slightly surprised to find it sour.

Another fish landed beside him. He ignored it only because the food in his hand was not squirming.

Honestly Kanda felt a little bad for his lover, maybe even more than a little. Allen was, he hated to admit, right about one thing – if he was fed they could gather more together, and when he was sated they might do other things…

Like find a town.

And each other.

He grabbed the nearest fish by the tail and turned back toward the beach, gloweringly, stoically, wishing he had other, more important things on his mind. He ignored the burning sand against his feet in favor of watching Allen munch down a fruit and a half in the time it took him to walk at a normal pace. The British boy was like a ravenous animal devouring his prey, juice spilling down the sides of his face without him knowing, eyebrows pushed together in an expression of pure interest. In that moment, Kanda observed, food was his world.

"Moyashi," He half growled, bending to retrieve the fish that had fallen into the sand when Allen hadn't caught it. The British boy didn't respond, instead he licked the juice that was running down his arm and shoved the other half of his snack into his mouth, chomping around the pit. "If you eat too many of those your stomach will hurt."

Allen spat the pit into the sand and picked up another, turning it over in his hands as if it were precious. "Hungry and dying or stomach ache… I think I pick the second." He took another bite.

"Look," Kanda pulled the fruit back from his mouth and almost laughed when Allen instinctively tried to follow it with his teeth. "Eat some fish too."

"What about…y…" He had caught up with the food and the question was left unfinished because of it.

"I'll cook mine after you eat yours. So you aren't tempted." He explained. He watched his lover fight the urge to pick up the nearest available fish and look at him, eyes serious.

"Wow…_you _thought of that?"

Kanda shook his head. "Eat."

And Allen did eat. Kanda was only half-disgusted by the speed with which he separated fish meat from fish bone, and only mildly disturbed by the fact that that was all he didn't eat – bones. He felt a little sorry for him, somehow.

Four of them, all eaten in a matter of seconds. The Hawthorn fruit was three fourths gone by the time Allen seemed to have enough control over himself to call it quits. At that point he laid down on the bows, looking more than half satisfied and less than a quarter tired, his eyes were brighter than they had been in days, the angle he rested his face at showed his lover the healthy rouge of his cheeks, and the slight curve of his throat.

_Stop it._ Kanda slapped the fish onto the rocks and pressed them closer to the flame, dragging his eyes away from the boy across from him. _I have other things to think about._ But saying that to himself did not stop him from looking. They were on a beach somewhere alone together. In the two hours Allen had taken a nap in Kanda had discovered a small road north of them, as well as Hawthorn fruit and dry wood and tree limbs that were good enough to use as bedding, and the presence of the road made him think that there had to be a town nearby, somewhere. He hadn't been able to read the sign. With any luck they had not been put off of their original course more than a few miles and could simply walk south until they found the port city they had been headed for in the first place. And _then_ he could think about those things. Those things and Mugen.

Mugen. The memory made him want to wince. How could he have been so weak as to _drop_ his sword? His mother would kill him for it when she found out. His grandfather, he knew, had died with his blade still in his hand, fingers too stubborn to let it fall even in death. But apparently that wasn't the same for this Kanda. He had dropped his sword – his Innocence – with nothing more than a poisoned bite to the shoulder. And into the ocean no less. The likelihood of getting it back was minimal but he refused to worry; if they didn't get it back Komui would undoubtedly find a way to search for it. A dangerous, haphazard way, but a way no less.

So his thoughts went back to Allen's skin and the sleepy way he sighed into his arms, the thoughtful way he turned his head. Kanda was so intent on staring he almost jumped when the British boy spoke.

"You're really amazing. Drop your sword, become incapacitated by an akuma, get dragged to a land that we don't know the location of, and yet when you recover you take care of me before you take care of yourself. You don't act crazy. You don't give up. And you know what's edible no matter where we go. You're… super Kanda."

"Che."

"Seriously! You caught six fish with nothing but your hands!"

Kanda flipped his meal, intent on cooking it evenly – unlike his lover. "Catching fish isn't hard. Fish are stupid." He watched Allen roll himself onto his back, left hand sneaking toward the fruit again, face painted shades of snow and gold in the sunlight. He really needed to stop looking.

"Don't be modest. I'd end up eating tree bark if not for you."

"That could be good for you. If you picked the right tree."

"How the Hell do you know that?"

"I told you that I read a lot about history. _People who get lost_ have a lot to say about tree bark."

"Love. Are you mocking me? If you're mocking me I will find a way to get back at you for it. Though it might be hard to think of one here."

"Che. I'm not mocking you."

"Then why are you making that '_you're as stupid as a fish'_ face?"

The side of his mouth lifted in a smile that was neither amused nor encouraging. "I wasn't."

Allen silently inhaled the flesh of his fruit and Kanda flipped the fish for a final time. Allen half understood what was on his lover's mind but he wasn't going to point it out – not yet at least. Once he did, he knew, neither of them would feel like doing much eating or foraging or walking, all of which they would have to do if they wanted to find out where they were and how they would get to some place civilized. So instead of seducing Kanda or ignoring him, he decided conversation was the safest course.

"Any idea where we are?"

"China."

Allen snorted. "That narrows it down." He cast the pit he had finally cleaned into the sand beside him and watched the shell next to it grow legs before moving to clean it off. He wanted to leap away and hide but forced himself not to. Instead he just stared at it, willing himself to understand that it was as harmless as Kanda claimed the first one to have been. "Any idea _where_ in China?"

"Slightly north of where we were supposed to be, I would guess." He lifted the first of his fish and bit into it gently, holding it by its slightly cooler tail fin to avoid the heat that nearly burned his tongue. It was bland and boring, just what he liked.

"That doesn't sound too bad…"

"If we leave in a few hours we might find a place to stay by nightfall. If not by morning."

"That's good."

Kanda ate more of his fish, Allen thought over their last exchange. After a moment he looked at his lover to find his dark eyes focused on his skin, daring him to notice. It made him smile.

"Was there something you wanted to do before we went, Love? Why would we need a few hours?"

The Japanese man nodded slowly and lowered his half eaten sea creature to the rock in front of him. "I have some ideas."

0x0x0x0x0

Hiroko was livid. That stupid old wino had gone and told her son to _join _the Goddamn fucking Black Order while she was in the shower, and her oldest male bastard had gone off with a demon, chased by a British whore with angel wings. She couldn't do much about Yuu and Whore-chan, but she very well could set things straight with Hitori, and she aimed to – right _now_. That stupid blonde pair of boobs could be heartbroken for all she cared; Hito-baka was not joining the Order and he was not going to keep seeing her behind his mother's back, even if she did make good tea.

She was so hell-bent on chewing him out she did not notice Cross following her like a shadow in the corridors. Not even when she pushed open her son's door, ready to unleash all manner of vulgar un-pleasantries.

Her mouth fell open at the sight that greeted her, her words abandoning her voice and left it with nothing but a hiss of air to unleash. Hitori lay fully clothed across the mattress; his black long sleeved shirt was rumbled by the girl's face pressed against his chest, the fingers of her left hand hooked gently in the fabric. His left arm was draped around her shoulders, keeping her close, its counterpart curled delicately in her hair. Sleeping. They were both sleeping, feet intertwined, a blanket between them, expressions content. It was so…

So…

"_Peaceful?"_ It was hardly a whisper in her right ear but it still made her stiffen. She didn't need to look to know that it was Cross; smirking at her, leaning closer and closer every moment she didn't kill him. "You know that's what you were thinking…"

"Shut it." She whispered back, glowering. For a moment, staring at them, she had thought she remembered feeling something. She had thought that maybe, just maybe, she had wanted something like that. Maybe.

"C'mon, Hiro…" He gently placed his fingers on her shoulder, tried not to smile when she didn't immediately threaten his life or draw her sword to kill him. "Let them sleep. You know arguing won't help the situation."

"Che! And you know what would?!" She hissed back even as she let him guide her around toward the door.

"Yes, I do," He said gently. "A nice glass of wine and a day to think before you say a word. Even if he doesn't listen you don't want him to hate you."

She swallowed hard and finally looked up at him, surprised to see that his expression was oddly somber, the eye that she could see the color of shined almost sympathetically. She refused to acknowledge that her heart fluttered for a moment. "Since when are you the wise one?"

"Since I was twenty-one. Now come."

0x0x0x0

As soon as the words were out of Kanda's mouth Allen leapt at him, seducing and shyness and insecurities cast aside. He wasn't remotely surprised when Kanda met him with an equal amount of ferocity, hands running down his sides, mouth smothering his in hurried, hungry kisses. He dragged them down on the bed of tree limbs, hooking his arms around the Japanese man's neck and slinging his leg over his hips, pulling them closer. The feel of the almost sharp leaves on his back, the heated sand beneath them, and the contrast of his lover's cool skin – it all felt so wonderful. He wanted more. He wanted so much more. He ran his fingernails down Kanda's shoulders, breaking away only to breathe before he brought them together again, moaning softly at the flurry of a tongue against his own, a hand pressed firmly into his chest.

Kanda growled into his lover's mouth, as he ran the fingers of his left hand down Allen's side, feeling the heat of his skin, the billow of his lungs in his ribcage. He did not specifically think of anything in that moment but the how very much he had wanted to do this the last few days, and how much he was going to enjoy doing it now. He lowered himself enough over the smaller boy to laying soft kisses on his shoulder. His hand continued to wander lazily up and down the silver haired boy's side, counting ribs.

"Love…" Allen half-whispered, turning his head to watch his lover brush sand from his arm before following the curve of it with his lips. "Kanda…"

The Japanese Exorcist glanced up at him for a moment before coming back to his mouth, switching his weight to his left hand so he could touch the other side of his lover's body. He would never be able to touch enough of it. When the kiss broke he stared down at the flushed British boy and raised his eyebrows, hand still wandering. "What?"

Allen reached up with his right hand and brushed his lover's salt roughed hair with his fingers, a slow, thoughtful smile creasing his lips. "Self control?"

"Che," He rolled his eyes. "Only enough to keep you from—"

"No…" Allen shook his head back and forth, still smiling. "I want you to forget it exists. Go ahead. Be entirely rap—Love! You can wait until I'm done ta-ta-ta…" His arms went to jelly at the feeling of a tongue gliding down his neck and a hand pressing with almost enough strength to bruise his hip. He bent his left leg a little, just enough to bring it into contact with his lover's thigh.

Kanda rocked forward, eliciting a moan from Allen's lips, and tilted enough to drag his open mouth across the delicate flesh over his Adam's apple. The hands on his shoulders slid to his neck, catching the tiny wounds there and making him shiver.

"Sorry." Allen muttered, breath rapid. He slid his fingers into his lover's hair to avoid the teeth marks and turned his mouth on his lover's left shoulder, the side of his jaw. He could feel himself quivering just as keenly as he could sense how little Kanda cared about whether or not he accidentally touched his neck. He moved his left leg again, slowly, holding his lovers hips in place with his right. The man above him gasped softly against his skin.

"Moyashi-kun," The name was little more than a growl in his throat. He spoke only when he wasn't sucking on the soft flesh under his lover's ear. "It was stupid of me…not to do this last night…" Another tender rocking motion and Allen's mouth couldn't stay on his shoulder. "When we had a bed."

"And a belt."

Kanda snorted into his skin. "And a lack of crabs?"

"God, yes."

"All the same," Kanda whispered into the place he had just made slightly too pink for his liking. "Should we do this here, or wait until we find town?"

Allen pulled him up enough to look at his face, study his expression in the warm sunlight. Kanda's dark, elegant eyebrows were lifted together in worry, his blue eyes set determinedly, and his lips were just lifted enough for him to know that any answer would be the right, even if it wasn't the one Kanda wanted to hear.

"Both." He smiled. "Here _and_ when we find a town. But mostly here. Right now. On this beach. How long has it been since we did this?"

Kanda shook his head a little before leaning down to kiss the side of Allen's mouth. "Che. If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." His right hand took to gliding across flesh again this time more hurriedly, his fingers paused only when they came to his lover's belt and gave a short, swift tug. "Does it even matter?"

"Not in the least." Allen pretended to look stricken for a moment before lowering his grip to his lover's hips and lifting his shoulders to kiss him on the mouth, he used just enough force to make him shift his hips to stay balanced. "What does matter…" Another short kiss had Kanda's legs bent around his hips and he pushed himself up until he was sitting, his lover straddling his thighs, arms curled around his back. "Is that we're doing it now…"

"Che."

Allen let his hands curve around his lover's back and slip beneath the fabric of his pants, "Even if we're going to get sand in every uncomfortable place possible."

Kanda laughed at him softly and started to drag is teeth slowly across the left side of Allen's neck, interspersing feather light kisses as he went. He could taste the sea on him, smell a slight hint of old soap, and feel the heat rising in his flesh as he moved. The hand he had left on the smaller boy's belt tugged again, driving them closer, and the hands that had been playing lightly under his pants pressed him forward. His pelvis slid none too gently into Allen's.

The little sound his lover made failed to make Kanda hurry. Instead he pushed back on his shoulders, guiding him down against the leaves again so he could explore the plane of his chest, nipping at his near sunburned skin. He lapped at the bump of a nipple, smiled at the whimper that got him, and used the still captured belt to lift Allen into him, growling. The hands on his back ran a trail of lightning to his shoulders where they stayed, yanking him down while his lover arched into him, panting. It made him smile.

Allen lifted himself into Kanda by moving his hands to his shoulders, feeling the heat dance across his chest, the scratch of leaves on his spine. He didn't care about the leaves so much as he cared about his growing desire to be as close to his lover as he could, to be completely selfish with his wishes, to simply tear away and pull off his pants right then, foreplay and cuddling be damned.

A tongue found its way around his navel. He gave up holding on to Kanda's shoulders and instead snaked his hands into his hair, forcing him closer. Any minute now he was going to throw Kanda off and run his tongue down the same tantalizing path that was being painted on his flesh, wet and cool in the sea breeze, because as wonderful as it felt, as amazing at it was to have hands lift him into his lover, as maddening as it was to have that hot, moist mouth pressed into his navel and up to his yet untouched right nipple, he still wanted more. So he dug his fingers into Kanda's hair and dragged him up for another kiss, fully aware that having his hair pulled most likely wasn't the best way to communicate his needs. He delved his tongue into Kanda's mouth, running it teasingly over his lower lip before tasting the tip of his lover's tongue, the roof of his mouth, his lip again. He could hear himself moaning, small words of desperation he only half felt filling his ears; but be forced himself to remain silent and show what he wanted, show it by pressing his chest into the man above him and using the leg he still had wrapped around his hips to press them together, causing friction.

Kanda didn't seem to get the message.

The Japanese Exorcist was far too entertained with Allen's mouth to care too much about what he was doing with his legs.

When they came apart Allen stopped him from kissing again by holding his head back, breathing hard. Every muscle in his body went ridged when Kanda pulled back and ran an expert hand down the front of his pants, teasing.

"Already, Moyashi?"

Kanda smiled at the way Allen bit his lip at the contact, eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean _already_? Roll over and let me lick you for half an hour and then wait for me to tell you when your pants can come off." He hooked his fingers in Kanda's belt loops and slid his pants as far down on his hips as they would go. "Which is _now_."

"Che. Have you forgotten whose turn it is?"

"I don't give a damn whose turn it is; I want you naked." The silver haired boy growled. "After the bed thing and the door thing and then the ocean thing – how do you have any patience at all?"

"I don't." His lover replied with a soft brush of his hand. "But your pants are coming off first."

Allen wasn't about to argue. Instead he put his weight on his back and let Kanda peel open the front of his still slightly damp pants with perfectly calm fingers and palms that were slowly growing as desperate as Allen felt. He saw the change as soon as his garment reached his knees – Kanda's eyes grew first wide and then narrow, his breath caught suddenly in his throat before continuing hurriedly into his lungs, his face flushed. Self control, or whatever small sliver of it that had remained for him to cling to, vanished in that instant. If Allen had had a moment to think about it, he would have smiled. He didn't though. There were lips crushing his, hands exploring every inch and curve of him, following his spine, tracing his hips, rubbing the skin of his thigh. With a great effort he found the clasp of his lover's pants and undid it, only to have his hand pushed away hurriedly, teeth close on his lip. The sound that escaped his throat was meant neither to encourage nor stop his lover's touch but it worked to do the former nonetheless. Almost too well.

Kanda did not care about the state of his pants any more than he cared for the crab scuttling around Allen's pile of discarded fruit pits. He wanted to feel as much of the boy beneath him as he could, to make him feel back, to drive him mad with the yearning he felt. Kanda had never lost himself to his needs before – because he had self control – but now was different. He could not find it in himself to stop what he was doing anymore than he could will his heart to stop beating in his chest, not with Allen making that half-pleading sound and pulling him upward in a slowly growing rhythm. Not when his own moans were loud enough to draw a blush to his cheeks. Not when every nerve he touched to his lover felt perfectly ecstatic in comparison to the rest of him.

"Moyashi," The word surprised him more than a little. His mind wasn't thinking in words anymore.

"Moyashi-kun, damn it. Or Allen."

"Pants, _Koi._" As he said it he moved forward against his lover's desire, making them both gasp despite the fabric between them. _"Now."_

Allen did as he was told, doing his best to ignore the breath against his cheek and the hand crawling lazily across his stomach, tensing his muscles. He could see from the way Kanda held himself that this was the limit of his self control, holding himself back as to not soil the inside of his pants with hurry. It was oddly gratifying to know he did that to him, to see that for once they were equally in need of each other, and he allowed himself a tiny, gasping chuckle as he pushed his lover's last remaining garment as low as he could.

A thought crossed his mind the moment the pants landed next to the fire.

"Love – what are we – going to—" The pressure of a hand against his manhood stole the last part of his sentence and replaced it with a wordless plea, his back moved against the greenery beneath him, scraping his skin. His head fell back against the ground and Kanda took to opportunity to run his tongue from the hollow of the boy's throat to his chin, drawing a racking gasp from his lips. "Use f-for – Ka-Ka-_Kanda!_" He had started to say the name when the older boy's face went out of sight – he had finished it when he felt something warm and wet lapping at the skin under his navel, producing goosebumps. It was glorious and it was torturous; he liked what was happening but he didn't want more of that – he wanted something different.

Without thinking about it Kanda slipped his tongue lightly across the hard surface of his lover's erection – it seemed logical when he was on his knees, reaching for his drying jacket and the little bottle of lotion he kept in it, because it made up for the hand he no longer had on his skin. A curse slipped from his lover's mouth at the same instant he captured his coat and hauled it to him, raiding the pockets as quickly as humanly possible. He licked again; just to be sure things were going well.

"Kan…da… wha-wha-what…" Why was it so hard to speak? Was it because he was ready to hit Kanda if he didn't do something more than _lick_ in the next five seconds? He didn't know. All he knew was that when he looked up to see his lover working the cap of a tiny bottle of hand lotion open he almost shrieked in psychotic glee. Instead he pushed himself up enough to kiss the samurai on the lips, drawing from him an angry sound of yearning.

The bottle came open.

"Love," Allen rasped the word into his lover's lips as a finger went into the container and swirled a bit, came out with a generous amount which he used to slick the digit with. Allen scooted himself closer, lifting his body until he was straddling his lover's thighs, legs to either side, arms draped around the older boy's neck. "Like this, Love?" He asked softly, aware that Kanda was looking up at him as if the words he was saying were lost on him. "Is this good?"

"Yes, God, Allen, anyway you want it." The Japanese Exorcist breathed, laying his face against his lover's shoulder to breathe. "I can't even think right now."

The British boy brought his head up a little, cradling it between his hands with a smile. "If this is what you want," He spoke softly, running his fingers through his lover's bangs tenderly, calming him. "You need to move your hand to do it. It's hard to remember what you're doing when you let yourself go, but you can." He rocked forward slightly, enough to remind Kanda why he was there. "Love I _need_ you…"

It took all of Kanda's will to move his hand as instructed, slowly lowering it between them. When he found what he was looking for the rest was automatic, swirling along the outside before easing his finger inward, slowly, even if he thought he would die if he waited another moment. The slight sound of air in Allen's throat was his entire reason for breathing and his soft sound of discontent was all that kept him from not using his hand and moving to what he wanted.

Two fingers. Allen softly kissed at the side of his face, moaning when he curled his fingers, gasping with need. Kanda knew what was next, he just didn't know if he would be able to stay sane through it.

"Che," He grumbled under his breath when his hands reclaimed his lotion. He was going to be out after this. They would have to spend whatever money they had between them on feeding Allen and replacement lotion, and maybe a small container of slightly more portable lubricant for times like this. Because his lotion was going to need far too much replacing to be natural and someone was bound to notice.

Not that he needed to think about that right now.

He liberally coated himself with what remained in the tiny bottle and turned his slicked hands to his lover's hips, guiding him down. Without thinking he arched into the heat when it hardly touched him, driving himself into his lover with enough force to make him cry out in a moment of panic, short fingernails biting into the skin of Kanda's back. The Japanese man was very still for a moment, spine rigid, arms wrapped firmly around Allen's midsection.

Kanda did not move. If he moved there would be nothing left but action. The idea frightened him.

"Love…are you…" Allen swallowed hard, trying to loosen his death grip on his lover's back. His hands were shaking. "Alright?"

Kanda slowly nodded into his chest. "Moyashi, do you remember when you told me to let go?" His voice was muffled against Allen's skin, made husky with want. "Because I am about to."

"Do, Love. Let go."

Kanda mumbled something and rocked forward into his lover and arched forward with his teeth to close them on the nearest thing available; Allen leaned into the warmth of a mouth on his chest but almost pulled away at the pain of teeth on his skin. He didn't get the opportunity. The hands on his hips lifted him slightly before lowering him again, rubbing the sensitive place within him that made him voice lift in nonexistent half words formed out of pleasure. That was the only affirmative Kanda needed.

Allen felt himself lifted again and followed the motion this time, running his hands up and down his lover's back as best he could without clinging to him. When he came down again it was with all the force of gravity and Kanda lifted him again at once, arching into him with a sound so low it rumbled in his lover's chest bone. With so much heat and friction, such tightness encasing him, it was impossible to think about much more than he was just in feeling. He had wanted this so much that feeling Allen's heartbeat on the side of his face was electrifying against him.

He did not need to think to increase their rhythm again. Allen's constant sounds drove him onward, his own need soaring through him with an intensity he found echoed in his lover's movements. He could feel them building, fire running through his veins with every brush. He was lost in it. Lost in the scent of his lover and the sensation that, at any moment, he would simply melt into him, consumed by the pleasure his actions caused.

"Love…" The word was a choked whisper and he knew what it meant. He felt it. He did what he could to signal his understanding and lifted Allen, moving as quickly and strongly as he could without hurting either of them. Heat pooled in his abdomen warningly, the hands that had been traveling his spine in teasing lines clamped suddenly on his nape, almost painfully, and Allen whimpered into his ear. They were there and he fought to hold the moment as long as he could before he felt and heard his lover express his need with a slight change of angle, a change that brought him unexpectedly over the edge of oblivion. Allen's release arched his back and tightened his muscles; Kanda closed his lips on the skin of his neck to keep from screamed when he lifted him one last time and brought him down again, spilling his essence. The wet sound his lips made sliding from his lover's skin did not do the bite mark they left behind any sort of justice.

For a moment the two of them stayed as they were, arms draped tiredly around each other, sweat slicked skin shining in the leaf painted lights from above. Allen's eyes were closed to the beach, his ears deaf to the sound of the waves crashing in a foamy crescendo of changing tides. He heard nothing but the soft breathing of the man who held him and felt little more than the warmth of skin against his. The breeze in his hair was not as gentle as the hand the caressed the small of his back.

"I'm sorry," Kanda said softly, kissing the place he had purled with his teeth.

"I didn't feel it." Allen shook his head in response.

After a moment the Japanese man tilted them sideways until the fell, the British boy protesting even when they came crashing sideways onto their makeshift bed, right arm flailing to stop them. He couldn't though, and once they were lying sideways in the shade he smirked at his lover's grin, a bit worried with how absolutely satisfied he looked.

"You look pleased with yourself," He observed, rolling onto his back but leaving his head turned to face Kanda. It seemed more natural that way.

"Che. Not with myself." Kanda corrected. As he spoke his right hand drew little lines on his lover's chest, randomly, the way Allen sometimes did to him when he thought he was sleeping. "With letting go."

Allen smiled back this time. "Too bad we couldn't have done that in a bed. With a bathtub. And a kitchen."

"We could have. And we will."

"Not _tonight_ we aren't. I'm going to be sore in about three minutes."

"Che, I never said anything about _tonight._"

"Or _tomorrow_."

"No, but that might be an idea."

"Don't twist my words Love, I might find reason to sleep in my own room when we get home."

"I'm not twisting words. You said I did not say anything about tomorrow, and I didn't until you suggested it."

"Love, I suggested nothing. You're jumping to conclusions."

"Jump you? I can do that right now. No need for a bed."

"Kanda…"

That same sly smile crossed his lips, the one that made Allen think that maybe Kanda was eviler than he let on. "Fine. _Baka Moyashi_, no more of that until you've recovered. I'll hack off your arms if you try to stop me when you are."

"I'd like to see you try."

"Che. Is that a challenge?"

"Yes. We can spar each other when we get home, but we need to bet something."

"Che."

"Hmm… how about…" Allen tapped his lips in thought, trying to think of something fun but nonsexual to add to their little game. "If I win… you…" He dragged out the word, feeling something too much like a fingers on his arm. He glanced down fleetingly to see a crab working its way onto the flesh of his upper arm, pincers extend, stalked eyes swirling beadily up at him. _"Hyaagh!!"_ He blithered, rolling as quickly as he could away from the terrified little creature, and directly onto his lover. Kanda's hands caught him by the elbows and steadied him, holding him so he could not stand up. "Crab. Crab. On my arm. Crab." His feet continued to move away but Kanda held him still, refusing to let him retreat.

"Moyashi you _eat_ crab."

"I _eat_ a lot of things I don't I want crawling on me."

Kanda shook his head and sighed. "Whatever. Gather your stuff, there's a stream about a quarter mile west, then we can get on the road and follow it south. The sooner we do that the sooner you don't have to hide in fear of things you eat."

0x0x0x0x0x0

**Fangirls rejoice! At last, Yullen, a lemon, and humor. Thank goodness for that last one, I was wondering when it would come back in full swing. 8D**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing! I'll see you in 72!**


	72. Late Arrival

**Wow… so… I finished this a loooong time before I planned to. And… I think it is necessary for me to repeat the fact that THIS IS NOT A DEATHFIC!! Please! No hate mail!**

**I love the reviews! They make me giggle 8D**

**Disclaimer of Denial: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… that Hitler-faced character L…L… yeah, he'd have Innocence in those sizzling eyebrows of his. Because they're EPIC.**

**WARNINGS: Spoilers-ish? Non-explicit man-lovin', and slurred cursing.**

0x0x0x0x0

Late Arrival

After Tyki left Lavi began having second thoughts about all out, full on, orgasmic sex on a train. With a broken leg. With his mind slowly filling with memories that wanted to be dealt with. And a slight lack of blood in his body. It seemed kind of stupid to do something like that – especially with a fever that seemed to get worse and worse before it got better for a little while and then got worse again. It seemed like a death wish.

He was starting to understand now what the memories were in more ways than theory. It was relatively disconcerting, but he was getting used to it. He could remember all sorts of things that he shouldn't have. Like watching Allen play poker against him on a train, Lavi looking over his shoulder – which was even odder because he knew that memory from both sides. He could think of it as Lavi or Tyki, and he could see both players hands equally well in his mind.

But the older the memories were that he thought of the more often Allen was in them. He couldn't figure it out. Why would Allen have anything to do with his brain? Or Noah?

"Gah," He shook his head and leaned more heavily against the seat. _To be loved by Tyki means I get part of Noah's memories, that I get, but how come Allen is always in the memories? That doesn't work out. It could work out, if something crazy happened… like he was a Noah… or he was loved by a different Noah… but that doesn't seem possible. He grew up with Mana and then he was found by Cross. No room for a Noah. And Rhode doesn't count, she _thinks_ she loves him, and even then I don't think she's capable._

He heard the door come open and tried to give his lover an expectant, hungry look – he knew he had failed by the way Tyki apprehensively closed the door behind him and sat down at once. He seemed tired. Perhaps as rundown as Lavi was.

"Are you ok?" He asked softly, extending his right hand to barely touch the skin of his wrist. "You look kind of pale." He continued, stroking lightly with his fingers. When he did that Tyki leaned his head back into the seat behind him, sighed, and gently captured his fingers with his own, blinking at the ceiling. "If… you think we should wait…"

His lover shivered. "I want you, Lavi. I want…but…"

"But what?"

Tyki kept his eyes closed when he lowered his face and sighed in an attempt to center himself. Center himself and speak passed whatever was going on in his mind. "You don't think I will but I might hurt you."

**I WANT TO HURT.**

Lavi watched his face take on that slightly feral quality that he had seen before and felt his eye go wide. He understood something then and decided to voice it rather than keep the idea to himself. "Both parts of you want me…but you – this you – doesn't want to do it if it'll hurt me. The other part doesn't care. The other part—"

There was a hand suddenly on his wrist, and a mouth pressed into the sensitive skin of his jaw. He leaned into it only to be pressed back against the seat, his lover standing hunched between his knees, slowly moving toward straddling him. Every bruise and scrape screamed that this was not what he should be doing but Lavi didn't care, he wanted to, he wanted to and he was going to so long as Tyki would try. He pulled the Noah into a kiss that let him nibble a little at his lower lip, twined his fingers in his dark hair so he couldn't just pull away. Because Tyki needed to know that Lavi wanted this more than he did.

Tyki was mildly surprised by the violence with which Lavi pursued his mouth, biting his kisses, dragging his nails across his stomach with enough pressure to leave long red lines down his skin. He responded as nicely as he was able; trying to ignore this new, more dominate nature he seemed to have somehow unlocked. He kissed gently across his neck, dragging the new scarf away as he went, aiming for the sensitive skin of his collarbone. When he saw it he paused, the skin was covered in gauze; he wouldn't feel a thing but pressure.

"Lavi, I can't—"

"You're doing a great job for not being able to do this, Ty-chan." Lavi half moaned. "Please…just…please…"

Tyki took him by the shoulders and pushed him away, shaking at how that made the voice roar in his mind, demand that he stop holding back. "I…want…" He threw himself away, landing hard against the folded table in the opposite seat and rattling the rabbit cage beside it, his arms flailed to either side, padding his fall somewhat against the wood. He repeated the words again, softer, fingers closing on the upholstery under his hands. "I want. _I want…_"

"Then have me, Ty-chan. I won't die if we're careful."

"You don't understand." He insisted, sinking slowly to the floor. He leaned his back against the seat in an attempt to stay as far away from that lust darkened green eye as he could. "There is no careful right now. I would very much enjoy evoking a scream from your lips at this moment, perchance caused by two parts pain and one part pleasure, but I shall not give myself leave to commit such a travesty. I would rather both of us abide by a celibate code than I taint what we have with the desires running rampant in my blood."

Lavi blinked at him. "How come… you're talking differently?"

"My diction becomes a bit more verbose when I… I…"

**WANT.**

"Ty-chan, you don't have to speak if it makes it harder. You don't have to explain. Just… come here and be with me, 'kay?" He reached out with his left hand without pulling his back from the seat, wrinkled his eyebrows imploringly. "And…maybe we can talk about some things that I don't understand yet. And you can give me dreaming material."

"What do you not yet understand?" He asked without moving.

Lavi shook his head at him and did not lower his hand. "It doesn't matter. What matters is I want you over here right now, where I can feel you."

**I WANT NOW.**

"Why?"

"Because I can't stand seeing you kill yourself over me! Please…I…" He trailed off and his hand fell to his side, he let his head hang against his chest. He was a marionette with his strings cut, sagging against the train seat with nothing but the angle of his spine to hold him up. "I just wish…we could… we were…" His tongue flicked across his lower lip and Tyki saw a small silver line dance down the side of his face before disappearing under the edge of his chin. "The same. I wish we didn't have to run and fight. I wish…"

"Lavi…" He crawled slowly to his side and placed his left hand on Lavi's left knee, dragging his emerald eye away from the nothing it had been focused on. "We are the same. You just have to heal for us to show it."

The redhead tried to smile.

His hand tensed on Lavi's leg suddenly, his breath stopped for a moment, and he hunched forward at the feeling of the voice growing angry within him. He watched fear blossom across his lover's face and closed his eyes to it, not knowing what would happen when the fury was finally unleashed.

**I WANT HIM. HAVE HIM OR KILL HIM.**

It was a roar so loud Tyki didn't hear the question Lavi posed. He willed his fingers to stop bruising Lavi's flesh and pulled his hands down to his chest, shaking, feeling every fiber of his physical being want nothing more than to pin the boy down and rip him out of his clothes. He would not do it though. It did not matter how much he wanted to or how much it hurt not to do as he was told, he was not going to hurt the one person who mattered anymore. He was not going to give in. He watched Lavi speak to him but did not understand the words he was saying. The only thing that made sense was his expression of terror.

**WANT. KILL. I WANT TO KILL. I WANT TO HAVE HIM.**

He heard himself muttering, hardly under his breath, just loudly enough to be words. At once he pulled his lower lip between his teeth and bit it, silencing himself. Willing his body to stillness. A palm on the side of his face made his whole body shudder. It was Lavi's skin. He wanted to touch Lavi's skin. He wanted so much but he could not have it, not as things were.

"Ty-chan," This time he heard the name and recognized it as his own, his hands reached up and caught the redhead's wrist in a feeble attempt to be closer.

"S-sorry," He stammered. He could not actually image what he was apologizing for but it felt right to say it. The same as how it felt right to press Lavi's hand against his throat.

The younger man shook his head. "It's ok. Just look at me, look at me both of you."

**I WANT NOW.**

Tyki's eyes flicked up to Lavi's face and stayed there, black and focused, human and not human at once. Lavi suppressed the urge to throw himself on the floor and pull him into his arms. Instead he spoke in a slow, measured voice that he tried to sound demanding with – he hoped it worked. "I want you too but it can't be like this. You can't keep hurting yourself because of me. You either need to come to some sort of internal agreement or do me now, and I honestly think the better plan would be agreeing with yourself. If the Order sees you like this… they might… they won't want to keep you around. Not with the scars." It did not take much pressure to guide Tyki into the seat beside him, hands twining with his own. "You understand, don't you? Even if we get rid of the problem for now, when will it be a problem again? And what will we do? I know for damn sure the head nurse isn't going to let me sleep with you."

He watched the Noah swallow hard in a throat that did not seem to like the action. His dark eyes blinked slowly closed and did not open. "This could be the end of me – Lavi." He said calmly. "If it is, if when I open my eyes again you do not see me in them, I want you to do whatever you can to stop me."

"Ty-chan what are you—"

The Noah shushed him softly as he rocked forward enough to place his face gently on Lavi's hands, breathing slowly. _You,_ He called into his mind. _I have an idea._

**I WANT. I WANT. IWANTIWANTIWANTIWANTIWANT.**

_Yes, I understand that. I want him too. But we cannot have him as he is. We will hurt him._

**I WANT TO HURT.**

_No. Not Lavi.  
__**I love Lavi.**__  
I do not hurt things that I love like I love him._

**I will not harm him.**

_Having him will harm him. Until he is better I cannot have him._

**I WANT HIM.**

_But I will not have him until he is well enough to withstand what we want to do._

**WANT. Not harm him. Want him. No harm. Want. Harm. No. LOVE.  
**_**Wait.**_

Lavi watched the older man's lips part and his eyes slowly come open, brown and unfocused. He squeezed the hands in his and leaned in enough to lay his lips softly on the side of Tyki's mouth, smiled when they responded shortly, like a delayed reaction, and sighed when one of the hands he held reached up to brush the hair from his forehead.

"What did you do?" He inquired when his lover grinned back at him, seeming normal.

The Noah shrugged. "I had a logical conversation with myself. It appears that no matter how dark and single-minded my soul is I am always capable of some variety of reasoning." He tilted himself so his back rested against the corner of the seat and extended his arms toward his smaller lover. He was somewhat astounded when Lavi did not question his intent and simply slid into his chest. With his torso flush against the apprentice's back he felt soothed, almost content, and the voice did not offer more than a quiet mumble of unhappiness. "So I have agreed with myself that waiting is safest."

"Waiting? How long?"

"Until you are well." The answer was automatic, his voice almost too sure.

"Then… I can curl up here and sleep without having to worry about you raping me?"

Tyki chuckled at the mock fear in his lover's voice and folded his arms around Lavi's chest. "Yes. But even if I tried, you know what they say."

"You can't rape the willing?"

"Heh."

0x0x0x0x0

"Hito." Sable gently shook the boy under her palms, cursing her blindness. "Hito, I'm the one who jumped into the sea, you can't sleep longer than me." She rocked him again. If she could have, she would have glared at him. "Damn it Hitori I'm _hungry._"

"Then go eat something."

"Right. I'll go eat your slippers when I trip on them going out the door."

"Wha?" The Japanese boy blinked at the fuzzy bed above them, at last talking his eyes into opening. When had he fallen asleep? And why was Sable wrapped up in a blanket hanging like a child off of his waist? One look at her blank stare answered the questions for him – Nii-chan's sword and the sea and her eyes and all that. He blinked at her and sighed at the memory. "You still can't see?"

She shook her head. "Nope. I don't think it's been that long though. I can feel sunlight on my feet still."

"Feel sunlight?"

She nodded. "Yeah. And I get the feeling you just furrowed your eyebrows at me." She paused, pressing her lips together. "And now you're looking at me with big round eyes, because you're surprised I knew that. And now I'm creeping you out."

He laughed a little and gave her head a gentle pat before rolling her gently off of his chest so he could sit. "You're not creepy, just weird. I'm kind of curious how you _feel_ sunlight and facial expressions. I wonder if it has to do with how you accidentally know what people are thinking." He almost snorted at the expression she made with her lips pulled to one side of her face, eyebrows scrunched in the middle of her forehead. He didn't though, not when she would hear him.

"I dunno. I'm not stealing thoughts though. Maybe I just understand human behavior because of it."

"Your guess is better than mine."

"Heh. Whatever. Wanna go grab me some food?"

He released a yawn and a long sigh, the hand he had left on Sable's shoulder fell to her hand. "Sure. Only what I can carry though."

"No kidding."

"Anything specific I should get you?"

She nodded but her expression fell. "Ginger. I'd hate to vomit blind."

With a small snicker he gave her one last pat and swung his legs off of the mattress, searching for shoes. "Great. Ginger and whatever they're serving. You stay."

"No, I think I'll wander aimlessly."

"Che."

Sable's mouth fell open and her hands suddenly caught his left arm, holding him in place, gripping him almost desperately. "Hitori." She said seriously, pulling him back so she could place her face against the side of his, his back pressed to the top of her chest, the blanket still between them. "Did you just _che_ at me?"

"May-be…" He said it in an almost singsong voice, unsure what she would do if he said yes.

A moment of silence passed between them.

"You're so adorable!" She exclaimed, yanking him down and squeezing him with as much strength as she could without killing him. "When you're mom says it it's weird, when Yuu-chan says it it's annoying, but you're just! Just! _So cute!_ I am going to kiss you as soon as I find your mouth."

The Japanese boy sighed at the arm around his ribcage but still allowed himself to grin so wide he thought he heard his ears protest. "Am I supposed to get food now? Or after I pass out from oxygen deprivation?"

0x0x0x0x0

"I sweer I'll shkin tat bitk a-_hic-_libe if'm I eber seyer touchin 'im. Feckin' _yarimen…_"

"I completely agree. Totally her fault if anything happens."

"An' I betcha he'sll whine a' meh. An' com-com-compul-_hic-_ain 'cause I freckin'…changed meh mind."

"Minds change; it's nothing he can blame you for."

"But I dun car. S'long as it ain't in frunna­_-hic-_meh."

Hiroko waved her empty glass at the general and he filled it again, struggling to fight the overwhelming urge to smile. One glass of wine had turned into two bottles it seemed, and the tiny little Japanese woman had gone from angry to morose to slightly less than accepting in the course of their alcoholic adventure. He expected her to stop sometime soon, especially with her tongue rather incapable of speaking at a normal speed, but he wasn't going to tell her to. If he was right she would threaten him when sober and actually kill him when drunk; it was just how people like her worked.

"That should be fine with him, especially when you explain how things…" He watched her drain the glass in one go and slam it on the table, wobbling in her chair. "Should work out." He finished. She looked up at him with wide eyes and blinked a few times, hiccoughed. "Calling it quits?"

She snorted at him and waved her left hand just a little too close to his face. "I'm drunk." She said flatly. "If I drink aneh more you'll start lookin' attractive."

He made an amused sound and shook his head at her before pouring what remained in the bottle for her, grinning at her glare. "Then by all means," He offered, letting the grin claim his lips. She glowered at him for a moment before taking the wine in her hands and smelling it without bringing it to her lips.

"Ya know Marian…"

"My name, it's been a long time since you've said it."

"He's a good kid. That diskipel of yours." She sipped the red liquid as if it were the last thing she would taste, with reverence. "S'maybe it don't matter…that I'll die some time. Maybe he'sll hep Yuu meka…meka…" She trailed off, drowning her words with another deep glug. She looked sadly at the half empty glass and let her gaze go up to the red haired man that watched her and searched his face for a moment, a strange smile split her face.

"What?"

"You lemme drink more."

"And? Shall I start with your clothes or mine?"

"Whore."

"Only because you tease me."

"Yer an ugy muthe fecker and yer goin' t'hell fer this."

He laughed at her, leaned forward to scoop the cup from her hands and place it delicately on the tabletop. With a gentleness he rarely used for anyone he tilted her face up to his, holding her right hand gently between his fingers, watching her for any sign of a death threat or violent action. He saw nothing. Just mild confusion and alcohol induced sleepiness.

"I would hate to take advantage of you like this, Hiro, but I am very tempted." He said quietly, coming off of his stool to kneel on the floor in front of her. They were the same height that way, her sitting and him kneeling, most likely getting dirt on his coat and pants. "Are you tempted?"

She shook her head with near dizzying speed. "Nope. You ain't lissuned tuh word I said. I'sll feckin' no one trekked miner." She leaned into his touch all the same, tilting her smooth face into his hand, sighing wine scented breath against him. "Ya do feel nice though."

He changed the angle with which he held her face so his palm rested against her cheek and at the same time brought her right hand to his chest, hoping for more. "Hiro, you know I won't hurt you…"

"Nu huh. I'd have ta throw up on ya." She joked. "Oi Marian," She looked at him seriously, or as seriously as she could while being inebriated to the point she was. "Kin I ask ya favor?"

"Anything, Hiro."

"Stop beatin' up meh boy-dau'er 'cause yer defensive of yer whore-sprout."

His face fell. She tightened her hold on his shirt and jerked him forward; slamming her lips against his so spontaneously he did not know whether she meant to do it or simply fell that way and passed out on his face. When her mouth worked against his Cross responded as hurriedly as he could but his hands remained perfectly incapable of movement, his heart suddenly froze in his chest, rendering him unable to think. She was kissing him. The one woman who had said no. The one woman who did not care for him at all. The woman who got away. She was _kissing_ him.

And then she wasn't.

Hiroko pulled away and wiped her mouth on her shoulder before grinning at him and hiccoughing. "Eh. It ain't what it used to be."

And with those sad words of wisdom she fell into him again, this time a tiny snore escaping her nostrils, her face landing softly on his shoulder. Cross had half a mind to quaff what was left of the wine before attempted to move her.

0x0x0x0x0

Lenalee was off the train even before Crowley knew that it had stopped. She was gone, running for anyone who might have seen or heard of Lavi, any establishment that might have heard from Tyki. She was desperate, he knew, and seeing her so made his heart want to break in empathy. He missed Lavi too, he wanted him back, but Lavi was more than just a person to her. He was something larger.

"Lenalee-chan!" He called when he was on the platform. Where could she have gone so quickly anyways? And so late? It wasn't as if they were going to find anything _now_, in the dead of night, without the slightest hint of where they should be heading. And it was most likely a trap on top of it all – a trap she had run into, leaving him to face the rest alone.

_Help me, Eliade, I can't save two Exorcists from a Noah and akuma. Don't let her get hurt._

He hefted his suitcase and glanced down the nearest side street warily, his eyes adjusted well to the gloom of the night shrouded city, yet he could find no trace of the Chinese girl, no hint as to her location. She had simply vanished as if into thin air.

Crowley heaved a sigh and grounded himself for a moment. He would simply have to walk down the street and ask the open stores if they had seen anyone like Lavi or anyone like Tyki or anyone like Lenalee – because he had lost her also. His feet started of their on accord in a way that made his boots click in rhythm against the cobblestones, his jacket scuffing against his shins every other step. It was dead silent but for that sound and the distant flutter of a birds wings; the cold night air sank into his bones and made him shiver, coupling with the stillness in his spine. It was eerie. It was creepy.

He shivered and glanced worrisomely over his shoulder.

He never saw the woman walking toward him until he crashed into her grocery sack, spilling tomatoes and onions across his path and knocking her flat on her backside, the paper of her bag ripping down the corner. He fumbled for a moment, completely shocked that she had been walking so quietly and then fallen so easily. And then he realized that he was standing over her, most likely menacingly, and decided action needed to be taken at once.

"Ah-ah-ah! I'm sorry!" He bent double, taking her bag and haphazardly filling it with fallen vegetables, trying to keep from spilling more. "It was dark and creepy and I wasn't watching where I was—" The woman reached up and touched the emblem on his jacket, stilling his hands. He looked at her, strawberry blonde curls falling around her face, crystal clear eyes studying his coat for a moment. She seemed to understand something, and in the moment he dropped her food to question her, she spoke of her own accord.

"Yer not an Exorcist are ya?" The question was soft, as if she feared being overheard.

The way his eyes became wide and his lips parted let her know that she was right. "I am."

She blinked for a moment as if searching for words. "So… whose side are ya on?"

He frowned. "Side?"

"What're ya 'ere for?"

Crowley was taken aback. He hadn't expected to be interrogated by a woman on a street, he had expected to go door to door and seek information himself. It was backward. "I am looking for a fellow Exorcist who was supposed to be in town," He watched her crystalline eyes go wide. "Eighteen, red hair, eye patch, he should have had a jacket like mine and a green headband but—"

"Lavi." She said quietly. "Yer lookin' fer Lavi."

He couldn't speak for a moment his chest was so tight with happiness. "My God, is he alive?! Is he here?! Do you know? Does he have anyone with him?" So many questions and not enough breath to ask them with. His mind was in overdrive. Lavi, their Lavi, was or had been here. Tyki wasn't lying to them. Tyki was… "Please, if you know anything – _anything at all –_ we need to find him. We need to know that he's safe."

Marlette picked up a rolling tomato as she spoke. "They left on th'train a few hours ago. I'm a nurse at th'ospital an' we couldn't help Lavi anymore than we 'ad. 'E's bad." She rolled the red food in her hand, thinking. "High fever. Broken leg an' knee. Cut up like sumone wanned 'im t'bleed out real slow. I dunno 'ow 'e endured it. Or why." She looked up from her hand and into the fear glossed eyes of the man before her. "But th'man wit' 'im didn' do it. Ty-chan wouldn't."

Crowley swallowed hard as the blood ran out of his face and into his chest, his hands numbly clutched to his heart as he fell back on the pavement, tears brimming in his eyes. "Ty-Tyki…Mikk? Where did they go? If – who _did_ do it? What happened?"

She started cramming onions into her pockets and motioned for him to do the same. "I'm Marlette, thanks for askin'. Tell ya what. Ya c'mon down t'my place an' I'll tell ya everythin' I know that I can tell over a cupa coffee an' some supper. I 'aven't eatin' since I got off work at midnight. Alright?"

"Alright," He nodded. "Just give me a moment, there are two of us here looking for Lavi, I need to contact Lenalee." He hurriedly wiped his eyes on the back of his sleeve and sniveled, his hand delved into his pocket to find his golem.

_Thank you, Eliade. For small favors._

0x0x0x0x0

"Lavi?" Tyki asked softly into the boy's ear, pulling him a bit more tightly around the middle. "Are you dreaming again, Lavi?"

The redhead turned against him and clenched the fabric of his shirt between clawed fingers, his mouth open in a hiss of discontent, voice not yet a whimper. Tyki could tell that this was no memory that he had, no feeling that they shared, it was a nightmare made of whatever had happened when he hadn't been there to protect him. The quiet way the boy curled in on himself and clung desperately to his side told him that much, as did the sudden twitches that moved his spine at awkward angles, avoiding the lash of a whip that no longer hit him.

The dream was the same again, the third in the same night. It hurt to watch. It maddened him. And what made it worse was knowing he would not be able to rouse his lover until the dream passed or he woke on his own. He was helpless.

Rhode, his sister in birthright, had caused this. Indirectly, but she still had. He remembered the deal they had made – what the price was for betrayal – and shook his head quietly, ran his fingers through his trashing lover's hair. Kill Allen Walker? It wouldn't happen. If he killed Allen Walker, even for revenge, the Order would never forgive him, Lavi would never forgive him, and he would be left with more enemies than he had started with. No. The only one who deserved to die for this was Rhode, and he would not do that either, not until she had seen and understood what she had done to him, and what she had done to Lavi. Because understanding was more important than actually dying. She needed to learn emotions he had only recently rediscovered himself.

Sympathy. Regret. Fear.

He was not plotting revenge. He was planning a what-if scenario.

"Ty-chan…" The sleeping boy called out him, derailing his train of thought. Lavi pulled himself as close as he could be to his lover without sinking into his skin, a sob shaking his shoulders. "Ty-chan…I don't… I don't… don't let them… I…"

It was almost over. Tyki pulled him up and wound his arms around the younger man's ribcage, pinned his right leg against the seat, and tucked Lavi's head under his chin, capturing his arms so they could not move from his sides. The next few moments would be the hardest, he knew, but he would have to endure them. Endure them or let Lavi hurt himself more than he was.

"_No! I don't want it! I don't! Stop!"_ The same litany every time, the same sudden rocking of his shoulders. Tyki cooed softly in his ear, just loudly enough to be heard over the sound of his unwillingness.

"It is safe, Lavi. I swear you are safe. No one is hurting you. No one will touch you. It is only me, Lavi, only me. I am here. You are safe."

"_I don't know! Don't! I don't…I don't…_

"Be safe with me, Lavi. It is a dream. Wake up to me. Please Lavi, it is only a nightmare."

Wordless screams. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

"You are fine, Lavi. It is a nightmare!"

"_Nightmares don't hurt like this."_

"You are almost there now, almost free. Just a bit further and you will be home, safe in my arms, Lavi. Wake up. Wake up if only for a moment."

"_Nightmares… I… Ty-chan…lo…"_ His voice trailed off and Tyki looked down to see his emerald eye open as if he was perfectly aware, perfectly steady, but the lid fell slowly shut again. His breathing evened out and his fingers unwound from their claws, his eye did not move or roll or try to blink. His entire body went suddenly limp, the fear that had darkened his features smoothed away into nothing, leaving his expression calm. That was a new end to the night terrors and Tyki wasn't sure if he liked it. It was too…easy.

He lessened his grip to snuggle more securely with his lover, breathed in the scent of his hair in an effort not to wake him but still soothe his own fear. He laid a soft kiss on Lavi's ear and spoke in a hushed whisper, running his fingers across the boy's too hot scalp.

"I love you. I am here for you. Even if you no longer know I am."

The redhead made a stifled sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob but did not open his eyes. "I haven't lost it; I'm just too tired to care anymore."

"Dear?"

Lavi's hand snaked into his shirt, brushing his cool skin. "Dreaming like that…the nightmares…I feel worse afterward. Really…tired… I could sleep for days…" His voice faded away but his fingers did not stop their pattern on his skin. "But every time I sleep I dream and then I wake up like this. I don't want to wake up like this anymore. I don't want to remember. I don't…"

Tyki shushed him quietly, rocking slowly side to side – the only way he could rock with Lavi stretched out across the seat like that. "Does it become easier? Every time you dream what never happened, does it hurt less?"

Lavi shook his head. "It hurts the same."

"Hmm…then there is only one solution to the problem that I can think of."

"What?"

"Well, two. I can either pluck you lightly on the brain to knock you out, or I can keep you just like this, and speak you into infinite boredom and sleep."

"How the Hell is that two?" Lavi groaned. His left hand lifted enough to land a rather painful poke between his lover's ribs; Tyki snorted in response. "You've gotta be kidding me. How come _cuddle_ isn't on the list? Or make out? Or play cards? Or walk down memory lane? Or… wow… I said a lot and… now I feel really…"

Tyki smiled tiredly into the side of his face, the kind of smile that had no joy in it, only enduring contentedness. The man was exhausted also. "Then sleep, dear. I will wake you if the train stops." _And hold you if the dream comes back again._ "Do you hurt now?"

"No, I'm fine. Thanks, Ty-chan. I lo…lo…" The word was doomed to remain unfinished. He breathed in a slightly deeper breath that signaled his passing into sleep and his face snuggled a bit closer into Tyki's neck. _"Tyki…"_ He mumbled. _"Striiiiiike…"_

The Noah took a moment to grin from ear to ear before he passed into dreams himself.

0x0x0x0

"It's so warm…why is it so warm?"

_Because the sun is shining, baka. _Kanda didn't answer.

"I think my face is going to melt off if we don't find a town. What did that sign say back there? I don't read Chinese."

_And you think I do? _He stayed silent, walked as if he wanted to find something to do with his hands.

"It looked complicated. I wonder if that means we have a long way to go. Or maybe we're walking the wrong way. It would help a lot if we had someone who read it, or at least had an idea."

Kanda sighed at him without looking. He was going to do something stupid if Allen didn't stop talking some time soon. He was either going to attack him or kiss him and he wasn't sure which seemed dumber at this point.

"I mean, I know you read Japanese… and I think the two have a least some things in common…"

Kanda stopped walking; Allen paused two steps behind him, wondering if maybe he had said something annoying. Suddenly the older Exorcist crouched down on the road and began moving his fingers in the dirt, drawing something out. Cautiously Allen walked up beside him, expecting a map or a picture that had nothing to do with their rather one sided conversation.

Instead he saw a box with a quarter circle in the top left hand corner and a strange, backward j toward the opposite side, curving. He blinked at it, not understanding.

"The underside of a penguin?" He ventured. The look Kanda gave him made him wonder if maybe his lover was still capable of murder.

"It's the Japanese written form of the number four."

"Wow… complicated."

"And in Chinese it means _string, _as in _string bean._"

Allen frowned. He lowered his head to his chest with a sad, defeated sounding sigh. "I get it. You couldn't read the sign either."

"Che." Kanda intoned, rising. He surprised his lover by catching the sleeve of his coat and yanking him into what was supposed to be a short, hurried kiss but turned out to be much longer. He let it be long, let his hands pull open Allen's jacket so he could barely brush the skin of his chest, delicately. Before he knew what he was doing Allen hummed at him and pulled back, cheeks flushed in the sunlight.

"You can't keep doing that." He breathed, pressing gently on his lover's shoulders. "If you do, we'll never find a town."

Kanda grinned lopsidedly at him before sealing his lips for a second time, hurriedly, his arms hooked around the smaller boy's hips and pulled them together. After a moment – a moment that Allen tried to push him away for half of before deciding that he might as well cooperate – he broke their lips apart but did not let go. Instead they stood there in the road and Kanda watched the expectant face flush under his gaze.

"Moyashi."

"What?"

"Shut up and walk." The words made the silver haired boy blink up at him like a small, lonely animal. "You distract me." He attempted to clarify.

Allen raised an eyebrow at him. "Distract you, huh? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if we had a—"

"Bed?" Kanda interjected.

"I was going to say a _better way of transportation_. Was it really _that_ good? I mean… it _was_ good but you're…terribly…touchy…and—and I'm not complaining at all! Just pointing out that you're being nice and smart and ha-ha-hap…py?" When he finished the word he half expected Kanda to glare at him and walk away, call him stupid and move off, but it didn't happen. Instead the arms around his waist pulled him flush against his lover's chest and his boots scuffed on the dirt road. He felt his wet bangs fall onto his forehead but he didn't move them, instead he waited for whatever it was Kanda was planning.

A pair of warm, softly lips brushed the skin of his left cheek, near the line of his curse mark. He blinked.

"Baka." He said curtly, narrowing his eyes. "Shut up and walk." He took Allen by the right wrist and stepped off south again, leaving the number four pressed into the ground behind them.

0x0x0x0

The shrieking of the train's brakes brought Tyki out of a rather pleasant if not completely ridiculous dream. He had been enjoying himself. And that irksome thing in the back of his head had not said a word the entire time he slept.

Dim morning light glared into their small compartment, dragging his eyes open to blink drowsily at the sky and city around them, the little white and black rabbit that munched incessantly on its one remaining carrot in the seat across from him. In the golden light of the sun everything looked friendly to him, the gathering purple and yellow clouds on the horizon, the flash of an opening and shutting carriage door, the blazing auburn of his lover's hair, even the black flags in the distance – the ones that marked their closeness to the Order – made him smile. They were nearly there.

There were nearly to the only place he would never be safe in.

"Dear," He said so his breath hardly moved the hair that hung over his lover's ear. "We are here."

Lavi continued to breathe slow shaking breaths, his muscles completely lifeless against his lover's chest and arms. Tyki frowned at him and pushed Lavi's hair back from his face to run his fingers across the newly exposed skin, worried that maybe he was worse than the day before, or even hours before. They were so close – if something bad happened now…

"Lavi?" He repeated. His face was too cool. "Lavi, wake up. Lavi?" He shifted off of the seat and laid the redhead's shoulders against the wall so he could look at his face. Nothing. The only thing that let Tyki know he was alive was the shallow rise and fall of his chest. "Lavi! I need you to wake up, Lavi!" He could hear panic in his own voice and it shocked him. The sound was grating, choked off in his increasingly tight throat. "Lavi! Please…"

Not even a twitch to show his understanding.

Tyki felt cold. He wouldn't let this happen.

He turned his lover's face in his hands, searching, and caught an unnatural gleam between his teeth in the sunlight. With a furrowed brow and a turning stomach he tilted Lavi's head forward, watching between his pale lips as something followed the pull of gravity and slid sickly down the side of his chin.

Blood. Old blood. Too thick and dark to be fresh. The boy had lied to him.

'_Do you hurt now?'  
'No, I'm fine.'_

There was nothing left for Tyki to do. He was dying.

0x0x0x0x0

**NOT A DEATHFIC! NOT A DEATHFIC! Please don't kill me!! You'll never find out what happens!!**

**Ok. –deep breath—**

**Levierre! That's his name… ehem. And thank you for reading and reviewing! I'll update soon! /love\\**


	73. The End of All Hope

**Loooooooooong.**

**I lied. It's a deathfic.**

**I do not own D.Gray-man.**

**WARNINGS: Implied man lovin'. Speedy plot. And a lying, tired authoress.**

0x0x0x0x0x0

The End of All Hope

The side of Komui's face had been resting on his pen long enough to leave a long red dent if he picked up his head. He did not, however. His face stayed firmly planted on his writing utensil as if he did not even know it was there, his breath blowing in slow, gradual breaths that lifted a nearby piece of paper and sent it fluttering to the floor. He looked perfectly content like that, even if his lips were smashed somewhat crookedly and his spine was bent at an angle that would leave him sore for hours afterward. Reever hated to wake him.

"Supervisor." He drawled. Whose rule was it that _Komui _got to nap on his desk anyway? It wasn't as if _he_ was about to collapse from exhaustion before the rest of them did just from signing his name for twelve hours a day. He had more responsibilities, yes, but did that make him any more worthy of a good half hour nap after breakfast? No, not in the least. "Supervisor."

"Mmm…tomato… coffee…" The Chinese man mumbled with a tiny little smile on his lips. "Lala-chan…"

Reever sighed. "Supervisor."

"Safe…"

"Supervisor! Lenalee is going to marry Number Sixty-Five."

"_Leenaa—!"_ Komui caught himself halfway over his desk and frowned at the man before him, tilting his head in thought. "That's not even possible!"

Reever fought the urge to laugh and sob at once. "There's something odd going on out front. We need you to come and look." He watched Komui take off his rumpled hat and smooth his hair, straighten his glasses as he wandered around his desk, stepping over fallen papers with ease. "We think… it might be Lavi." Komui's feet stopped walking.

"What?" The word had a distinctive disbelieving quality to it and the color drained from his face. Lavi? That didn't make any sense at all. "What do you mean _might_ be? Explain yourself." He started walking hurriedly, feet crunching papers as he went. "How can you _not_ be sure?"

"I haven't slept in two days." The Australian barked at once but reigned in his tongue when his superior shot him a surprised glance. "Sorry. Mouth gets ahead of my brain, you know? He's thinner than the Lavi we remember, and paler, and the man with him isn't someone any of us recognize. It _looks_ like Lavi but we don't know if it is – and the Gatekeeper—"

"Is it an akuma?"

"No."

"And the person with him? Is that an akuma?"

"No… but…"

"Then let them in."

"Supervisor—"

"If he's _thin_ and _pale_ he could be hurt. Did it even cross your mind that he's been a prisoner of the Noah for a tad longer than anyone has ever survived in their presence?" Komui did not know why he was angry but he was and it was plain in his voice, biting. He needed sleep. They all needed sleep. They had been trying every redheaded lead they had got since Lavi vanished – and Crowley and Lenalee hadn't called to check in as scheduled. "He could be out there _dying_ because you want to be cautious. Let them in."

Reever swallowed hard and grabbed the other man's jacket sleeve, something he never did or even thought of doing when he was rested. "Komu."

The head of the Science Department stopped short and turned back to his Section Chief, a rude word stopped on his lips at the sound of most of his name. It wasn't often anyone called him that, it was even less often that the person who did was Reever. "I'm sorry. Go take the rest of the day off, you've been at this longer than I have. Really, I'll let them in. You have dark circles like Bookman's."

The blonde dropped his friends sleeve and pressed his hand to his face for a moment before running it through his permanently disheveled hair, a bored grin splitting his face. "Hardly fair to everyone else if I go now, right?"

"No, everyone else has had a break already. Go sleep." He gave the man a small, weak smile, tilted his head just enough to displace his beret on top of his head. "Be sure to dream of _me_ Reever-san!" He chimed, bringing his hands to his heart. "And all of the wonderful, happy, fun, extravagant things we never have time to do together! Like picnics and roses and swimming and se—"

"No." A clipboard connected firmly with his right shoulder and he had time enough to blink at it before it went plummeting to the floor. "If I have my way I won't dream at all."

0x0x0x0

By sunset the silver haired boy was in dire need of more food and their small stash of it had been munched down to Kanda's second fish and three of the tiniest fruit either of them had ever set eyes on. At that point his lover had bent a knee and stoically offered to carry him for a while, which Allen declined until he couldn't keep from tripping on his own feet an hour later. And even then it took far more persuasion than Kanda expected.

They set off again, this time at Kanda's slightly faster pace. Allen draped his arms around his lover's shoulders and laid the side of his head on his jacketed shoulder, attempting to avoid the nearly healed puncture holes on his neck and yet not allow his face to roll off against his forearm. It was a delicate balance but Allen managed to maintain it even when his stomach rumbled like thunder and his eyes closed of their own will.

Kanda allowed himself a tiny smile in the dimness of the fading orange light. Until Allen spoke.

"Love?"

"Che. What, Moyashi?"

"-Kun."

Kanda was silent but for the padding of his feet in the dirt.

"Do you think, when we get home, I can move something out of my room and into yours? It's not furniture."

Kanda tried to watch the road as he spoke but found it rather difficult when Allen was talking in that soft, idealistic kind of voice, his arms slowly losing their grip. He responded in an equally quiet voice that did not carry in the cooling evening air. "Didn't I tell you to move everything you wanted? You don't have to ask."

The head on his shoulder rolled back and forth a little. "It's just a… painting. I don't think it'll match. So I wanted to ask." His breathing was slowing down. "Kanda, do you care if I sleep?"

"Che. If I said yes would you walk on your own?"

"If I had to."

"Hm." Kanda hefted him a little higher on his back, securing his hands so they would not slip against the fabric of his lover's pants. "Just sleep, Allen."

"Ok…Yuu."

0x0x0x0

Marlette poured more cold coffee into each of their mugs and sank back down into her seat at the kitchen table. It had taken longer than she thought it would to explain everything, indeed it had taken until just after dawn to get to the important part. The more she talked to the two Exorcists the more they seemed willing to believe that Tyki Mikk – or Tiago Valente – was not lying in his letter. Especially the girl called Lenalee. She seemed almost too desperate to hear the details of what had unfolded when the two left, almost too worried, and Marlette wasn't going to keep what was said a secret if it meant helping bring the two of them some shred of peace.

She rocked heavily back on her wooden chair, making it creek in the stillness of the gray morning, and heaved a sigh into her cup. This part would be harder than the rest.

"Las' night Lavi was sleepin' s'ard none of us could wake 'im." She explained. When she thought about it she could still see him there, too young and frail, dreaming. "Didn' get up fer nuthin', not 'til Tiago – can't 'elp but think of 'im as Tiago – tried t'wake 'im. Then sumthin' strange 'appened. 'E started talkin' 'bout memories an' things I've ne'er 'eard of, an' 'e looked s'Goddamn frightened I think 'e'd 'ave crawl under th'bed if 'e'd been able." She swirled her coffee but didn't drink it; she didn't even like cold coffee with cream in it. "Scared me shitless. But not Tiago. 'E jus' sat on th'bed and 'ugged 'im an' apologized, like 'e was sum kinda rock. Affer then th'boy fell asleep again. Tiago and I changed 'is bandages an' clothes an' they went. Last I saw of 'em."

She watched Lenalee's brow furrow as if fighting tears, her fingers squeezed her cup like a lifeline. She looked hollow. "Memories?"

Marlette nodded. "Aye. It's beyond me, but it seemed important."

"Did they happen to mention where they were going?" Crowley questioned gently with a sip from his cup. He seemed to be the only one interested in food anymore, the reason for which Marlette couldn't fathom.

"Not really." She said at once. "But I think…Ty-chan wanned t'take 'im someplace with better facilities. A place 'e'd 'ave t'ide from if'n they found out 'bout…whatever 'e is." She shrugged and the kitchen passed into uncomfortable silence.

Crowley was frowning at his hands when Lenalee's head jerked up, swishing her hair.

_No._ Lenalee thought desperately. _He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't be that stupid. Outside the Order is what Cole said – not _to_ the Order._

"Lena? Ya look kinda sick."

The Chinese girl stood as quickly as she could, smashing her chair back into the white wall behind her with a sound like thunder. She didn't hear it. Her hands lowered her cup just as quickly as she looked at her companion, shaking. "The Order. Tyki's taking him to the Order. They'll kill him, Crowley. We have to…we should…" _He's a Noah._ Her mind said at once. _I shouldn't do anything for a Noah._ "Lavi will…"

The man beside her reached out and gently captured her hand in his, tears gleaming in the corners of his eyes. "If they left an hour before midnight," He said as gently as he was able. "They are already home."

0x0x0x0

"HE HAS A TABLE IN HIS BAAAAAAAAACK!!"

"Please! You _must_ listen to me! I do not have a table—"

"THERE IS A RABBIT IN HIS PELVIIISSSSS!!"

"There is not! I swear to God, if you do not stop blubbering and listen to me I will scale the side of your rather disgusting and imperfect façade and ensure that you never need worry about the ineptitudes of your scanning abilities! Open the portal you obsolete piece of pseudo-technology!"

"OUT!! DO NOT LET HIM IN!!"

Tyki pulled the boy tighter to his chest in a desperate attempt to remain calm. He and the voice agreed on one thing – he would walk through the door before he let Lavi die in his arms, even if it was his own demise in the process. He would try one more time. One last time and it was over. Even if there were easily a hundred golems hovering around him, he didn't care. He would do it if he had to.

There was nothing else anyways. No Earl, no family, no friends. The first two would kill him; the last would soon be dead. And here, on the doorsteps of salvation, all of his selfishness was coming to nothing but a dying life in his hands.

He looked down at Lavi's face in the light in an attempt to cool the roiling anger in his chest. It was all he had left. Lavi's eyes were shut to the sunlight, lips a soft pink that reminded him of frosted rose petals, his hair was the only thing that remained as it had been since the ordeal had started, and it shimmered like red gold against his skin. Fresh blood oozed slowly out of his mouth and the sight of it brought the Noah to his knees, his argument with the gatekeeper completely forgotten.

"Don't…" He said to the unconscious apprentice he cradled. "Don't bleed anymore." His hand unhooked from one of the many things he carried and sent his case of knives crashing to the ground. His free thumb wiped the blood away, dying his own skin crimson. "We're _here_ Lavi, you can't die now… you can't…leave me like this. I won't let you leave me like this." The air seemed to flutter in and out of the boy's chest shallowly; catching in his throat, hissing wanly at the deepest point of his inhalation. Tyki pulled him closer, letting his face fall into the boy's neck. He was so cold, colder than the stones beneath his knees. "I won't let you die, damn it. Not after this much. You _can't_ die… Not in my arms Lavi. I won't let you. I won't let you. All I have is you. All I want is you. You can't…you can't…" He rocked forward gently, the tears escaping down his face and onto his lover's flesh, warming it. It was a horrible dream that he wanted to wake up from, but no matter how hard he prayed his eyes would not open.

_Why him, God? Why this? Why will they not listen?_

He heard something like a choking gasp in his ear or a cough that wouldn't come, a sound so sick and weak he couldn't control the ferocious growl it ripped from his throat.

_Is this entertainment for the eyes of heaven? Revenge for what one of us did to defy You?_

The boy couldn't breathe. He could only suck in enough air to make his lungs burble with blood. Tyki couldn't take it.

_I love him. Can that not be enough for You? Can that not be enough for any of Your Apostles? Your Chosen? Will no one help him?_

The silence was so cold it was deafening.

Tyki glared at the Gatekeeper with all his being, bile rising bitter in the back of his throat. Did they not care? Did they not understand? Could they not see their friend dying on their doorstep?

He no longer cared.

"You call yourselves God's Apostles, Exorcists?!" He screamed, the words tearing brokenly through his tears. "What can you do? Who can you save if you can't open the fucking door and see what's in front of you! Is he not one of yours?! Is he not worth the effort it would take to save him?!

"Let me ask you something _Chosen Ones of the Lord_, does this please your God?! Watching him suffer?! Watching him _die?_" He husked a laugh that had no mirth in it and wiped his face with his bloodied hand, smearing gore on his eyes. He didn't care. "What a _lie_. There is no God that this would please, no angel this would sate the heart of. Apostles, eh? You are _nothing_. You are filth. I tried to cleanse you, but you refused. So now you will remain in your filth until My fury against you has been satisfied."

He spoke through clenched teeth without seeing the door in front of him. His hands balled into angry fists he continued, the Noah in his mind speaking the words even as they fell from his mouth. "Apostles… if it were true every one of you would be out here, trying to save him. If it were true it would have been you suffering the ills that befell him. It would have been you who gathered up his bleeding form and dragged him to a safe house. Not me. It would have been your hands that held him when he realized what would have happened, when he saw the dark in them. When he saw the truth. When he dreamed it. Not mine. Never mine. Not…"

_**Me.**_

This time his voice came out in a too-quiet whisper, hardly louder than the wheeze Lavi made struggling desperately to fill his flooded lungs. Tyki's tears burned like melted iron on his cheeks. "I'm not a savior; I am a murderer, but I would give anything – anything at all... if I could save him."

Tyki was silent when he finished, the tears flowing from his eyes without his knowledge, without his heart in them. He couldn't feel his hands any more; the left one under Lavi's back, the right crawling desperately at the stone walk, both red with blood. He hadn't known he had cut his fingers on the stone any more than he knew the scars beneath his hair were as plain as they had ever been. He knew only that now he was finished. Now he was done. Without Lavi he would simply let the Order kill him if they could.

He felt warm air blow against his cheeks and blinked at it, incapable of comprehending what could possibly be warm on the top of this cliff, this place where even the sound of the birds seemed cold; the sunlight on his shoulders felt like ice water. This place of frozen loneliness.

A hand found his wrist and pulled it from his dying lover, relieving him of the boy's weight. Lavi was moved away. He didn't see people. Not until a second hand touched his shoulder, drawing his gaze to a pair of kind dark eyes, framed by strands of black hair, silver glasses, and soft smile, a beret that rested almost straight on top of it all finished the odd ensemble. He only half understood.

"It's alright." The man's voice was distant sounding, like something from a dream he half remembered. "We'll fix him. We will take care of him. I promise."

_I promise._  
_No one else will hurt you, I promise.  
I promise._

Komui watched the blank face of the man before him slowly lift in realization, but the tears did not slow. Instead his eyes closed and he bent in on himself, a sigh so deep it made him shiver escaping his lungs. He fell sideways, Komui's arm shot from his side and he caught the man's other shoulder, holding him up being his body didn't seem ready to function.

"Thank you." Tyki whispered, not daring to look. "But I meant every word of it." To his surprise the man laughed at him a little and pulled his arm up over his shoulder, moving to assist him in standing.

"Ezekiel was it? Chapter twenty-four? I forget the verse."

"Thirteen."

"That's right. Impressive. I've never heard anyone call us _lewd _before, at least not for your reasons. Anyways, I'm going to stand up now. I think you're shorter than me so I'll try not to pull off your arm and you stand on your toes if you can." Komui waited for the man to nod before he tried it, his hand gripping around his opposing hip, under the folding table he had slung on a strap across his back. When he pushed up with his feet he found the man was astoundingly light for his size, and his feet seemed to remember how to walk even if his back could no longer hold him up. Komui found it odd but he didn't worry. Anyone who could say those things to an unmoving door with a dying man in their arms had to be human – or close to it.

When they came in the entrance he turned to the nearest person and asked him to retrieve the fallen suitcase, he then made for the nearest seat – one of the pews in the nearby sanctuary.

Tyki realized as soon as his back hit the wood where they were, and that he had been dragged away from his lover. It didn't matter now though. They would help him. They would keep him safe. He felt something uncoil from his spine and slink toward his heart, slowly, without pain, and sighed at it, tilting his head back to comfortably rest on the pew behind him.

How long had it been since he had really slept?

"Are you hurt?" His barer asked kindly, stepping back and taking the table with him. He had nearly sat the man on it in an attempt to get him down quickly.

Tyki shook his head from side to side, nearly moving the hair from his forehead and not caring. "No. Just tired. His nightmares kept us both awake most of the night. I do not believe myself capable of sleep though, at least not while I know he might yet die."

"Nightmares?"

"Yes. Terrors might be a more fitting word. We did not come from a happy place, Supervisor."

Komui made to respond to that – to say something, ask some question, frown – but the head nurse tapped him lightly on the shoulder, pulling him away from their newest visitor. "Lavi's blood type – we can't find it in the—"

"It's O." He said at once. "Do you need me?"

She shook her head. "No, we need blood."

He nodded.

Tyki let his eyes come open and prayed they looked normal. It would be horribly unlucky to be discovered now, before he could find a way to tell them himself. He rolled his shoulders forward and cupped his face in his hands, rubbing at his temples. His skin was cold from the tears and the wind, his eyes hurt from something but he couldn't name it, like two long knives digging into his skull. He figured it was worry.

_Lavi…_ He thought into his eyelids. _If you do not survive this… I do not know what will happen. I may kill them all, Lavi. I may… forget myself. And I will not care_.

He opened his eyes just as Komui was going to touch him again, under the arm. He smiled at the Supervisor weakly, knowing that his thoughts betrayed the look.

The scientist sighed. "Komui Lee." He said at last, with a slight bow of his head. "Welcome to the Black Order."

0x0x0x0

Hitori slowly guided Sable's hand over her plate, pausing as he explained what he had gathered from the cafeteria. "Salad. Meat. I think this is… um… pasta? And this is… um… brown and… mmm! Salty."

She tugged her hand out of his. "Hito, I really don't care where it is or what it tastes like. I'm just going to eat it." Sable stabbed her fork at what she knew to be labeled as _brown and salty_ and hit something much harder than she expected. The boy beside her made a little gasp of pain and the bed rocked a little, the fork fell from her grasp with a clatter and she reached out to him, missed. Her fingers buried themselves in whatever brown and salty was to the second knuckle, which she found to be warm against her fingers. She chuckled and let her head sag against her chest. "Sorry."

She heard a light sucking sound before he spoke. "Just… don't harpoon your food anymore – or me. I'm _bleeding_ from a _fork_ wound."

"You could have moved your hand faster."

She could feel him narrow his eyes at her. "Don't even start."

She smiled at him and dragged her hand off of her plate and began licking indifferently at her fingers, a slow expression of satisfaction spreading across her features. "Just being honest. It's kind of sad when a girl can catch you with a fork going for her beans. Not that I'm complaining. I'm perfectly fine with you being brainy and physically slow."

"Brainy? Physically slow? Are these sad, twisted attempts at complimenting me?" Hitori picked up Sable's utensil and worked it into her slightly more clean hand, frowning deeply. She hadn't said anything mean to him yet, but _physically slow_ was pretty close in his mind.

She shrugged. "Not really… I mean… I like you how you are. I'd just rather not hurt you on accident."

All thoughts of insult were gone the moment she said those words. He wordlessly guided her fork to the beans and helped her scoop them before letting her take the bite back to her mouth. He waited until she swallowed before he spoke again in a way that stilled her motions all together. "Do you mean that?"

She hardly stopped her fork before it hit her lips again; this time with what she hoped was salad. "Of course I mean it. I wouldn't say it unless I did. I mean c'mon, I'd much rather tie you up and tease you than _harpoon_ you when I'm trying to eat my dinner. And you're smart and polite and funny sometimes, so I don't really mind that you're boney like a skinny girl." She actually heard his jaw fall open. "Hito…"

"T-t-tea-teatea…"

His blush was like a super hot nova burning on his face.

"Hito?"

"Tie – tie – tie—"

"Breathe Hon, it's not like you're _that_ innocent is it?" _Besides, I think the skinny girl part was worse than the teasing…_

His mouth kept floundering for words that would not come. His brain formed half sentences that refused to get out of his mouth. He took a shaky breath and willed his lips to do what they told him; it wasn't as if she could _see_ his blush anyways. "I've n-n-never… I mean… I've _heard_ but I…I never thought that… you're and – I mean I'm not… but it's not like I wouldn't try. Not that I want to – wait I mean I do but – I'm not… and… _oh shit…_" He shook his head so he could hide behind the long veil of his hair, even if there was nothing to hide from. Really he just did not want to see her smiling at him like that. "Sorry I guess I'm not that… educated in the field of your fantasies." He squeaked before diving for the nearest pillow to smash his face into.

_Just die, Hito. It would be easier._

"You're silly Hitori." Sable said before inhaling her salad – she didn't taste it but it took the edge off her hungry enough to blindly lower the tray and turn to the exceedingly embarrassed boy beside her. She took a firm grip on the edge of his shirt and followed it to the curve of his shoulder; let her fingers guide her to the gentle sweep that marked the back of his neck. "Hito. Oh please Hito you're not that embarrassed are you? I didn't mean to. Things just kind of fall out of my mouth when I'm eating – wait that's not… you get it. The point is Hon that you shouldn't be this flustered. Yeah, I would rather tie you up and tease you than stab you with a kitchen utensil and no, you aren't going to knock it until you try it; so lets just sit back and enjoy each other's company without your face blowing up, ok?" She felt his head turn under her hand until he was facing her and she stroked the hair out of his eyes, trying to smile.

"Sable."

"Hitori."

"Would be awkward if I kissed you right now?"

"Nope."

"Good."

0x0x0x0

The sun sank behind the curve of the earth and Kanda lifted his sleeping burden a little higher on his back, walking in the starlight with half-hooded eyes that only half-observed what they were walking passed. He was listening. He could hear the rise and fall of Allen's breath, a delicate breeze on his left ear, the crushed sound of dirt under his feat, the chirping of waking insects, the sea crashing against the shore to the east, and the distant turning of cart wheels on less than perfect streets, whining with need of grease. They were far away still, but the dull clamor of a harbor city at night was in the distance, growing closer.

And then, removed from all of those things, was the slight twinge of something different. Something almost painful. He had never heard a sound like it, or thought to, but it was there, tickling the edge of his senses.

Something, somewhere, was wrong. Very wrong. He could hear it.

_Why am I thinking of that baka usagi now?_

As if reading his mind Allen sighed the redhead's name into his ear, making him miss a step and stumble forward, hitting his right knee to save them from the fall. It hurt more than it should have but he pushed himself back up with a glance over his shoulder. The white haired boy still slept soundly. Dreaming. And even if he hadn't been there was no reason for the name to make Kanda's heart take to pounding on his ribcage like a hummingbird's. _"No…I don't care… crab… not small enough… stooooop…"_

Kanda barked out a harsh laugh. "Che, it's nothing." He mumbled to himself. "Coincidence."

"Huh?" It was a moan more than an interrogative, "Consequence?" Allen lifted his head and shifted his weight, forcing Kanda to curl his arms to stop him from falling. "Kan…oh. Right. Walking. Where are we?" He looked from side to side but stopped suddenly, his face in his lover's hair. He leaned in and closed his eyes, smelling his lover's locks with an odd expression on his face. "And why do you smell like Lavi?"

Kanda stopped. "What the hell are you…" He turned into his shoulder and sniffed the fabric of his jacket, his eyes went wide at once, because Allen was right, his jacket, his hair, his skin – everything smelled like Lavi. He tried to think of a reason – any reason – but his mind was blank. There could be no cause for it, no meaning… unless…

He stopped his train of thought. Even _if _he was partly dead he wouldn't experience something like that unless something had happened that he did not want to think about. Not now. Not ever. Because he _did not_ care what happened to that stupid bunny. "Moyashi…"

"He's not…" The Japanese man shivered and his lover slid from his back, taking him by the hand. "Do you have your golem with you?"

He nodded numbly.

"He's not dead, Kanda. He can't be dead. We can call and find out what happened, but he's not dead. If he died…" He watched Kanda close his eyes, the pained expression on his face muted in the moonlight, his eyes cast in dark shadows that hid the emotions he knew would be there. Fear. Pain. A refusal to hope. It hurt to see him like that.

"Che, idiot Moyashi." He forcefully dropped Allen's hand and took two steps without looking back at his lover, moving quickly. He did not want him to see the tears burning behind his sealed eyelids.

"Kanda!" Allen threw both of his arms around his waist in time to feel his chest heave with an ill suppressed sob. He pretended not to feel it. He pretended that the thought of Lavi dying did not make him want to cry also; he crammed him face into his lover's shoulder, feeling him shake. "Don't just… walk away from me, Love. Please I don't…I don't want you to be coldhearted over this. Not when I need…" The samurai felt Allen shift against him and closed his eyes to it, two tears finally escaped his sapphire eyes, falling quickly to the dusty road. "Need…"

Kanda turned around and curled his arms around Allen's shoulders, pulling him close. The British boy buried his face in his lover's jacket – but all he could smell was Lavi.

"Don't leave me alone here."

"Che." The older man tightened his arms as much as he could with his right hand petting slowly through Allen's hair, trying to soothe him. "I wasn't going to."

"If you leave me you might…I wouldn't know. I wouldn't be there. Don't…" His fingers weaved their way passed his lover's jacket and onto his skin underneath, quaking. Kanda shushed him gently.

"He may not be dead, Allen. And I won't die if I leave you."

"You _say_ that but…"

"I'm harder to kill than that…idiot. And he's not dead until I see his body, Moyashi-kun. See it and thank it."

Allen snorted through his sobs and gradually pulled his face back, blinking with tear bruised eyes without looking at his lover's face. "I guess you're right. He's not dead yet. And even if he is—"

"No. There is no even if. He's not dead until I say he's dead, now move. We'll never know what the Order knows if we don't reach a phone."

Allen nodded at the determination in his lover's voice and drew away so they could walk on. He did not say a word when Kanda dabbed his eyes on his sleeve.

0x0x0x0

Tiago, Komui came to realize, was devoted to Lavi in a way he would never understand. He had explained calmly to him that Lavi had lost far more blood than most did before slipping into a coma, and that both his stomach and lungs had been filling with it at the moment of their arrival. He then, as he guided him from hall to cafeteria to rooms to lounge to science department, explained what they had done to save him. His voice, he knew, did not quite sound passive. It was too difficult to speak of draining restricted organs and blood transfusions and hurried surgery with an indifferent expression; not when it was someone he knew.

So he paused often in an attempt to keep it from cracking.

Tiago just listened. Walked beside him and listened, calm now that his spine would hold him upright. Unlike Lavi he seemed in perfect health with only a glance – though he seemed tired.

By the time Komui had finished they had come to the hospital wing, which is what he had hoped for. It was time to explain the part that – though terrifying – filled him with relief he never knew he could feel.

Though at one point in the process of saving him Lavi's heart had stopped they had coerced it into beating again. To put it shortly, the boy had been dead for near two minutes.

The Portuguese man did not even bat an eyelash.

Tyki was so glad to hear of Lavi's recovery that he almost lost the ability to stand straight again. His back was killing him already, knowing that Lavi was comatose but breathing made it throb more strongly – because that meant that eventually, he would get better. And he still _wanted_ him.

Komui paused in a long hall of doors – rooms really – taking them in as if he had never really looked at them. Each was the same but for the numbers etched in silver on their gray surfaces; double doors marked the larger of the rooms down farther, almost at the very end. But they didn't matter. Lavi's room was small and on the left. Their feet made soft scuffing sounds on the white tile floor. Komui gently pushed the door open – number 126 – and was about to ask the other if he could find his way back to his temporary room – being there was much that needed to be discussed with a man who had survived the Noah family unscathed and he need a place to sleep while that happened – but stopped when he saw his expression.

The sight of Lavi, his Lavi, lying still on a hospital bed, breathing as if asleep, pasty but not as pasty as he had been, made Tyki perfectly incapable of hearing whatever Komui said at that moment. He walked forward, completely indifferent to the man staring at his back, and knelt on the floor beside the boy's bed, fear and relief and anger all turning in his stomach at once. He touched Lavi's warm hand and shivered at it, amazed at how different his skin felt, how alive and yet inanimate; goosebumps rippled up his arm at that tiny hint of contact.

He started to cry without feeling it. They weren't his tears.

**Love. I love.**

"Supervisor," He said in a voice that did not sound like it belonged to a crying man. "Would you mind if I stayed here for a moment."

Komui licked his bottom lip and nodded despite the fact that he wasn't being looked at. "Go ahead. But… the wounds on him, do you have any idea how they got there? I can't imagine how or why…" He watched the other man nod as his fingers slipped gently into Lavi's palm. The touch was not the caress of a friend, it was more than that, something warm and loving that made the scientist feel as if he did not belong here, watching. What had happened between the two of them was something else he was growing curious about, but he would not ask unless Bookman allowed him.

"He was almost beaten to death the first day he was there. Dislocated shoulder, broken ribs, the cut on his forehead over his left eye came from that. That was an interrogation. Then… they did not care when he would not speak, so they bound and gagged him, intent on breaking him with means by which I would rather not think of. That, it seems, is what he dreams of." His fingers moved back and forth, slowly, in a rhythm that was all too much like the rise and fall of Lavi's chest in the near-lightless room. Tyki took a breath before he continued, this time more quietly. Words were hard to form with the voice chanting its devotion in his mind. "I tried to protect him but I am not a savior. This was all I could do in the end. Run. Run and take him with me." He shivered slightly, swallowed hard. "He is his of higher import to me than they will ever be."

"They?" Komui prompted. He understood about half of what Tyki was saying – the rest was a mystery. It was as if this man hadn't been a prisoner like Lavi had, but that seemed ridiculous. If he hadn't been a prisoner he had to have been an ally of the Noah, which made him a traitor as well as an enemy of the Vatican, but that seemed simply impossible. He stiffened as the man stood and turned to him, sorrow and happiness burning in equal amounts in his dark eyes.

It was like being looked through. His eyes seemed different.

"Never mind. I ramble. I cannot thank you enough for opening your doors to me. If you had not…" He trailed off, expression falling. The mask of exhaustion dropped over his face and dulled his gaze; he swayed for a moment before blinking twice at the taller man and catching himself on the bedside stand before he could fall. Komui almost moved to his side but stopped at a raised hand.

"If you weren't hurt you wouldn't be collapsing."

"I am _not_ hurt." Tyki insisted. The Noah, it seemed, was content now that it new Lavi would be better. Both sides of him were worn out from fighting each other, from worry, from holding in his bloodlust with a promise. The darkness wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep too, just not here. "I am tired. I told you that before. I need—" Komui was beside him in an instant helping to ease to the ground, his arms ached from carrying Lavi too long, holding him down when he trashed in his sleep, catching his own weight when he fell. Suddenly it felt as if his awareness had been sucked into the back of his skull and he was looking through eyes that were very far away, someone else eyes, and gripping the sheet on the mattress with someone else's hand. "I…want…"

"Stop." Komui shook his head. "You are sleep deprived; I see enough of it to know. I know that you want to be sure that Lavi is safe but you must think of yourself also. Would he want you to kill yourself like this to be at his bedside?"

The words made Tyki's eyes go wide. No, Lavi wouldn't. Lavi would want him to rest and eat and curl up beside him to defend him. The corner of his mouth curled up in a lazy smile. "No."

"Then let's get you someplace more comfortable."

**--Crazy Omake Requested by Beckarch (Sorry if it's not what you wanted…)--**

Allen frowned at himself in the mirror, stretching his back in a feeble attempt to make his shoulders look broader. It wasn't working. No matter how he tilted his arms or held his hands he still looked as small and… _feminine_ as he did sitting with his hands delicately clasped in his lap and his legs crossed.

"Lenalee…"

The Chinese girl giggled as she fussed with his hair, fingers working quickly with the finishing touches. "What? Having second thoughts?"

"No." He said at once.

"Good. All you need is gloves and you'll be absolutely _adorable!_"

He sighed, crossed his ankles in attempt to hide a little. He failed. Glancing in the mirror he looked the part of either a whore or a blushing virgin. "I look like pedocandy."

"You do not. Kanda will love it. That's all that matters."

"Right. Sure. I'll be sure to tell him that you did it so he knows who to kill."

She smacked him lightly on the back of the head, glaring. "This is _expensive_. You should be grateful I'm lending it to you."

"Lending it to me!? _It's my size! _And you told me Kanda would never sleep with me again if I didn't—"

Another smack, this one harder. "You just make the face you did in the mirror a second ago. I'll go get Kanda." With that tiny bit of instruction she smiled at him, wishing that she hadn't left her camera in her room so she could keep him the that outfit forever. "Hee… have fun…"

"Shut up."

She closed the door loudly behind her.

Allen waited.

_I am an idiot. Lenalee and clothes… I should have known…_ He bit his lip and pushed himself out of his chair, wobbling a little unsurely on his shoes before he remembered how big they were and steadied himself. He took a deep breath and seated himself on the edge of the bed, careful not to ruffle the lace around his legs too much.

Faintly he heard the pitter-patter of feet in the hall and a sound like a voice lifted in annoyance. It was time. He would finally get to see if Lenalee was right about Kanda's preferences in clothing – and get the hell out of this skirt, God willing. He watched the door creak open.

The samurai was sweaty from his time in the training room, which had been cut short by Lenalee demanding that he come to his room, and annoyed from having lost concentration twice while meditating and once while moving because of that _baka Moyashi_. He wanted nothing more than to find the younger man and unleash his frustrations on him, which seemed entirely too unlikely when he had been shoved in their room, forced not to search.

And then, just as he was about to curse and throw off his shirt in a moment of irritation, he spotted the boy perched shyly on the edge of their bed, hands folded in his lap, ankles crossed, biting his lower lip. But it wasn't the expression or the pose that made him stop, it was the clothes. White petticoats and bell sleeves, lace across the front of his chest, red ribbons in his hair, a crimson corset, roses and tassels hanging from it; and on his feet a pair of tall red shoes, white lace stockings slipping to just above his knees. Lolita. Gothic Lolita.

"Moyashi."

Allen's down turned eyes did not look up. "Hm?"

"What the fuck are you wearing?"

His head snapped up, eyes wide. "It was Lenalee's idea… she said you'd like it." He paused to study the near blank expression on his lover's face. "Do you?"

Kanda shuttered. "Take it of."

"But it took all day to—"

"Che. Take – it – off. Now."

"Kanda, I'm not—wait don't come any closer! What are you doing?!" Before the British boy knew what was happening there was a sword under his left ear, icy against his pulse point. "Wha…"

Kanda's face was serious. "I am going to cut it off."

Allen gaped. "Bu-bu-but, L-l-l-love—" The next ten minutes passed with many sounds of tearing and shredding. By then Allen sat bare on the comforter, his clothes a pile of lace and string on the black rug beneath his blissfully shoeless feet. His lower lip twitched and his head sagged against his chest. "So much for my dignity."

"Che," Kanda caught his chin and kiss the side of his mouth. "Naked. Just how I like my _Moyashi._" He leaned in again, his fingers trailing up the boy's thigh. He stopped abruptly, just inches from his lover's mouth?"

"What?"

He glanced down, eyes wide. "Is that a garter?"

--OWARI!—

**He lived! I lied. Suspense! Don't hate me XD.**

**Now I better post or Maiden will kill me. :)**


	74. Meeting

**Long again. Sorry. And not a lot happened that I wanted. Slow plot. Slow. I have given up on trying to keep the chapters the length I want them. If it's too long for you, whine at me and I'll try again.**

**I don't own D.Gray-man.**

**WARNINGS: Allusions to man-sex. Cursing.**

0x0x0x0

Meeting

The midmorning sun burned golden fire through the porthole and through her eyelids, contracting her dark irises against the glare. An elegant eyebrow twitched at the feeling and she turned her head just a little against the light, wanting nothing more than to sleep through the hangover she was more than likely going to have. She felt something warm grace the side of her cheek and follow the curve of her jaw, down across her throat, delicate, tickling. Without thinking Hiroko hummed at it, drew her hand up to touch whatever it was that was tilting the mattress next to her.

Her fingers found first the curve of a hip bone and then the sweep of a shirted chest, followed by the curve of a broad shoulder. A person. She was sleeping next to a person. She didn't really feel like opening her eyes to find out which.

And there was an arm placed across the surface of her stomach, warm skin brushing against hers where her yukata did not quite close. That was fine, she didn't have space issues; she could still sleep. But, after a moment, the arm moved. She did not let herself tense at the feeling of a finger gliding toward her right hip.

"Don't push your luck if you want to keep that hand."

"I'm not going to do anything Hiro, I'm just trying to see what's bandaged."

"Che!" She opened her eyes at the man's voice and glared at him, closed her left hand around his wrist to force his fingers from her skin. She regretted the sudden movement but didn't let the pounding in her temples faze her. "It's none of your fucking business. Get your damn hands off of me you sick pervert."

Cross smiled. His angled features seemed far too bright in the morning light, too observant, and the way he inclined his head to her made her wonder if his intentions were all of the ill variety. She wouldn't let herself wonder for too long, not when she could see the burning in his eyes.

"Hiro, I'm serious. There's blood on your yukata."

She glanced down at her hip and the change of angle made her groggy eyes catch the blinding light, which he regretted at once. With a curse she let her head fall back to Cross's pillow, lifting her hands to cover her forehead to block the brightness. "Good morning to you too sun, shit-eating cunt."

"Heh. It's just doing its job Hiro."

"Well I wish it would do its stupid job somewhere else."

He sighed and rolled away from her, resting his bare feet on the icy floor. "I'll tell you what Hiro, you just stay in my bed and I'll find something to bandage you with. Perhaps clothes too. I know I'd hate to lie around in a bloody robe I've slept in."

"Stay?" She questioned, glaring out of one of her gray eyes in an attempt to see the expression on his face. After a moment she realized that he was right – this _was_ his bed. How had she gotten there again?

"You are not wandering around with that wound if you want to stay breathing. I don't care how tough you are. Stay." He stood and grabbed his coat, not bothering with shoes before he headed out the door, slamming it behind him.

"Wow." She half-chuckled. "He didn't even brush his hair."

0x0x0x0

The sand was much more to his liking than the snow had been, even if he had to take off his parka around noon. The ship he had not wanted to sit and wait to arrive would be there in only a few hours – when the sun would be high – but he wanted things done before then. He wanted things finished. Because if _she_ was on that boat the way he suspected, he didn't want to see her.

"Having fun, Nii-san?" The voice ripped his emerald eyes away from the beach so they flicked momentarily to the side, not quite far enough to see the speaker. He smiled to himself at the sound of her voice and rocked on his feet a little, which brought his shoulder into contact with the large rock face beside him. He liked standing here on the beach without shoes, with the breeze in his hair; it brought all sorts of thoughts to his mind. "You _seem_ to be having fun."

He sighed as he turned to look at her, raising his eyebrows in curiosity. "You've never asked before. Could it be that I'm your replacement for Tyki?"

She stiffened but relaxed at once, a sadistic grin splitting her face. "Not a replacement. A replacement should be just as good as the original."

"Heh. How cruel."

She came to stand beside him, pulling a lollipop from her pocket and ripping the wrapper off before jabbing it quickly into her mouth, the better to keep in the words she wanted to speak; they were not near as sweet as the candy. "I will tell you one thing, Uri-nii." She turned to look at him, reaching out to lay her hand in the crook of his arm. "You're far less boring."

He chuckled under his breath and smiled at her, honestly feeling the expression, which was strange for him. "Thank you, Rhode. You're rather cute when you're working with me and not making fun of me for my other half. Say… have any more of those? I could use an oral fixation."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Bored?"

"Maybe a little."

"Hmm." Her grin broadened, gold eyes shining in the sunlight. "Then let's go kill some people while we wait! It could be fun!"

He frowned. "My level three never came back but there could still be Exorcists here. I'd hate to stumble upon them unexpectedly. But all the same…" He shrugged, ran his left hand through his hair in the wind. This _was_ much better than snow. "The weather _is_ nice. We might go to the beach, see if we can find children searching for shells. Maybe a few mothers watching them. Could be fun."

"And _you_ call _me_ cruel?"

He laughed openly, a sound that rang harshly out over the waves, loud enough to frighten a bird from the waters. It had been a long time since he had laughed like that. A long time since he had let himself. "Since I last saw my sister I have no reason not to be. Why should I try to _avoid_ killing for her sake if I want to do it? It seems folly to me – what with how the world is and all – to save rotten things for the sake of something rottener, doesn't it?" He shifted his weight again and patted her hand lightly, never losing his smile. "So let's kill some children or rob them of their mothers. Without akuma, if that would be more enjoyable for you."

Rhode's smile was like a gaping wound across her face, bleeding merriment, the seven scars blossomed across her forehead as it grew. She watched the five form on her relatives face and giggled at it; even if he wasn't completely the same as her he was close, his hair turned black now when he underwent the change. He had picked a side, her side, and she liked that. "Let's!" She enthused, tightening her grip on his arm. "I want to be excited when the Exorcists show up."

"I thought you were going back before that happened."

"And miss him?"

"Miss who?"

She tilted her face at him with an almost smug expression. "Allen Walker. I want to play with Allen Walker."

0x0x0x0

The silver haired young man sighed at the dishwater, annoyed. This had not been how he wanted to spend his morning. Not at all. Not with Kanda acting how he was. The night before he hadn't been quite awake enough to understand what was going on and ask the right questions and, now that he was, he wanted to clear a few things up straight away. Sadly for him things had not worked out as expected – indeed they had worked out worse.

Which was one of the reasons he rolled up his sleeves and sank his hands into the sink.

He had eaten the largest breakfast he'd had in a long time, though he had not actually been full when he declared himself finished. He felt much better. As better as he could feel with Kanda in a different room, talking on the phone, finding out what was happening while he did the dishes instead. Kanda had seemed quiet and reserved – more so than usual – and the thought of it made his heart feel heavy. Part of him knew that Kanda was defensive of his emotions and tried to hide them; the fact that he had try to walk away the night before proved it, but what was worse than that was not knowing what exactly _had_ happened the night before. There was only one thing that tied Kanda and Lavi together besides friendship and the thought made him nearly drop a plate in fear.

The seal. The curse. The lotus. Lavi had known about it, so assuming that Kanda had saved him made sense – which somehow linked them through that act.

But if Lavi _had_ died…what would become of Kanda if something happened to _him?_

_Don't think about it._ He determinedly worked his sponge over a stubborn stop of dried on potatoes. _It won't help to think about it._

0x0x0x0

"Komui?"

"_Uhn."_

"Kanda."

"_Lovely…"_ There was a sound like paper crunching and a muffled negative. Someone was whispering not too far off. _"How's the trip coming? Shouldn't you still be at sea?"_

The Japanese man closed his eyes and licked his lips. Even after a shower his jacket still smelled like Lavi, he could taste it in the air around him. "It's fine. We had a minor run in with an akuma. Nothing happened. Have you heard any news on Lavi?"

The Supervisor was silent for a moment before he spoke, his voice heavy with shock. _"You've… never been so bla—"_

"Answer me."

Another short silence. _"He's here, safe, for now."_

Kanda refused to let the other man hear his sigh of relief. "What happened? I want to know everything."

"_He was brought in yesterday. From the information we gathered he was prisoner for two days, most of which he was tortured for."_ Komui's voice was somewhat regretful sounding, almost sad, it gave Kanda the impression that the man somehow blamed himself for whatever state the redhead was in now. _"He has a broken leg, lacerations, bruises – he's in a coma, most likely from the blood loss. We won't know the extent of the mental or emotional trauma until he comes to."_

"When will that be?" His tone was perfectly emotionless.

"_As things are he could wake up tomorrow. Or it could be three weeks. If we missed something, it might be months."_

Kanda tilted his head back and turned to lean his back against the wall. He couldn't think about what that implied. Three weeks. Months. If he was _that_ bad how did he get out?

It didn't matter.

"It was his right knee."

"_What?"_

He swallowed, hard. "He broke his right knee. And at some point yesterday he died, didn't he?"

There was a sound of banging and clicking and a horrified yelp before Komui's voice came back to the line. _"Well, his heart stopped but he didn't… wait. How did you…"_

"Che. It's nothing. I just… had a feeling. We'll be home as scheduled."

He hung up.

With the phone out of his hand the appendage wandered aimlessly to the tattoo that was more or less hidden under his jacket, his face expressionless. He didn't think that something like this would affect him this way, not at all, not after what happened in Sweden. It was just Lavi. He had threatened that idiot with life and limb more times than he cared to count – and when he hadn't threatened he had brandished his sword to voice the threat for him – because he _did not _care, so there was absolutely no reason for him to feel bad about anything. As long as the idiot was breathing Kanda would be happy – that's how it always was. How it had always been. Until he went missing.

_Hn. You let Moyashi in behind your defenses and that baka usagi just slips in right behind him, eh? I should meditate more. I won't be able to function if I keep letting this happen._

"Kanda?" And there was the Moyashi, leaning out the kitchen door to see him. The apron on his chest and the napkin he had tied around his head to keep his bangs back made him look like some travesty of a traditional western wife, but Kanda wasn't about to tell him that. Or how adorable it was.

"Che. He's at the Order. Breathing."

"Breathing? So he's…" Allen's face brightened beneath the swath of pale green napkin. "Alive! That's good. I was seriously worried after…" His voice trailed off and he waved his left hand at Kanda's jacket, the ladle clenched between his fingers dripping water on the tile floor.

The Japanese Exorcist sighed at him and reached out without explanation. He grabbed the smaller boy by the wrist and jerked him forward; span him rather roughly before slipping his arms around the boy's waist to pull them flush against each other, his face perfectly even with his lover's left ear.

The British boy spoke very softly, shoulders tense. "Love, I don't know what you're doing, but someone might see."

"So?"

Allen shivered at the breath in his ear. "I should do dishes…before we…if we…" He trailed off at the feeling of an arm curling more tightly. "Kanda?"

"I was just curious, how is it that you know what Lavi smells like?" Kanda felt his lover go rigid.

"Um… isn't that kind of unimportant? I mean, it's not like I—" He gasped a little at a hand drifting under the folds of his apron by his hip, just shallowly enough to be innocent, but close enough to make him want more. "He carried me on a couple missions and I borrowed his jacket once. That's it. Whatever you're thinking is wro—Ka-Love! What are you—" He hissed at the press of teeth on his skin, just behind his ear, and felt his jaw fall open at the light suction that accompanied the pain. It stung. It wouldn't have bothered him if they hadn't been standing in the storage room, just waiting to be walked in on. "Kan…da…"

The samurai was silently amazed at how little his lover tried to pull away. By the time he had the mark as dark as he thought he wanted it Allen was shaking against him, the ladle went spiraling to the floor with a clatter. _Oops._ The Japanese Exorcist thought with a lift of his lips. He watched his lover tentatively touch the place he had marked him, perhaps checking to see if the had broken the skin, and smiled.

"Mine." He said without thinking. "No one else's."

Allen laughed harshly. "You don't have to bruise me for me to know that."

"No, but others might."

"Love… I…" Slowly Kanda let Allen turn in his hands until the boy's silver eyes were looking up at him, beseechingly, twin pools of quick silver in a face of soft ivory. Somehow, whatever emotion was in them, made him feel sad. "Kanda, I love you."

Kanda's face twisted in a sideways grin, somehow creepy and happy at the same time. "Che. I know that."

"If you knew that you wouldn't be worried about how I know what Lavi smells like."

Kanda's expression fell. He seemed to think for a moment, a moment Allen let him have to himself, until his eyes softened and his arms curled up around his lover's shoulders instead of his waist. When he spoke again his voice was quieter, his words calculated. "I'm sorry. I guess… I was being over protective. And thoughtless."

Allen nodded in agreement. "And really, really dumb."

"Che. You don't have to go that far."

"And now there's one other thing that you need to say so I can get back to work."

Kanda's face fell further, almost a thoughtful brood. "I do?"

Allen glowered up at him. "Yes."

Kanda's eyes shifted. Something else? What else was there? He had just apologized and let himself be marked as stupid, what else could Allen want? "I… like the napkin."

His lover glared death at him and poked him repeatedly between the ribs with enough force to nearly knock the wind from his lungs. "You love me you idiot! Tell me you love me!"

The older man snorted at him. "I love you! Ow! Stop poking me! I love you! Stop it! I love you but I'll still kill you if you don't stop! I—"

"DISH BOY! Where the hell is the dish boy?!" A low woman's voice came from the kitchen, annoyed. "DISH BOY!"

"Che."

"That's me. I should go." Allen stopped poking for the sake of shutting up his lover and took a half step back toward the door, forgetting the ladle. "I mean unless you want to help…"

"I need to meditate. Properly." He leaned forward and gently kissed his lover's forehead, just beneath the line of his napkin. The gesture made Allen smile.

"And after I'm done and before the bed gets here…"

"Bed?"

"Did I say bed? I meant boat."

"Che. Go."

Allen stole a final kiss before slipping out of the storage room and back into to lively kitchen. Two hundred twelve plates and thirty-two glasses in eleven stacks awaited him.

0x0x0x0

Tyki Mikk shook himself awake around midnight, sore and groggy. He was thankful that the room was dark and windowless – if starlight had shimmered into his eyes he might have cursed himself into a lecture, or simply ripped out his eyes, but there was no such trouble. Instead he shifted on his bed in the darkness, yet unwilling to think beyond his own skin.

**Lavi.**

"Shut up." He said aloud, pulling the blankets closer. "I know he's fine."

**Lavi. Love. Want.**

But the last word was different. It wasn't the hungry sort of word it had been before, or a demand, or a plea. It was simply a desire expressed with a word.

"What?"

**To see. To know. To touch. To feel. To have.**

He sighed, pressing his head back into his pillow. He didn't want to get up just so the darkness could look but he wanted to look also, even for a little while. "Visiting hours are over." He said logically.

**Walls.**

He snorted. "Wait until morning. If anyone sees me walking through walls, I'm a dead man."

**Want.**

"And then I'll never see him again. Or touch him."

**Lavi…love…want. No walls.**

He sighed and drew his hands up to his eyes, pressing on them, hating the voice in his head more that he ever had in his life. In his heart he knew that both of the wills in him wanted the same thing, they wanted to see Lavi, but he wouldn't do that now, not at midnight. Not when he knew going would cause all sorts of trouble for everyone. The push of his palms on his eyes dyed the darkness green and orange on the backs of his lids, pain blossomed slowly in the back of his skull, spreading down his spine and into his chest. It was a subtle pain, just enough for him to know that the pressure wasn't what caused it, and knowing that was enough to make him curse. He did not want to feel the pain in his back anymore, nor did he want to get out of bed just because the voice willed him. Tyki wanted to rest on his pillow and sleep until morning – and when morning came he would do what it wanted, and what he wanted.

"When the sunrises and not before."

**NO.**

This time it hurt. "I want to sleep."

**NO.**

He pushed harder on his eyes, distracting himself from the stabbing pain in his back with the dull ache in his face. "We cannot have this argument. No compromises this time. I am going to stay here and—" His voice stopped working at the agony of his back bending against the mattress at the wrong angle. A gasp tore at his throat and his hands slid off of their perches and onto the bed to push him up, but he closed his fingers on the sheets to keep from moving. "I – said – no." He choked.

**WANT. WANT. WANT.**

He made a sound that was too much like a retch and rolled onto the icy floor, bashing his knees on the stone and catching himself on his palms. Something snapped in him, caused him to heave brokenly on the tile, blood seeping through his lips to splat sickly on his fingers. The sound in his head was almost deafening, maddeningly so, his half-blinded gaze blurred with unshed tears of pain. He could no longer voice his protests but he would stop the thing within him from doing what it wanted – even if it meant not sleeping.

Even if it meant feeling nothing but this until dawn.

After a moment he slumped sideways against the floor, breathing hard, and curled the bandaged fingers of his right hands against the icy stones. His head throbbed. The cool floor against the side of his face soothed the ache a little, bringing his eyes closed again despite its hardness and uncleanness. He made to speak against it, but his throat would produce nothing but a whisper.

"I said…no…"

The voice seemed to snarl in the back of his head and down his spine, lacing warm fingers around his shoulders to try and pull him up, force him to do what it wanted. His breathing was ragged, slow, but he did not get up from the floor. Instead he leaned into it, bruising his face.

_This can't keep happening to me. If it does they will discover what I am and kill me. They will never let me see him. If they do not kill me, if they cannot kill me, they will kill him._

**I love him. LOVE. WANT.**  
_Yes._  
_**I love him.**_  
_But…_

A harsh knock on the door almost broke his concentration, which would have sent him running through the wall toward the medical wing, but fear was a knife in his gut twisting his insides into a knot so thick he thought he'd vomit again before he manage to speak to the person knocking, so he stayed as he was, still against the floor.

_They cannot find me like this._

Another knock, this time lighter. "Ty…Tiago?" A girl's voice, a voice he knew, quiet and fearful. Before he knew what was happening he found himself pushed to his hands and knees, wobbly but still there, clinging to the bed post to make rising easier. Hurriedly he ripped the first sheet from the bed and wiped the floor with it before haphazardly shoving it under the bed, which left both halves of him wanting to open the door and speak to the young Chinese girl he knew to be standing outside. It was odd. She had made both sides of him want the same thing and he did not argue with it, so the actions came as clean and naturally as breathing. Only more slowly.

When his hand closed on the knob and he yanked it open, silence greeted him.

Silence and a tall dark figure he had not expected to see behind the girl.

**TRAITOR.**  
_Not yet._

"My, this is a late night surprise," He chimed with a smile, leaning heavily on the doorframe as to not kill her. She took his leaning as an invitation to come in. "But it is perfectly fine, I was not actually sleeping as soundly as one might think in this gloom. A light… hmm… I wonder where the switch is." The dark figure – a man it seemed – brushed past him and flicked the switch as he went, cautiously avoiding being within arm's reach. _I bet he knows._

**Innocence. Both.**  
_I will not kill either of them no matter what you say to me. Forget it._

He eased the door closed and turned to lean against it, the two Exorcists stood in the center of the room, blinking at him, tired. He dared not move.

The silence was so thick he thought he might have lost the ability to hear.

Lenalee proved him wrong. "Ty…Tyki—"

"Ty-chan, if you wish to utilize some name you have known me by."

"This is…Crowley. Aleistar Crowley." She motioned to the man beside her with a hand that shook as she moved it. He could see that she was terrified. "And… I guess you know who…" She trailed off, unable to introduce him properly, unable to continue. She swallowed hard and the newcomer placed his hand soothingly on her shoulder.

He narrowed his eyes beneath his forelock of despondent white hair and spoke around his fangs, voice low and foreboding. "I am unpleased to make your acquaintance."

Tyki snorted at him and spoke despite the urge to reach over and simply jerk out the man's left lung. "Likewise. I assume that you are going to stand there, stationary, in the center of my room, and threaten my life with those _lovely_ teeth of yours, hm? Please do not bother; I receive enough death threats from my consciousness these days to make up for your silence. Furthermore, I must thank you for coming to visit so late; otherwise I might have done something incomprehensibly stupid and ill-mannered, like wander through a wall." He smiled sweetly at the vampire-like creature before him and swept his hand to the side, offering the chairs by the empty dresser.

"Ty…chan." Lenalee said softly, patting the hand that still rested on her shoulder. "Have you… Nii-san won't tell me what happened." She said hurriedly. "And, as strange as it is, I was worried about…things... Please – if you can – tell us what happened?"

**Traitor.**  
_No._

He bit his bottom lip at the coiling in his back before sighing. With a slowness that made Lenalee's already fallen face fall further he sank against the door, slumping into the floor like a broken toy cast aside by an indifferent child. He let his head tilt against the heavy wood and heard a short intake of breath when his hair parted over the scars, exposing them in the dim lamplight. Not that it mattered. They both knew what he was. There was no reason for him to hide his birthright.

"He was beaten half to death by my… relation the first eight or so hours he was there. I did what I could to save him. Cole did, also, until someone destroyed him." When he looked up at the two of them he could tell by the way they stared that his eyes had gone gold again, catlike, strange. Even so he still had his mind. "He recovered rather quickly from that – it was a pleasant surprise – but what came after was worse. When I found them I thought they were done, simply replacing what they had moved before the two left him there to bleed to death, or finished what Skin had started. Heh. How smart was I, to leave him there while I _pretended_ to hunt Exorcists? I should have stayed in the room with him. It would have saved us both the trouble."

Lenalee shifted enough to sink into the seat he had first offered, Crowley stayed standing.

"So I attacked them. I attacked my kin with everything I could without forgetting who I was. I destroyed the room but I did not kill them. I tried. I would have. But Lavi was too far gone for me to take the time. That was when he broke his leg— " Another gasp, which he ignored.— "And refused to let me knock him out to escape the pain. Idiot.

"So I cared him to Durnshire. And…" He trailed off, yet unwilling to recall that first moment when the voice had been so demanding it hurt to think anything that was against its will. He closed his eyes at the memory, wishing he did not have to think about it. "I…looked for Cole, but…"

Lenalee's hands closed on the armrests of her chair, knuckles white. The room was exactly the same as all the rooms started out, stone floor, plane bed, two chairs, desk, dresser, and it would be all too easy for her to throw herself down with the Noah and try to comfort him. But what reason did have not to? Just knowing what he was made her offense equivalent to heresy. "But what?" She whispered and pushed herself out of the chair. Crowley reached out to stop her for a moment but she shrugged him off and continued on until she was standing in front of the Portuguese man, looking down with her tired lavender-gray eyes. "What happened?" Her voice was not demanding, it was understanding and worried, gentle. None of it was remotely fraudulent.

Tyki watched her kneel down on the stone floor and reach out to him uncertainly, as if she was still afraid of him. He sighed at her and smiled, shaking his head half in amusement. "I will not kill you so stop looking apprehensive, it makes the gesture pointless."

She sighed and completed the action, hugging him gently against the door even when his right hand came up and patted her on the back, soothing. It was strange to him to be touched so closely by someone he still half wanted to destroy, but it made the words easier all the same. She had a heart. He could feel it beating in her chest against his, calmly, and the warmth of her arms mad his head want nothing more than to rest on her shoulder and wait. He let it. She didn't move. She curled her arms more tightly.

His thoughts, the ones that he was afraid to say, came pouring out of his mouth at her tenderness. "Earl-sa… the Earl gave me a parting gift. I almost killed Lavi. I almost killed everyone. Even though I did not want to. By _I,_ I mean Tyki Mikk did not want to, Noah's Pleasures still did. Together those two ideas _are me_, but at the same time I am always more one than the other, but for when I am with him. He stopped me. I would have lost my mind if not for him."

"Ty-chan you aren't making sense." She said softly, pulling back enough to rub the sides of his arms and look him in the face at once. He let his hands curl around his stomach like a shield. "Who makes you, you? Who stopped you?"

"_Lavi."_ He said the name the same as the voice in his head did and he could see by the look on her face that that made his tone at least half-different. _"He makes me whole. I love Lavi."_ Her eyes grew wider and her hands slowed down, fear slowly clouded her features but he continued anyway – if she wanted to know he would tell her what had happened. _"I will not kill for him. I want to kill. I want to hurt. I want to feel. I will not hurt for him. I will wait for him."_

"Wa-wait for him?"

"_When he is better, I will hold him again."_

Her fingers slid off of his shirt as she leaned away, horror bled over her face and she stood, stepping backward as fast as her frightened feet would move her. He lost sight of her eyes behind her bangs yet he knew what he would have seen in them – utter terror. What it was she saw as she backed away, hands falling to her too-short skirt to wring it between her fingers, he did not know but he could guess. He knew her fears were unfounded. So long as Lavi's promise bound him he would not harm her even if the voice decided to break its vow, even if her reaction to him made him want to take it back and make her stop staring.

"Ty-chan… your eyes, why are they…"

"Black?" He barked a laugh at the way the taller man pushed her back farther away. Like that would matter if he _did_ snap. "You cannot expect me to speak of my dark half without summoning it at least a little, can you Lenita? I do hate gossips, after all, so it would be better that I hear myself talk about me than I not. The coloration of my features might change because of it but I am just as bloodthirsty now as I was with your heart pressed against mine – the promise still holds me even when I cannot make myself think beyond it. Do not look so frightened, either of you, killing you would be the same as killing myself would it not?" When neither of them answered he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, all seven scars naked for them to see. "These eyes are the prices I suppose – they come with the voice in my mind that demands such things as death to you both. Traitor, it calls you Lenita, for telling this wonderful blood sucking friend of yours.

"But my sanity remains regardless. The Earl meant to gift me with its loss, you understand. While that is the case I do not intend to listen to it anymore than I have to," He punctuated this by grinding the back of his head against the door to distract himself from the subtle shaking of his hands and the roar in the back of his head, demanding that he say no more. One of the coils around his spine tightened but he ignored it; speaking was more important that what was happening there. "Which has proved harder than I anticipated." He felt something catch and he hissed, a little cough carried with it a splatter of blood that stayed mostly behind his teeth but gave them enough to see that something was terribly wrong. He watched them both stare on in blatant fear.

_Shit._  
**Well that was excellent timing on my part.**

"Ty-chan?!" Lenalee tried to push the other man out of the way but Tyki held up his hand to stop her, the one that wasn't trying to hide the gore he had produced. She stopped short, watching him quiver on the floor, keeping her away. It hurt to think that at another point in her life she might have killed him while he seemed weak, not acted concerned for his wellbeing.

"_Don't!"_ He rasped before clearing his throat. "It's fine. Even if it kills me I won't do what it wants mindlessly."

"You can't _die_ Ty-chan, Lavi will—"

"_You_ know what Lavi will do? Have you seen him? Do you know what I walked in on?" He laughed at her, but it wasn't his laugh, it was something low and slow sounding, the laugh of an evil man. He had changed again without realizing it. "It will not matter what he attempts to do at my passing anymore than it matters how hard I try not to let it happen; we are both powerless against such things. When presented with the other options I have, death might indeed come welcomed."

He heard her scoff at him and turned his face up in time to see Crowley hit the nearest chair with enough force to leave bruises. He blinked up at the outraged expression on her face in confusion until a fist connected heavily with the side of his head, turning it hard against the door.

"You're an idiot!" She shrieked, not caring that someone might hear her. Crowley was floundering to stop the words tumbling out of her mouth. "You're more than that! You're completely off your rocker if you think dying _is_ an option! Will it even kill you? Or will you just lose your mind and kill us all? Won't that happen before it _let's_ you die?"

He curled in on himself, pain shooting from the base of his spine to the back of his head – and it wasn't his most likely blackened eye that caused it. She had made them both angry. _"I will not kill anyone. Even if I lose half of myself, I will not kill. I want to kill. I want. I want. I will not. I want…"_ He clapped his hands over his mouth and straightened himself as much as he could, swallowing the urge to hurt her. When he spoke again it was through the tumult of an angered, strident voice echoing through his mind. "Please, Lenita, stop talking. I would like to hold what illusions I have of escape, thank you very much. And please, do not talk about killing, you have no idea how long it has been since I ended a life, or how much I want to again. The two of you so close I…might do something stupid."

"Then what will you do? If you don't kill people and you don't hurt people what's left? What _can_ you do besides lose your mind?"

"Wait." He said at once. "I will be fine when Lavi wakes."

"How will that make you fine?"

"He makes me whole. He makes the two sides of me cooperate. If he asks me not to kill or hurt, I will not. If he asks me to tell him everything I know, I will. The only think that does not change with him is the _want_. I still want something, I want _him._" Saying the words changed the tone of the shouting and eventually brought it down to nothing but a distant whisper. A warm whisper. It ached to see the boy, the same as Tyki did. "I want… to be with him… regardless of everything else. Because…"

"You love him." Lenalee interjected softly.

He nodded.

Crowley spoke for the first the first time since his first rude remark, his expression completely different. He seemed almost empathetic with the man sitting on the floor before him. "If that is true, if you are indeed no longer willing to work with the Noah, what will you do instead? Why don't you tell Komui?"

Tyki snorted. "I will find someway to spend my time, I am sure. And I will not tell the Supervisor until I have this _thing_ completely under control – and even then I hope to tell him after I tell Lavi that I intend to. He might want to light the funeral pyre." And that made him smile like he had cracked a joke worth laughing at but the other two did not accommodate him, instead they looked at him with pained expressions, biting their lips as if to keep from crying. They were pale and tired, perhaps more so than he was; he knew he shouldn't keep them awake any longer than he had.

"They won't kill you, Ty-chan." Lenalee said before he could speak. "I don't think Nii-san will let them."

"You can _not_ think all you like Lenita; you will not change my mind." He sighed, letting his eyes drift closed with the expression. He was tired again. Fighting was such work. "On a lighter, slightly more demanding note, are the two of you tired? This conversation might do better in the morning after I have seen him and you have slept. I would hate to have you fall asleep here and wake you by talking to myself." And this time his smile managed to get a tiny little raise of Lenalee's lips, but he figured the look was more to make him feel better than her actually feeling it. The new light to her features still made his heart sing a little despite the now muttering desire to see his lover again.

_I know,_ He thought purposefully. _I want to also. But I would collapse before I got there at this rate._

**Love. Want. Tell.**

"Tyki?"

He blinked for a moment at the Chinese girl, too distracted by those words to understand that she was calling to him. He felt his expression fall. _Is that all? You – that half of me – wants to tell Lavi that you love him?_

**YES.**

He choked on the laugh that bubbled up out of his throat in an effort to appear sane. _He knows that. He knows I love him with all of me. I told him as much. Just because you have yet to say it yourself does not make it any less true._

**But…WANT.**

_You can wait. He won't hear you anyway._ To his surprise, the voice was quiet. Perfectly quiet – it did not even remind him that the two people in his room had Innocence it wanted to destroy, the only thing it wanted was Lavi and it knew it could not have him at the moment. So it simply stopped. It was the first moment of silence he had had since that they had come to the hospital, when the Earl had tried to waken him fully. "I am sorry." He said to the still frightened girl. "I feel…"

For the second time since his two visitors had wandered into his room Lenalee touched him, this time on the shoulder, soothingly. He looked up at her with his swollen, tired, human eyes and swallowed, the sudden urge to hug her and comfort her back filling him with inexplicable speed, the desire completely his own. She must have seen the look on his face because she sank down beside him again, drawing him close to run her hands up and down his back with a tenderness that made his hands curve around her shoulders, his eyes close gently. Human contact. Even if it wasn't killing, even if it was completely platonic, it still made the wanting easier.

Crowley watched the Chinese girl cradle the enemy softly in her willing arms and run her fingers through his hair as stoically as he could. He didn't know how to take this. He didn't understand. Eliade had always wanted to kill him the same as he had always wanted to drink from her, but not this man, this Noah. He cried silently into the female Exorcist's jacket without seeming remotely tempted to hurt her, indeed when he spoke in understandable sentences the man seemed unwilling to do more than look at them with darkened eyes and seethe. It was half painful to watch, the rest of him did not know how it felt.

Or what to do.

Logic said one thing, emotion another, and the rest simply did not understand. He had an imagination – he knew what Lavi and Tyki could do for each other – but he wasn't willing to use it on the man's heart.

"I'm sorry," He heard Tyki whisper into Lenalee's shoulder. "I did not mean for this to happen. I did not want it. But for now, let us call an end to our evening. He might want to tell you the rest himself." Lenalee nodded and gently patted the top of the Noah's head.

_Please, Eliade… let him be true._

0x0x0x0

It was dark. He liked it dark. In the darkness he could pretend he was somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere soothing. In the dark he could be anywhere he wanted to be. Not here. Never here. He did not want to be here. Here was not good – though it was dark. And the temperature was nice, not too hot or too cold for the blanket. And, for once, nothing hurt. No part of him was irritated or stinging or aching, and that was a very pleasant change from what had become the norm. And – above all – it was dark.

He liked the dark.

For a moment he breathed just a slowly as he had in sleep, listening to the stillness around him. Relative stillness really, being nothing was ever still. There was the shuffling of someone's feet on the floor and the gentle hum of something electronic, a sound like water falling into a puddle, a whistle like breath through teeth. He wasn't alone. He had kind of wanted to be alone.

But he did not like this place.

He wanted to sigh but chose not to – maybe if the person did not know he was aware they would simply leave. That would be nice. He needed time to remember things.

Like what his name was. He remembered _who_ he was, but not what people called him. He remembered faces and things, explosions, laugher, joy, pain – lots of pain and laughter. The two almost seemed to go hand in hand. But there was something other than all of that that he felt he was missing and he would need to wonder at it for a while. That and his name.

Something warm brushed the side of his face and he tried not to tense. He did not know if he _could_ tense but it was better to be safe than sorry. Reactions, he remembered, had been bad.

_Lavi._ He thought triumphantly. _That was it. And… I was on the train…Ty-chan…_

It felt distant, but things came back slowly. Everything but where he was.

He decided that in all likelihood he had been taken to either a better hospital or captured again, because he could not imagine Komui being stupid enough to let a Noah walk in without some kind of proof of his intentions, and even then there was no proof of that much weight in the world. No, he wouldn't be in the Tower. He would be anywhere but the Tower.

Lavi was so busy thinking about it that he was completely caught off guard when a warm something fell across his eyes – both of them. His eyes. He did not want someone touching his eyes. His only thoughts were of escape in that moment, fear, and it made him push himself up, left hand yanking at the blindfold, right covering his right eye socket as quickly as he could manage. He hoped to strike out at the person doing this – again – because he didn't want it. He had never wanted it. He would break before he lived through the same Hell again.

His left hand shot out ruthlessly, clawing at the open air until it found something soft and warm, tearing it instantly. A gasp and a crazed electronic beeping filled his ears, and the drumming of feet, he thought he heard a sound like rushing wind and pulled his left eye open in an attempt to see which way the blow would come from.

But there was no blow. The room was white and dim and spinning in slow, lazy circles around him, growing faster. This wasn't where he thought he had been. And the man on the floor in white wasn't who he thought he was. He knew that face. He would have known it just as well only seeing it once but that didn't matter, he knew it because he had seen that expression only a few times before.

"I don't… I didn't… I don't…" His voice broke off shortly, his chest hurt suddenly like someone had stabbed him and he fell back onto his pillow, gasping. He closed his eyes rather than watch the room swirl around him. "Not my eyes. Anything but…my…" He was wheezing. He could hear it echo in the tiny room.

"Lavi," There was a hand on his forehead, running through the front of his hair. "I'm sorry, Lavi-kun, please calm down. You need to breathe slowly Lavi-ku—" The redhead was too busy struggling to breath to speak so he reached up with his left hand and sank his finger nails into the man's skin, cutting off his voice. After a second the man spoke again in a different tone. "Rest. You should not be awake yet, don't try to push it. I didn't… I didn't know you would… I'm sorry, Lavi-ku—_ah!_ " Lavi yanked his hand back, leaving four long red marks on the man's skin.

"_Kun ja nai_." He croaked. "Not ku…ku…"

"Shh..." The hand was back, softly, and a second took a gentle hold of the blanket against his chest without moving. "I understand. No honorific. Can I look here, Lavi? I need to know if you hurt yourself just now."

"'Mui."

The Chinese man smiled beneath his disheveled veil of bangs. "Yes, it's me. I just want to look." He gave the blanket a slight tug and watched the younger man tense. What had happened to him? The Lavi he knew never would have lashed out at him for touching his eyes or clawed at him for using an honorific. It didn't make any sense at all unless the boy had been tred worse than he had thought, worse than he had hoped. He didn't want to think about what would cause Lavi – the one Exorcist who seemed to have no personal place whatsoever – to be like this. It also did not make sense that he would wake so soon.

"S-sor…" Lavi's right had slid away from his face to plop uselessly on the mattress beside him, his eyes stayed closed. "I didn't…know it…was you…" He paused to breathe a few deep breaths before he opened his left eye just a crack at the older man, studying his worried expression. He felt like an idiot. "G'ahead."

The corner of Komui's mouth lifted in a kind smile and he touched the side of the boy's face again in an attempt to keep him calm. "You don't have to talk, you can just sleep while I do this," As he spoke Komui pulled the sheet back enough to expose Lavi's torso, which he proceeded to look at to assess rather than touch. There were no blood stains that should not have been amidst the thick bandages that covered him, no tears or rips. "But then again talking might distract you. Is there any topic you'd like to cover?"

Lavi nodded, seeming to not care when Komui poked gently at his chest bone and down his ribs, searching for imperfections beneath the gauze. "Ty-chan…where's…"

"Ah. I gave him a room. I'm sure he'll be in first thing tomorrow."

Lavi grinned as widely as he could with the left half of his mouth somewhat constrained with a dressing. That one, it seemed, needed changing. "Everyone…else?"

The scientist harrumphed at him, drew up the sheet; he was satisfied that the wheezing was from left over internal bruising, not new damage. That would be fine in a few days, maybe sooner with how Lavi seemed to be recovering. It was strange, Exorcists usually healed more quickly, survived worse damage, and lived relatively shorter lives than most humans, but he had never seen anything quite like this. "Lenalee and Crowley got back from their mission a few hours ago, late. I was so worried – they only took the wrong train to Durnshire before coming." He laughed lightly at his own stupidity for being so distraught over it. "Kanda, Allen, and Sable are coming back from Japan with the Kanda family. It appears to me that they are in China at the moment." He turned to the wound under the redhead's left eye, fingers slow and steady, and peeled the bandaged from side of his face. He did not let his expression show what he thought of it. "Miranda went to Italy with Bookman – the old man was too restless to stay when you went missing though he never said a word about it – they should be back tomorrow."

"That'll be…fun…" Komui watched Lavi's eye go slowly closed as he readied a new bandage for his cheek. "Panda's gonna _kill_ me…"

"I doubt it. What will he learn if he kills you?"

"Nothin'. But when he finds out…about…how I feel…" There was a tiny blush, just enough for Komui to see it in the darkness, just enough to make him grin. "I dunno what you've done…but you know how ya…are always makin' that face at…Reever?"

Komui gasped as if scandalized. A practiced reaction. Lavi kept talking.

"I make that face at Ty-chan. And he makes it back."

Komui tried not to let his expression of shock be known in his words but the effort was useless. He was so surprised his eyebrows had crawled nearly into his hair to hide under the slight lip of his beret. "But you were always attracted to wo—oops! Pretend I didn't say that. It is none of my business."

"Business? Hey… shouldn't you be doing paperwork?"

"No."

"Uh huh. Liar."

"Stop talking. You should be in a coma for twelve more hours at least. At least _try_ to sleep while I do this."

"Nu uh. I dun wanna dream anymore. I can sit here…quiet…ly, if you want."

Komui sighed and pressed the last of the medical tape along the outside of the apprentice's jaw, avoiding his eye. This was going to be harder than he had hoped. The only thing he could do was drug the boy, even if it seemed wrong, and cross his fingers. The more he thought about it the more logical it seemed because even if he did not want to, Lavi needed to sleep. More than anything he needed not to move anymore.

"'Mui-san…" He dragged out the last consonant, face rolling against his pillow. "How long 'til…vis…"

The man checked the clock on the wall. "Five hours. Would you like me to give you something? Nothing strong, just something to keep you from dreaming?"

The boy shook his head. "I'll… just…" A deep breath lifted his chest before it fell again; it was a travesty of a sigh. "Think. But…" The scientist could see that he was falling asleep already, despite his best efforts to the contrary. "Don't leave…me al…al…"

"I won't. I'll get someone to stay with you so don't worry. You're ok now. You're home."

_Home?_

0x0x0x0

**Sorry. Again, if it's too long, just tell me. It's just hard to get done all of the stuff I want to when I want to stay about the same length every time, you know? Ah well. I guess it happens.**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	75. Peace

**Blargh! I think this is late – I'm not sure – and I'm sorry about that. But! It IS here, so please forgive the relative lateness. Also, I must say thank you everyone who has come this far! 75 chapters! That's crazy!**

**Disclaimer of D'Nile: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… chapter 158 would be OUT damn it!**

**  
WARNINGS: BL, and cursing.**

0x0x0x0

Peace

"Land! O land! I love you, sweet, beautiful, happy land!"

"Sabe, there's a crab climbing on your boot."

"Really?! How cute! If it's small enough I'll keep it!"

0x0x0x0

By the time Allen was done with the dishes and had tracked down that abandoned ladle, Kanda had breathed himself into an inner peace that, though not perfect, was exceedingly comfortable. He could hear the wind as well as feel it, yet he could completely ignore it if he wanted, same with the light on his face, the thrum of feet on stone. If he wanted to he could feel any of them – even the sounds – all he had to do was assign each one to a different place on his body and sense it. The sound of footsteps on the roof tiles behind him were a gentle line of pressure down his spine, and the feeling of arms twining around his shoulders reminded him of a sunset, and a sound like silver.

It felt amazing to control those feelings again.

He breathed in deeply and sighed, fighting down the urge to be irked at the disturbance. He wouldn't be irked with Allen, not when he had been nearly finished anyways. He breathed in one last time and drew himself inward, soothing his senses as he hissed the breath out again even more slowly than he had dragged it in. When his ribcage gave a shudder of protest he moved his head from side to side before he craned his neck back onto his lover's shoulder, a tiny smile creeping across his face.

He didn't feel irked at all.

"Something you need, Moyashi?"

The arms around his shoulders grew tight and the white haired Exorcist cuddled into his neck, sighing. "The boat is here. Timcampy found me in the bathroom. I think he might have gone back to tell the others where we are. Saves us the time." He hummed at little and laid his lips on the skin of Kanda's neck – being it was there, just asking for it. He grinned when his lover shivered. "Time for other things if you want…"

"Che," Kanda unfolded his legs and leaned further into the smaller boy, letting the grin have his face. "Do you really think we have time? If we start that now we may not stop until tomorrow."

"Hormonal, Love?" Allen licked at his collar bone almost indifferently, exceedingly slowly.

The Japanese man's chest rumbled with laughter. "No, but I have a few ideas that might take time to practice…"

"It's my turn anyway, so unless you want them _practiced_ on you. We could just have a quicky." The words made Kanda's face fall and Allen laughed at it, he should have known his lover would be against anything quick besides missions. "But then again we would have to go _buy_…um…stuff. And you said we didn't have the funding to pay for my breakfast, so I guess that's a bad idea."

"And it would take time."

Allen sighed. "Too bad. No quicky." But even as he said it an evil idea crossed his mind, an idea that he had not even contemplated for a long time. It made him smile a little, crookedly, and he brought his mouth back to Kanda's neck, lapping gently at his skin. It was a great idea; he would just have to make Kanda willing.

His lover harrumphed at him. "If we aren't going to be able to do _that_ Moyashi, what are you sucking on my neck for?" He felt the silver haired boy smile against his skin.

"I'm just working my way downward."

Kanda's eyes shot open and a heady blush blossomed across his face. "You're what?"

Allen giggled, running his left hand through the back of his lover's hair to relieve him of its tie. All it took was that to have him sitting up, turning to look at the lusty glaze in Allen's silver eyes. "I'm not done. We don't need anything but ourselves for some things, you know?" And he raised his eyebrows as he said it, leaned forward to catch Kanda's sleeve before he could move any farther. "What? Just because we haven't done it in a while doesn't mean I don't want to anymore. And I _can_ do that before they get here. Trust me."

Kanda shook his sleeve free, a glare covering his blush. "Bed then." He said with finality.

"Fine with me. It isn't like we've done it outside a lot these days…" He was grabbed roughly by the collar and heaved to his feet; he hadn't even seen the older Exorcist move. His mouth fell open and a hungry, open kiss pressed into his lips, he met it as quickly as he was able having not expected it at all, messily. A shocked protest hummed past his lips as his hands caught the fabric of his lover's coat. He didn't get to close his eyes to it, indeed he didn't get to do much more than lean into that inviting warmth and rock on his feet before they were interrupted by a voice too masculine too be Hiroko and too quiet to be Sable's.

"Ew. Ew. If I didn't know how fun kissing is, I would most likely vomit." Allen tensed at the sound of the boy's voice behind them and pushed Kanda away sharply, breaking contact. The hand on his jacket did not let go so he could not turn around to see Hitori – or what sounded like Hitori – at all. He simply watched Kanda look over his head and glare. "What Yuu-nii? It's not like I was going to stay innocent forever."

Allen kept pushing but it didn't matter. Kanda yanked him into a more impassioned, less hurried, less dominated kiss. Without caring if Hito was there being his lover didn't seem to mind, Allen moved his hands to Kanda chest, feeling the bare, sun-warmed skin on his palms. It did not really matter if they other's were back – he still wanted to touch for a while, if not until the next day like the older boy had suggested. To show his willingness he deepened the kiss, an arm curled around his hips to pull him directly again Kanda, the contact was more than welcomed.

"Ok. You can stop now, I'm still somewhat innocent."

They didn't pay attention.

"Seriously. It's not cute anymore. It was cute about two minutes ago."

Still nothing.

"You know what? I'll be down stairs, pouring your lube in the toilet."

Not even a blink.

"'Kaasan kissed Cross."

Allen pulled away from Kanda at the same moment the samurai pushed away from him, their firm hands made them bounce a little and come back to each other, but they still managed to turn so Allen could look at the smaller Japanese boy and frown. They stood with their feet nearly intertwined, faces gray with shock, their arms half between holding and being completely forgotten. It was the reaction Hitori had hoped for. At least now they were standing in the noon sun without touching lips for once.

"Okaasan did what?" They said together. At once Kanda dropped his lover's jacket and reached for Mugen only to find the wooden sheath empty at his side. He cursed colorfully; a malicious glare masked his once flushed features, his hands balled into loose fits at his sides. "Che, where is that fucking manipulative little dick? I'll tear him into ribbons being cutting doesn't look like an option."

"Let's not be too hasty." Allen said quietly, lower in his voice than he normally spoke. Kanda growled at him and wound his fingers around the smaller boy's belt buckle like a vice to yank him closer as if to whisper in his ear. Allen spoke before Kanda had the chance. "I mean, we could kill him more slowly."

"Assist him in seppuku."

"No, there's honor in that."

"Force him to drink himself to death."

"Impossible."

"Pull that little cross he wears all the time until it strangles him."

"Kanda, you have some murderous ideas I simply wouldn't share if they were mine."

"Che, fine. We'll decide after we find him."

Hitori sighed at them and pulled his hair over his left shoulder to hold it away from the wind. He narrowed his gray eyes but kept his voice even, the better to distract the almost-bickering pair from their ramblings. "Look, _she_ kissed _him_. It wasn't rape and it wasn't violation unless she was doing it to him, so stop planning the guy's death. As for _why_ I came up here – Cross is pissed that he had to pay for his own wine when he got off the ship and 'Kaasan's wound is acting up. It seems she shouldn't have been storming around complaining about the family line with a fat hole in her side."

"Che." Kanda rolled his eyes.

"Wound?"

"She was pinned to a wash basin, remember?"

"Oh! Will she be alright?"

Hitori nodded. "Yeah, she just can't wander around the fucking world without anyone helping her." He sighed as his fingers began braiding his hair, almost indifferent to the words coming out of his mouth, ivory hands pulling delicately on ebony strands. "You should come inside. Sable's munching down whatever's left in the kitchen now that she can see again. And she has Mugen."

"What?" Kanda blinked. "How did she get my sword back?"

"And," Allen continued. "What you do mean _see_ again?"

"Well, what happened was…"

0x0x0x0

"How about… _that_ one?"

"Too rotund."

"That one?"

"Too virginal."

"This one?"

"Ooh, you might be on to something there. Do you want to, or should I?" Uri smiled down at the girl on his arm and tilted his head at the young woman building a sand castle with what had to be her younger sibling, both giggling. Neither of them looked Chinese so he figured English would be safe on them. If not, there was always action. Or he could simply rip their language from their minds and learn it himself, that would be nice.

"Well," Rhode said conversationally. "Won't that stupid sister of yours know something is up if you kill someone?"

"Am I supposed to care?" He chuckled, shaking his head. He flung sand with his bare feet as they went, grinning. He was like a little boy playing in a sandbox.

"Ok. You can have them then. I'll go for the couple by the pier." She pulled an extra sucker from her pocket and offered it to him, waving it back and forth almost teasingly. The gesture made the man smile. "Here. I won't need it." He closed his fingers delicately on the gift and she let it go as daintily as he took it, almost as if she weren't sure about what she was doing or she was frightened by it. He flashed her a row of straight white teeth as a wordless thank you, his fingers momentarily brushed her hand as he took the confection from it.

"Yay!" He enthused like a small child, tearing the wrapper with his teeth.

"Uri-nii, sometimes…when you do things like that… I wonder about you."

"Wonder?" He tilted his head and tucked the paper in his pants pocket before he shoved the candy between his lips.

"Mmhmm. Never mind. Have fun!" She yanked his arm down and placed a chased kiss on his cheek, smirking. "If you get done first come join me!"

She skipped away, hands folded behind her back as she went across the warm sand, him watching. _It really is nice,_ He thought with a twirl of his candy – cherry flavored. _To have someone who understands, isn't it Rhode?_

0x0x0x0

His dreams had not been dreams at all. They had been memories again. But this time he knew them for what they were from the start; it had only been toward the end that things became chaotic. After so long it did not feel like a memory any more – not someone else's memory at least – and instead it was something he hadn't been able to recall, something out of place and time.

Yuu. And Allen.

He had seen worry in his best friend's face, fear in his eyes, and he way he tried to hide it. Lavi felt terrible. And there was no way to make it right.

In the waking world, a hand touched his hip through the fabric of the blanket and he jerked at it, flinging his left eye open, hands pressed at once into the mattress in an effort to push him away as quickly as humanly possible. The contact was retracted at once, his whispered negative died on his lips, footfalls marked the person's retreated and helped to remind him of a number of things he had not remembered from the night before. But all the same his breath hissed through his teeth, his heart pumped too quickly in his chest, thumbing as wildly as he had ever felt it.

He had forgotten where he was again.

But now he knew.

His arms shook for a moment until he dropped himself back onto his pillow, head tilted back to gasp in as much air as his unpracticed lungs would allow, ribs protesting. It was different than the night before for a number of reasons, the first of which was that the pain was back, though in most places it seemed like little more than a subtle ache than what it had been before. But his chest felt like someone had cut it open, moved around his insides, and closed him up again – forgetting to put everything back where it was when they started.

"What the fuck – Komu-i-san…" He swallowed hard, still trying to stop the rapid pounding of his heart. "Why don't chya wake me up by…talkin' next time, eh?" He brought his right hand to his forehead and pushed up his bangs away, they were sticking horribly. He'd have to get his headband back sometime.

He sensed a hand on the side of the bed but didn't look – it was Komui, not someone he needed to be afraid of. "I didn't think you'd wake."

"Well, I did."

"I'll say something next time."

"Thank you."

For a moment the two stayed quiet, the awkward silence filling the space between them like a heavy fog, dampening Komui's spirits. He had wanted to check Lavi's leg – and avoid that insane stack of papers on his desk – but it seemed he would have to leave that up to the nurse's hands with how the redhead reacted to his touch. The expression of unfettered terror on the apprentice's face had shocked him more than the anger from the night before; even with the eye patch his expression was perfectly readable, perhaps more so. Mentally, it seemed, Lavi had been hurt enough to think every situation was one that could bring him pain from human contact – what that meant in terms of what had happened the scientist could only guess. He did not want to guess. He also did not want the awkward silence.

"Did…you want to tell someone what happened?" He asked softly, trying not to probe. He watched Lavi slowly look at him without taking his head from the pillow.

"It's not as bad as what you're thinking. I'll recover I just… need to live normally for a little bit. Recondition myself, if you know what I mean. 'Cause I keep thinking… that I'm not here. And I'm not…" He paused enough to breathe a few more times, which was much easier now that he had calmed down a bit. His ribs still did not like, he did not like it, but both would cooperate for the sake of speaking. "Gonna be fine."

Komui sighed at him – a worried sigh, not a defeated sigh – and pulled his hand back from the mattress. "You will be. I'm sure of it."

"Thanks."

"And! Being I woke you, would you like breakfast? Maybe a guest? If I try to keep Lenalee and Tiago in the hall any longer they might fall asleep again. The Head Nurse doesn't really like that." He watched the redhead's face brighten and let himself smile at it, wasn't now as good a time as any to start this _reconditioning_ Lavi claimed he needed? He hoped it was. He wanted the boy normal as soon as possible. He wanted everything normal.

"Sure. How about… fruit. And coffee with cream and sugar. And maybe something sweet."

Komui chuckled. "I guess some things don't change."

"Hm?"

"Never mind." He shrugged it off. "Just how you take your coffee."

"Oh and one more thing. Can you send them in? If they don't mind watching me eat?"

The Chinese man gave a tiny, hurried nod, and turned to the door, walking the gait of a man who had slept maybe an hour in three days. So it was the same as it had been before – the head officer, section chief, and most likely the other heads of department had been sleeping badly while something was wrong, and now Komui was pushing himself the extra mile to avoid paperwork. It was the same as it had always been.

"And go to bed." Lavi threw in when the other man opened the door. He saw Komui shake his head as he tromped into the hall.

He felt a flurry of thankfulness when the man did not completely close the door. He really was _home_…

After a moment he could distinguish voices talking in quiet whispers and something like a gasp, then a low chuckle. He sighed. Komui was the kind of person to warn them about his sudden reactions upon waking, whatever physical weakness he might have, the places to expect bandages – all the things Tyki would not care about at all. All of the things Lavi didn't care about at all. Now, with his eye open, with his breathing steady, he could talk himself into understanding that the people around him were not going to hurt him, waking was different. When waking he didn't know who was doing what or why. A hand on his hip was more than a hand on his hip when he had his eyes closed or covered.

He shivered. Some memories would be better left forgotten.

"Lavi?" Lenalee said his name softly as she poked her head in the door, pigtails waving, eyes somewhat puffy. Her cheeks rose in a strange smile of relief when she saw him sitting against his pillows, smirking, and her feet carried her three steps closer, boots clicking beneath the fabric of her long black skirt. She came to the side of his bed without saying another word and slowly, with shaking fingers, found the back of his hand. "La…" She sniffed in an effort to keep from crying but it was wasted. "Lavi!" Komui's warnings were wasted also when she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a strangling hug. "You have no idea how worried I was! How did… how did you… Damn it! I'm crying again!"

The apprentice Bookman lifted his battered arms and curled them around her back in order to pat her sobs away. "Hey – Lenalee – _gah!_ Other collar bone, that one's sore." He instructed with something like a laugh. It was true too. His left side had caught the falling blade that had almost… "You should squeeze me less; Ty-chan's gonna want something to hug left…oh… the walls are spinning…" He broke of with a grotesque choking sound that resembled a snicker too much to be real. "It's the end… she's killing me…"

"Shut up, you faker."

He snorted. "Sorry."

"Oh!" Lenalee dropped her arms from him and took two steps back, hands questing through pockets Lavi didn't know her dress to have. After a moment she pulled out his hammer and presented it to him, grinning as if proud she had remembered it.

"My Innocence!"

"Ah! You don't get it back yet. I'm going to take it back to Helveska until you're better; I just wanted you to know that it's ok. But you can hold it if you want."

Tyki watched the two interact with a tiny little smile on his face – it was hard not to smile when Lavi grinned from ear to ear at his weapon, fingers clenching the handle and bringing it to the side of his face like a long lost pet. The redhead cooed at the hammer, stroking it, and made a face like a defensive child at Lenalee when she tried to take it back. It was adorable. She would reach and he would lean away, pouting about how long it had been since he had even tried to sync with his hammer – she did not want to listen. She wanted him to get better before he even thought about trying to use it. Like an older sister looking out for her sibling.

Not that that was backward.

When Lavi raised the weapon over his head and grew the top of it to three times the size of a watermelon, Tyki couldn't hold it in anymore. He burst out in quiet, building laughter, attempting to stifle it with his hands over his mouth. After a moment Lavi widened his eye at the Chinese girl and made to fake a swing at her – then Tyki's hands could no longer stop the torrent. He guffawed at them loudly enough to distract the boy from his pastime; Lenalee snatched the oversized mallet and nearly fell at the weight of it until it shrank down in her hands to a more fitting size. Tyki still snickered. It had been too much – too cute – he would never be able to dispel the image Lavi mock-attacking the girl climbing unceremoniously into his hospital bed from his mind. It was too much like watching a family. And the huge hammer head on that tiny, pathetic little handle…

It felt too much like _home_.

"Sorry, sorry," He waved at them, swallowing his giggles. "Ignore me. I am simply enjoying the show." He leaned more surely on the wall, even though Lavi was looking at him.

**Want.**  
_Shush._

"Ty-chan," Lavi blinked. Had the apprentice Bookman somehow missed the fact that he was there? Or did he simply not laugh enough for the sound to be familiar? Whatever the case was a hand drifted out toward the edge of the bed, his brow furrowed as if he wanted to ask some burning question but dared not speak it, his lower lip seemed to twitch between a smile and a frown. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came; instead he managed to look half-desperate.

Tyki pushed himself from the wall and slowly crossed the space between them, stopping just out of arms' reach.

**WANT.**  
_Please, I need to do this._  
**I WANT NOW.**

Lavi's lips parted, a single word falling plaintively from his lips. "Wa…nt…"

The word made the Noah lurch forward, hands at once pressed to the smaller man's face and neck, pulling him closer, yet not close enough. He felt hands slide up his arms before jumping to his ribcage, curling in his shirt, shaking. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to feel him. He wanted so much more. But he would not take it, even with the redhead tilting his face enough to breathe warm air across his neck.

**WANTWANT.**  
_Stop, I'm doing what you asked. Talk to him._

There was silence.

"_I…_" His voice sounded odd to him, odd to Lavi, perhaps most strange to Lenalee who took a step back in fright. Tyki felt the change in his skin, the flare of gold in his eyes, and smiled when the boy in his arms did not seem to care. Lavi accepted this part of him, he knew, and his heart sang because of it. _"I love…you… with this… part of me…"_ He swallowed hard, holding back the desire to lean in closer. _"I wanted… to tell you that. From me. I love you."_ He gave up holding back and captured the boy's lips with his own; he did not resist when he felt himself pulled closer, the same hunger his lover had shone on the train coming back again. Lavi wanted him. As much as he wanted Lavi, he was wanted back.

Before he knew what was happening a hand had slipped around the back of his neck and pulled him downward, forcing him to lean on the edge of the bed. Lenalee made a short gasping sound that helped him to pull himself away, even if it almost hurt.

"Sorry," He gasped in her direction. His hands stayed as they were on Lavi's skin. "I could not stop myself."

"It's – it's fine." She managed. "I'll just… take this back to Helveska."

Lavi nodded before tugging Tyki down again to kiss him, allowing the hand Lenalee couldn't see in her retreat to drift under his lover's shirt. He spoke in a low whisper between bits of contact, too quiet for the disappearing girl to hear. "I love you too. Every part. Even if the thought scares me." His left hand – the one exploring the inside of Tyki's shirt – wound up around his lover's hips and yanked him haphazardly onto the mattress with one leg, the other still firmly planted on the floor. "And because of that… I'd really, really, really like you to screw me into this mattress like there's no tomorrow."

Tyki gasped at the words but kept his foot on the tile, resisting the boy's pull. He hated himself for not moving but it was the safest action he could think of. "Lavi…you almost died. You cannot seriously expect me to—" The hand that had gone under his shirt came out again, began picking at his buttons, and an open mouth danced teasingly down the side of his throat, choking off his words and breaking his concentration. It was almost more than he could stand. "Think of your health dear."

"Think of my morale."

"Lavi you should stop…"

"All this telling me you love me and necking on the train and saving my life and I can't even _get one bout in the sack?_ What do you want? Me walking again?" Lavi nipped lightly at his lover's Adam's apple and smiled when Tyki closed his eyes to the sensation, fighting a moan. This was going better than he thought it would. "Because that could take _months._"

"Months?" The word sounded horrified. Tyki did not think he could wait _months_ for this. Not with that voice raging in the back of his head even now.

Lavi hummed an affirmative. "Which is a long ass time if you ask me. I would much rather do this _right_ now, before anyone else comes in to see me."

Tyki hissed suddenly, his right hand following the curve of Lavi's shoulder to his forearm and pushing him back against the pillows. A moment later he was straddling the apprentice gingerly against the bed, smiling crookedly at the expression of sheer unadulterated glee on his lover's face. He kissed twice more, pinning the boy's hands by his face as he spoke. "Do you remember when I said we would do this again?"

Lavi did not even think about it. "You said when I'm well. I deem myself well."

Tyki sighed, rested his weight at little more surely against Lavi's hips. He could see that caused at least a little discomfort. "I do not. Just leaning on you makes you wince. Do you have any idea how much I _want_ you? Too much to be as gentle as you would need me to be at the moment, I can tell you that. No, you are not well. And as such I refuse to 'screw you into this mattress like there is no tomorrow', as you put it." Lavi made a sound protest but he tilted down and muffled it with his mouth, sliding his tongue teasingly against his lover's. He had not been lying. He really did want him more than anything in the world at that moment.

Lavi cursed colorfully when Tyki pulled away, a smug smile on his face, eyes and face perfectly normal. What would it take – short of walking – to be well in his eyes? "Fine. When will you do me?" He held on to the man's open shirt sleeves so he couldn't roll away without making the fabric impervious to his hands, which he did not see happening with his eyes that soft yellow-brown and smiling.

"Well… all cuts, bruises, liters of blood, broken bones, and emotional scars accounted for…" He let go of Lavi's left had in favor of placing his palm on the side of his face, on top of the bandage that covered his cheek. "When this comes off – and the large one on your chest – I will think about it. By then I think you will be comfortable enough not to feel any pain I do not want you to feel."

Lavi seemed to contemplate that for a time before he grinned. "Alright. I think I can handle that long. Do you think… we can do other stuff until then?"

The Noah raised his eyebrows, leaning close enough for Lavi to feel perfectly incapable of moving beneath him. He liked that feeling; it made him feel safe. "Like what?" The words were a warm whisper on his skin.

"Make up for lost time?"

"My _God!_" A voice said from the door. They both turned in time to see a tray of fruit and coffee and doughnuts go crashing against the white tile floor. Komui stood there, twitching for a moment, pink beneath his beret, before he fell backward, eyes rolling into the back of his skull. Lavi and Tyki blinked for a moment, not quite understanding what had happened to the poor scientist.

Lenalee craned her head in and smiled. "I warned him. He didn't believe me. I think… you might want to get off of Lavi before he wakes up."

The redhead sighed, his hands curling into fists on his pillow. "Great." He mumbled. "I'm never gonna hear the end of this one."

0x0x0x0

The kitchen made him feel remotely sick.

He had known from his short time as a dishwasher that the kitchen was large and square with burnt orange tiles and dirty yellow grout. He also knew that no single part of it was supposed to be as red as the handprint by the light switch or the drips across the floor, or as silent as the air around the sink. It was a kitchen, silence was a rat killed with chopping knives and broken teacups; it felt as out of place as the source of the stillness looked.

"You'll be ok," Hitori whispered to the girl who leaned crookedly against the last silver counter. "Just listen to me and try not to think about it."

He had his arms around her shoulders so that she reclined sideways into his chest, the scars on the right of her forehead bleeding freely into his black shirt collar. She had never been so pale before or looked so weak. Her hands clutched at Hitori's clothing and her eyes seemed to focus on something that was not there, something Allen could only guess at, until her irises flashed suddenly gold and she pulled the Japanese boy closer – he did not need to guess, he knew.

"Uri?"

She nodded. "He's close."

"How close?"

She shrugged without looking up, smearing blood on her jacket. "Maybe a mile."

That hit Allen like a swift punch in the gut. A mile? A Noah was within a mile of them? Why? He had thought that they were going to be safe for once but that wasn't the thought that scared him. The thought that frightened him was what Uri wanted. Kanda. He had always been interested in Kanda. When the level tree had plucked Kanda from the ship he should have known it was Uri – should have know he would be close – but at the same time…

_I don't know what we should do._

"He's not looking for us." She said quietly. "He's too busy enjoying himself."

Hitori smeared Sable's blood slicked bangs away from her forehead and tucked her face under his chin, allowing him to make his arms into something of a protective shield. When he spoke it was to both of them even if it was hardly more than a whisper. "What should we do then? Stop him?"

She shook her head. "We can't, not right now. Uri has never been like this – even when he killed for pleasure before he never laughed when he did it, he never cackled, he never did it like this. He always had a purpose before. This I think… I think he's _bored_. As horrible as it is, I think that finding him tonight would be what he wants and he'd kill whoever finds him without even a moment's thought." She shivered, closing her eyes to another wave of gold. "Why does he kill so many girls? There are men out there too, idiot."

"Sable," Allen crouched on the floor beside her, reaching for her shoulder. "Can you tell us where he is?"

"No. But if I get something, I will. Then maybe, even if it feels like a bad idea, we can stop him."

He nodded and turned to Hitori with a thoughtful frown. "Can you take her up to a room and stay with her? I can get Kanda and General Cross to help me keep a watch on the inn so you won't have to worry about that."

"So you aren't going to go after him?" Hitori questioned. The more Allen looked at him the more terrified the boy seemed to look.

"Not today. We'll need everyone to do that and Cross is too busy with Okaasan to listen. Maybe tomorrow if Uri stops killing people long enough for Sable to tell us where he is exactly."

"Douche bag."

"Stop cursing," Sable mumbled into Hitori's chest. "Help me up Hon, Cancer is going to want fed anyways. Might as well do that to get my mind off… what he's doing." She managed a weak smile and the two rose together, dripping gore as they went and swaying slowly with disorientation. Allen had never seen her this bad before. "Thanks for not hunting him down Allen-chan, I think I'd like to be at least half-functional before we do that."

They walked slowly out of the kitchen, passing Kanda on the way.

The older Kanda brother seemed completely disinterested in whatever was wrong with the Caucasian girl, but that wasn't the case. He was more worried about other things – like how Allen stayed crouched on the orange tiles without focusing his eyes on anything but whatever was going on in his mind, or how it still panged his heart a little to think about Lavi. Even after all that time on the roof he still could not control himself entirely. Something felt wrong and until he figured out what it was he was afraid that that would have to be the case: only half control. He would have to settle for looking disinterested instead of outright disdainful and needy instead of wanton; there was nothing he could do about it for the moment.

He hated not having control. It put him on edge. It made everything seem somehow unpleasant.

"Hey Kanda," Allen's voice brought him out of the daze he had unwittingly allowed his mind to wander into and snapped his eyes to the boy's face. "Are you ok? You look kind of… blah."

"Che. Couldn't think of a more descriptive word?"

Allen shrugged as he stood and crossed the space between them as unhurriedly as he could manage. "Ok… You look like you haven't slept in a few days. Just looking at you makes me feel sleepy. Is that better?" By the time he finished he was standing in front of the older Exorcist, looking up at him a little, almost shyly blinking at his steady gaze. With a swift glance at the room behind him the British boy ensured that the lunch rush was over and the two old women in the corner were not paying attention, and then placed his hands around his lover's waist so he could ease them into a loose embrace. "If something's wrong you should talk about it. And if you're not feeling well you should lay down, alright Love?"

After a moment of hesitation the samurai enfolded the smaller man with his arms, leaning his head on his pillow of silver hair. "Che. It's nothing Moyashi. I just can't seem to concentrate."

"Didn't you meditate this morning?" Allen asked his chest.

"It isn't like that. I was trying to read."

"Trying? You mean you can't?"

"Moyashi…"

"Kun…"

Kanda sighed and leaned more of his weight on his lover, closing his eyes with the exhalation. After a moment he buried his face in the side of Allen's neck, realization washing over him in a slow wave of fear and relief. He had not let himself feel this all day – to the point when he no longer knew what he was _not_ feeling – and now that he knew he had no choice but to let himself experience it all at once. While on the phone with Komui he had not let the man hear him enjoy the news of his best friend's recovery, and even afterward he had shared the news with even less enthusiasm than he had received it. In the end, he had been lying to himself.

"Kanda?"

"Give me a moment."

"Is something wrong?" Allen didn't understand. From his perspective he could not tell if the Japanese Exorcist was dizzy or sick or emotionally distraught – all he could tell was that the arms around him grew suddenly tighter at the words and the face in his neck nuzzled closer, so he returned the touch as strongly as he could without bruising anything. It seemed right, what with being held like a life raft in a squall.

They stood that way for a long moment until Kanda collected himself. His voice was much quieter than it usually was when he whispered, Allen had to strain to hear him correctly. "I just need you for a minute." He rocked a little on his feet, just enough to bring his chest momentarily into contact with Allen's. "Or five."

"Love?"

Kanda did not answer nor did he move. Instead he leaned more surely, his neck completely relaxed against Allen's shoulder. "Please."

The younger Exorcist pulled his lover flush against him; even if Allen did not completely understand the situation he still figured that it was the best course of action – all things considered. He had never thought Kanda would do this – ever – but that did not stop him from comforting the man as well as he could. With as much tenderness as he could will himself to use he ran his right hand through the length of Kanda's hair, just the part that hung down his back, and paused to smooth the fabric of his coat against his skin in deliberate circles.

A woman came around the corner with a pile dishes and turned away when she saw them, eyes wide. Allen ignored her intrusion.

"Do you want to talk about it, Love? Whatever it is?"

He was surprised to feel the man nod into him, if only so slightly. "I _do not_ care about that stupid rabbit brat." He growled as if annoyed. "So why can't I stop wondering why my jacket still smells like him?" He weakly tugged on Allen's shirt in an effort to hide his unease. "And why can't I stop worrying about _you?_"

"Me? What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I just said."

"So…that thing last night when you started to smell like him… if something happened to me that would happen?" He felt Kanda shiver before he continued. "And now you're worried that I might go do something stupid like – oh, I don't know – _die_…" He sighed, trying not to smile despite it all. "Kanda," The name was a plea. "Do you have any plans right now?"

He frowned into Allen's shoulder. "No… we're staying here until tomorrow at least – or so says Cross. Why?" The hand that had been painting circles on his spine slipped sideways around his ribcage until it found his still loose buttons. He pushed back just a little when he felt fingers toying with them half absently, twirling playfully back and forth across the silver surface until he looked at his lover's face and smirked.

"Well…"

"Che. You will use any excuse you can to get me into bed, won't you?"

"No… but I think you could use some horizontal touching time. Even if I'm not molesting you I can still try and make you worry less. Remember when I had that _bug_ in my arm? Well, this can be kind of like me returning the favor. Without cat ears. And if you want to remain celibate for the evening…" He trailed off at the soft lift of his lover's lips and grinned. "We'll both fail so miserably we might as well not even try."

Allen watched Kanda's face brighten, if only a little, and pushed himself up to steal a kiss before that girl with the dishes came back again. He smiled gently at the slow parting of his lover's lips, the low hum that showed his appreciation. With his eyes closed it did not matter that the two of them were standing in an inn in front of the kitchen any more than it mattered what color shirt he was wearing – an encouraging palm still slid to the back of his neck to cup the base of his skull. He wound his arms around Kanda's back, allowing himself to simply melt against the taller man and break for air only to come back again without being prompted. He panted softly against Kanda's jaw for a moment before he returned to what he had been doing, right hand cupping his lover's hip.

That made Kanda growl in approval.

"Oh look, our pansies have decided to consecrate someone _else's_ kitchen being they didn't get to fuck in mine."

"The useless disciple has found a purpose for his lips – silencing that stupid, pretty bitch you call a son."

"Aren't you proud?"

"Proud we're not related."

Allen silently pulled back from his lover and smiled sweetly, quelling the violent fire in Kanda's eyes before it could burn away the moment. His hands drifted to the older boy's and he squeezed softly, his voice low. "Come on Love, let's pretend we don't want to kill Master of a couple hours and get you and I… satisfied, hm?"

"Che." Kanda ignored the two behind them and squeezed back, lowering his face to take another unhurried kiss from the boy before he spoke. "Alright, Moyash-kun. To the _boat_."

0x0x0x0

**Yay! The next chapter shall be very plotty indeed, even if it looks citrusy also! Don't murder me because of what I happens… please…**

**And! For those of you who maybe don't get the **_**boat**_** thing, it's because of Allen's Freudian slip last time. Kanda's teasing, how nice.**

**Thank you everyone who's stuck with this for this long! I'll try and put up a cute omake next time, I promise. 8D**


	76. Useless

**Soo… the plans for this chapter have been half pushed into the next chapter. Sorry. Also, I am a LAMEASS action writer. I need someone to tell me how to write action… gah…**

**Disclaimer of D'Bean Sprout: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Sheryl Kamelot wouldn't be so blatantly gay.**

**WARNINGS: Near lemon. Men loving fellow men. Violence. Mild cursing.**

0x0x0x0

Useless

The room they could afford was small with only one bed, but they wouldn't have used a second one so they were fine with it. The topmost blanket was a pale blue and composed of simple cotton, the sheets white beneath it, both crisp with care. Kanda found himself strewn sideways across that blue covered mattress, Allen looking down at him with a lopsided smile on his face, hands to either side of his head. It seemed the British boy had forgotten what he had said about repaying him with something _besides_ direct, exhaustive touching, but Kanda found that he didn't specifically mind his lapse in memory at the moment.

He did mind – or he would at least pretend to mind – the words his lover had just said to him in a perfectly serious voice.

"_Kanda, you really are beautiful."_

He sighed with a glare, trying more than anything to feel a twinge of anger at those words. Annoyance. Anything but the urge to blush.

He failed.

"Moyashi—" He stopped when the white haired Exorcist leaned down a little, just so he could feel breath on his face. He expected a kiss but none came. "Explain to me how pinning me on a bed and calling me _beautiful_ makes me feel better."

Allen kept smiling. "Compliments always make people feel better."

"Che."

"But if that doesn't work we can try something else. It doesn't matter to me so long as you stop feeling so bad. I mean, I have my preference on activities, but still I won't rip off your clothes unless you want me to. And I _am_ a little sore…" He trailed off and slowly let himself fall across his lover's chest so his head rested in the crook of Kanda's neck, his arms moved down to accommodate him. "And me talking isn't helping you stop glaring. I swear you do it on purpose…"

The warmth of Allen on top of him made Kanda instinctively wrap one arm up on the boy's back, the other flung out indifferently beside him. His eyes stayed focused on the cracked paint of the ceiling, otherwise he would have frowned at Allen and he knew his lover didn't need a frown on top of the glare. Especially when he was trying to be nice. "Che. Just do what you want." He groaned and closed his eyes before throwing his free arm over his face to block out the light.

"Kanda, no, that's not how this works." Allen sighed at him but started running his fingers gently across the skin of his lover's chest, just lightly enough for there to be contact between them. "You can't just pout and hope things get better."

"Che."

"Kanda, really, this isn't what you should be doing."

"And what _should_ I be doing? You?"

Allen was silent for a moment and his hand snapped back, his voice became suddenly cold. "If you don't want me, fine. _I_ am going to get off of you and go take a bath; _you_ sit here and think about what will make you feel better all by yourself. And I want a real answer when I get back, not some moan of indifference." The boy pushed himself up and rolled away, his still booted feet clomping harshly on the wooden floor. Kanda hardly caught the fabric of Allen's sleeve with the hand that had been resting on his back, stopping the British Exorcist.

Allen stood with his right hand hanging by the fabric of his coat, face turned away, waiting for his lover to speak.

"Allen…that's not what I meant… you _know_ that's not what I meant." He tugged lightly but the boy didn't move, so he waited for Allen to speak.

He sighed. "You're always so worried about me getting hurt or me dying or me finding whatever you do being uncomfortable," His voice was soft; Kanda could hardly hear him speak because he was faced away. "But you won't even tell me what's _really_ going on. You just assume that I _know_ why you started smelling like Lavi. You pout like you're the _only_ one he's friends with. I just… you're so…" He shook his head and tried to step away again but the hand on his coat stopped him. "Let go of me."

Kanda felt himself blanch as is fingers slipped away from Allen's coat and his lover stepped toward the bathroom – Kanda immediately threw himself forward, catching the smaller boy's wrist as he moved to stand. He heard a short gasp but ignored it, choosing instead to place his chin on the top of Allen head (he had to tilt his head up to do it properly) and pull their hips in line with his free arm. Softly he hugged them close, feeling that the muscles against his chest were rigid.

"I'm not used to this," He ventured, staring at the wall opposite them. "I'm not used to… feeling like this. You I understand, I love you, I am _supposed_ to worry over you, and I am supposed to care. But I never thought my seal would tell me when Lavi died and the idea… frightens me. It _did_ tell me. It told me and I… felt… I shouldn't have but I…" His voice stopped working for him and the arm he had hooked around Allen's waist loosened until it hung only by the curve of his fingers and the hunch of his back, barely touching. "I don't even know what I felt."

Allen turned in his hands until he was looking up at the Japanese boy's strange expression, confusion the most evident undertone in his frown. He fought down his annoyance and took a half step back, just enough took see the man more clearly. "There's no such thing as people you are _supposed_ to worry over, but if there was, _best friends_ would make the list. You're human Kanda; you can't expect to not be scared or hurt when something like that happens. Even if you aren't used to it, you're still going to feel something. I guess it's kind of like sword fighting. When someone teaches you how to block a slice from the left you do same thing when they do it from the right – because that's how you reacted before." He bit his lip at his lover, trying to make the explanation more clear. "But… you don't remember what you did when you worried before do you?"

"What?"

"I'm saying that because this has never happened you don't know how to react."

"Che." Kanda shook his head. "I slept next to you. And I watched you. I can't do that with him. And I can't do _anything_ when I'm thinking this much." His hand, which he had not taken from Allen's wrist, served as a tether when he sank back on the bed, dropping his head against his chest. "I'm sorry."

"Love, don't—" His lover jerked him forward and kissed him softly on the lips, shortly, clenched the material of his jacket against his spine. Allen was entirely too surprised when he found himself pulled forward, Kanda lying back and guiding him with another kiss, this one less shallow. He blinked in confusion for a moment at the hand sliding through his clothes to his skin, dancing warmly to hold him up and force his knee onto the mattress. "Kanda… what are you—" A heavy gasp seared through his throat at the press of lips to his neck. "You don't have to…"

"Che, _baka Moyashi-kun_, you don't get it." His right hand slid Allen's jacket all the way open while his left pulled at it to get it off. "But you don't have to. Just… thank you and I am sorry." And even though the words were completely uncharacteristic of him, the glare with which he said them was the same as it had always been.

"Let's take a bath, Love." Allen whispered with a gentle caress of his fingers across his lover's chest. He could see Kanda's reaction to it in how he struggled to keep his breathing perfectly steady and his hands clasped where he had left them. "And then I can show you what I wanted to do earlier, if you really want that. But you don't have to, Love. I didn't mean to get angry with you when… you don't know what to do…"

Even as he said the words Allen's other leg joined them on the bed. His coat went sliding to the floor.

"Bath?" Kanda's voice was a low sigh on his lips. "I don't think we'll make it at this rate."

"Then… afterward?" There was a half frown in the words that brought Kanda's hand to his cheek.

"I get the wall side."

0x0x0

Around lunch Tyki fell asleep with his head and arms on the bed much the way he had back at the mansion, only he held Lavi's hand in his this time. Bookman found them both sleeping soundly when he came in, feeling travel worn and older than dirt until he saw the hollow under his apprentice's left eye, the bandages the covered his cheek and forehead, wrists, collar bone, and shoulders. He did not want to think about what the boy had gone through – what he would have to relive – but that did not stop him from doing it. Nothing would stop him from doing it.

As he watched the redhead's emerald eye blinked open a crack but it did not draw anything into focus. Instead his gaze stayed perfectly straight, as if unable to see at all. When he spoke his voice was distant, starting too soft to be normal, too scared. "Ty-chan… I don't… I don't… don't let them... I…" By the time he had said the words the man sleeping beside him had pushed himself onto the bed beside him. Arms wrapped around Lavi's shoulders and pinned his hands to his chest, longer legs placed just so the boy couldn't kick at anything, everything keeping him absolutely still without harming him. Bookman watched the dark haired man as he moved.

"Shhh… I am here, it is only a dream Lavi, you are safe."

"_No! I don't want it! I don't! Stop!"_ He rocked his shoulders backward and forward, clawed hands catching in Tyki's shirt. _"I don't know! Don't! I don't… I don't…"_

Tyki spoke into his ear softly, stroked the backs of his arms tenderly, and closed his eyes to the expression of utter terror that contorted his lover's face. "No one is hurting you, Lavi. You are safe. You are home."

It was the same as always. The same as before. It still hurt.

The wordless scream in his throat would undoubtedly bring someone running – or at least Tyki thought it would – and the ferocity with which Lavi kicked and fought would most likely leave them both sore when he was finished. But none of that mattered. All that mattered was calming him the way he always had.

"It's a nightmare! You're dreaming, Lavi! Wake up, please. Wake up and be home!" Lavi's back was perfectly straight against him, his head lolled back onto Tyki's shoulder, eyes half closed. Tyki hugged him more tightly as he rocked.

Almost over. Almost. Nearly finished. Such a short span of time could hold such terror.

"_Why does it… hurt? Nightmares… shouldn't…"_

Tyki shushed him again and continued their established rhythm, running his fingers slowly over his arms again now that they were somewhat looser. "Just a bit further _Amante_, and you'll be safe. Wake up. Wake up, please."

"Ty…chan…" He sucked in a short gasp of air before a silent sob shook his shoulders forward and he blinked, sending a tear sliding down his left cheek with the motion. His eye stayed closed for a moment as he turned in his lover's arms to bury his face in the man's shirt, fingers ripping at the buttons until they found the skin of his chest. A second wave of tears brought a choked off wail to his throat that continued when he closed his lips around it; he was unable to stop it, even if he had awakened.

"Lavi," The dark man cooed, his arms drew back a little so he could run a hand through the boy's sweat slicked hair, still rocking them back and forth ever so gently. Bookman watched the man pet his apprentice so softly he wondered if the boy could feel it. "You're alright, you're home, it's alright. No one is hurting you – no one _wants _to hurt you, no one will hurt you. I'm here _Amante,_ and I won't leave you." Momentarily the man seemed to think about what he was doing before he pressed his lips to the redhead's temple, his eyes drifting closed. "It was only a dream dear, nothing but a nightmare."

Lavi shivered. "I… hate… that dream…" He breathed, a cough racking his frame. "And… it's not getting any better." His voice was cracking in odd places, near silent tears running down his cheek and falling onto his lover's shirt.

"Don't speak dear, that last bout has made you feverish."

"But Gramps is here… I should…" The touch of a soft finger to his lips brought the words to a halt.

"No, you should not. Even if you have the dream again it won't be for at least two hours, please rest until then." Tyki shifted against the pillows so his lover was pressed to the left side of his chest, his heart beating steadily into the boy's side, the hand that had wandered into his shirt firmly placed on his stomach. He released Lavi's legs from his own in favor of stretching them out on either side, knees creaking from the hardness of the floor. "I'm sure that he will understand."

Lavi gently shook his head, his fingers still tracing circles on Tyki's skin. "Ya need somethin', Gramps? I'm gonna pass out in a sec, so if ya wanna talk…"

Bookman stoically studied the crying boy's face before he spoke, trying to read the emotion behind it – fear, relief, hope, they were all there in small amounts. It seemed as if Lavi was having more trouble than he should. _"Tell me what happened."_

Tyki blinked. That wasn't English. What was that? Old Greek? He searched his memories, sifting through time after time, trying to find someone saying those words somewhere else. He was lucky – he found the exact word order in a half minute's time, and from that he knew the meaning. _Well,_ He thought with a tiny lift of his eyebrows, _Noah's memories are good for something._

"_A lot, Gramps,"_ Lavi responded, still not opening his eyes. _"You aren't going to like it when I tell you."_

"_Tell me."_

Lavi sighed, blinked his left eye open without looking at anything. _"Remember the Noah family? Remember how nice they were way back when? Their hospitality has become a bit shabby these days. I guess you could say—"_

"_Fool don't speak of that."_ The old man hissed, eyes narrowed. _"Tell me what you told them."_

Lavi jerked at that, anger marring his face for a moment before he let it go back to little more than an unpleasant glower. _"I told them nothing. Can't you tell? They fucking beat the living shit out of me Old Man; they wouldn't have done that if I'd shared my infinite knowledge on _not_ being an Exorcist."_

"_Fine. If you didn't tell them, what did you learn?"_

The redhead sighed and the moment let Tyki catch up with the conversation by word hunting, even if it made his head and spine ache a little. The dark had no trouble understanding – it remembered Greek like he had spoken it all of his life.

"_I learned that akuma can be modified. I learned that not all Noah are evil. I learned that Skin Bolic is a retarded asshole with terribly bad breath and a temper worse than Kanda's mother's. That's about it."_

"_About?" _The Bookman persisted, expressionless. Tyki wished the old man would just keel over right then from a heart attack for making Lavi talk so much when he was obvious fighting to keep his eye open.

"_You swear to me that you will not interfere, yes?"_

Tyki stiffened, glancing between the two. What was he doing?

"_You aim to test my resolve on that point, idiot?"_

Lavi sighed. _"I can't be a Bookman any more. I'm useless."_ He continued even as his teacher tensed to speak. _"I… it's… I love him."_ He said plainly. _"The man with me… I love him more than anything in the world. You cannot and will not make me leave him. You cannot and will not try. Furthermore you will not say _one fucking word_ to anyone about this – if you do, I won't say a thing about my memories."_ He paused, a wheezing cough broke up his words and left him panting heavily; it was too much to say at once. _"Sor…ry…" _He gasped deeply in an attempt to calm his lungs and speak again; Tyki stopped him with a gentle hand to his mouth.

"_No more,"_ He said fluently. _"You have said your piece, now please sleep. If this old fellow sees fit to tell them what we are let him – we cannot keep it a secret forever."_

Lavi mumbled into his fingers. "You speak Greek?"

"I speak anything I can remember speaking."

Bookman cleared his throat, pulling their attention back from each other for the moment. He seemed stiff, gray, as if his skin were too tight for his face. "You," He said clearly. "Who are you?"

Tyki sighed and pulled his right hand from Lavi's hair, ignoring the sudden roar in the back of his head that this was an impossibly bad idea. He held it out to the Bookman and smiled, attempting to look threatening and friendly in a single offer to shake hands. "Tyki Mikk," He inclined his head. "Nice to meet you Bookman, I've heard a lot."

0x0x0x0

Kanda shook as if frightened under Allen's chest, his arms stretched over his head and strapped securely against the bed frame, naked from the waist up. In all the time they had spent together he never thought he would see the day when he _let_ himself be tied up with his own belt, nor had he ever envisioned how astoundingly _slow_ Allen could be when he wanted. He could plainly see the dark bruise he had left on his lover's neck and distantly wondered if perhaps this was some sort of ironic payback for that little accident; he doubted it though, with the way Allen was going about things. He hadn't even bit him once.

Indeed the boy had only been holding himself over the immobilized Japanese Exorcist. Holding himself up and staring.

_Che, what is he trying to do? Please me with nothing but his eyes? He's undressed me seven times with them already; he should be doing it with his hands by now._

_Not that I'm counting._

_Eight._

Allen could only grin at the ill suppressed shiver that danced up his lover's spine, goosebumps rippling across his skin in predictable patterns. It was brilliant. With Kanda's arms like that Allen could sit there and think about all of the wonderful things he could do to him without being bothered, indeed without having to face anything more than a glare and a blush in the same expression – which Kanda was amazingly good at. Every time Allen came up with another idea Kanda would blush and glare then shiver – it was a never ending cycle that the British boy was beginning to enjoy.

Too bad it was going to be over so quickly.

"Kanda?"

"What? Finally decided to _touch_ me before I chew my belt into pieces?"

Allen giggled and rewarded his lover with a kiss, but pulled away when his hands started to drift toward skin on their own. That wasn't what he wanted yet.

"I understand that _this,_" He trailed the black mark on Kanda's chest with his finger, almost tickling. "Is what made you smell like Lavi, what I want to know is why that is. I also want you tell me _what_ you want me to do to you. And I won't take any half-answers, understand?"

"Che, you're a manipulative prick, did you know that?"

"Sure did, and I also know you love me anyways." Slowly Allen lowered his head and licked at the sensitive skin of his lover's throat, drawing it momentarily between his teeth before letting it go with a slight hint of suction. Twice more and he could feel the increased speed of Kanda's heartbeat on his chest, so he pulled away. "Talk."

"You're going to Hell for this."

"I am already going to Hell for touching _this_—" Kanda's gasp interrupted him but he spoke over it, grinning. "But that doesn't stop me, does it?"

"Moyashi…"

"The sooner you talk, the sooner you get laid."

Kanda bit his lip, knowing that there was no way to resist what the boy wanted, not with a hand stroking his manhood through the fabric of his pants. Heat gathered slowly in his loins while he held his mouth shut, tingles of pleasant electricity singing up his throat at the coaxing of Allen's mouth. His hands fisted against the wooden headboard, his wrists took to tugging lightly at the leather of his belt, which creaked in protest.

"Damn it, Moyashi…" He growled when the hand moved away from his hardening member and danced along the waist of his pants, teasing. He heard a soft chuckle and sighed dejectedly – there was nothing else to do. "He was the first one I healed – accidentally. It happened again, but by then I knew what I was doing. _Ah… don't… ha…_" He swallowed in a throat gone dry and leaned his head back against the pillows. Whatever that strange swirling was on his left nipple, he was enjoying it.

Allen hummed up at him, goading him on.

"On some level – I am guessing – our lives are linked together. His heart stopped last night. So… I… _God!_ How do you expect me to talk with – your – hand and your…mouth…" He whimpered in distress when Allen pulled away and looked down at him with bright eyes, fingers flipping at the buttons of his pants as he grinned. It took a bit of reaching but Kanda sealed their mouths together, arching off of the mattress in an attempt to feel more of the boy above him, but Allen pushed away, breaking the contact.

"Stop that, I'll forget what I'm doing." Allen wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and sat back on his haunches, weight on Kanda's thighs. The pressure made the samurai sigh. "So you're saying that because Lavi _died_ – for a moment – he kind of went through you on his way out. That's… not something you should be afraid of, Love." His right palm drifted lazily down his lover's neck and across his chest, paused over his pounding heart for a moment before drifting to his hip. "If anything _did_ happen to me… you would know. You wouldn't have to wonder like I would over you. Really you're lucky." He leaned in again, lips just a hair's breadth from his lover's. "So the next thing…"

"Che. Do I have to tell you?"

Allen smirked at him, fingers curving under the top of Kanda's pants. "Not really, but you blush when you talk about the things you want me to do to you. I never get to see you blush." He rocked forward enough to ghost his lips over his lover's, making him glare. "Will you blush for me, Love? Or should I make you?"

Kanda growled and lifted his head, hungry for more contact. He didn't get any. "Let me go right now. I'll _show_ you what I want rather than explaining it."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Because saying I want you… to… do those things…"

Allen snickered at him and gave him to contact he had been seeking with his mouth while his right hand unbuckled the belt that held his lover him place. At once there were fingers pushing open the buttons of his shirt and knees pressed into his sides, he moaned when the lips against his migrated down his jaw to his throat, teeth intermingling with the soft caresses. He felt his lover turn and followed the motion until he was flat on his back against the mattress, arms wound over Kanda's shoulders. His shirt was undone and hanging from his arms.

He knew better than to whine about who was supposed to be doing what. Kanda would figure it out eventually. And if he didn't… well… that was life with a single minded lover wasn't it? The idea made him laugh.

"What?" Kanda muttered into his skin.

The British boy shook his head and ran his fingers through the older boy's hair soothingly. "Nothing."

"Che. Don't laugh when I'm—"

"_Useless fairy boys!" _A low, raspy voice echoed from the other side of the door, bringing the words to a halt on Kanda's lips. _"You both have two minutes to open this door and then I'm breaking it down and dragging you out by your hair. Don't argue or I'll beat your penis wielding woman so bad you won't be able to touch his ass for a week."_ His tone was perfectly condescending, his words said just so any guests near them would hear the words as plain as day. _"I'll be counting."_

Allen sighed at the intrusion and flopped his head back against the covers, frustrated. Was the universe against them or was God just poking fun?

He was about to say something biting and foul when his lover pushed his arms away and stood, grabbing his recovered sword from the bedside before he turned toward the door. He walked evenly and determinedly away, ignoring the hand that momentarily touched his wrist as he unsheathed his sword.

"Love, what are you doing?" Allen was two steps behind him when the Japanese Exorcist put his hand on the doorknob.

Kanda glanced back with malice shining in his sapphire eyes. "I am going to kill him."

"Love! Let's just promise to do this when we get back! No killing! Just do what we have to and then take up where we left off!"

The Japanese man mulled it over for a moment. "We'll take up where we left off." He echoed and yanked the door open.

0x0x0x0

Rhode licked the blood from her pinky, grinning at the flavor. There was nothing quite like the taste of blood – salty and coppery, yet not to the point of being unpleasant. It reminded her of candy. The two flavors were more than different, indeed comparing them was sad in her eyes, but she liked them about the same. She could never get enough of them.

Uri sighed and slung his arm affectionately over her shoulder before bending nearly double to squeeze her face next to his, smiling too widely. "Nothing like a day of murder to make me hungry! Should we head home for dinner and come back for the Exorcists tomorrow? I mean… I doubt we'll be yelled at if we ditch, we were distracted…" He shrugged into her and she continued to suck on her finger until every bit of the delicious liquid was gone. "So we can stay if you want."

"Let go of me." She said thickly. Uri frowned and his grip loosened, large green eyes pouting at her as if she had kicked him or called him stupid. She gave him a small smile from the corner of her mouth and patted him on the hand, even though her eyes stayed focused on the beach directly south of them. After a moment a shadow of his previous expression had returned.

The sun was falling from the sky rather slowly now – it had been the greater part of the day since they had started their little escapade in the midmorning light. They had skipped lunch to keep up the spree and now long shadows were cast across them from the boulders that littered the sand, appearing as dumplings on a bed of milled rice. Rhode felt herself smile. "I don't think we really have a choice, Uri-nii."

"Oh?" The writer tilted his head at her, which displaced his blond bangs crookedly despite the splatter of blood that held the front more or less stationary. He wasn't a clean killer, she noted.

Rhode nodded, pointing down the sand. "Allen Walker. He came. They came!" She bounced suddenly, clamping her hands to her chest with a gleeful smile; Uri grinned at her in the most understanding way he could manage.

"You really want to see him, don't you?"

She nodded, spinning. "Mmhmm! I never get to see him! Even if there _are_ two others with him – I don't care! I get to see him, and talk to him, and maybe even _taste_ him! Gosh Uri-nii! I want to make him bleed so badly… I can almost dream it." She stopped her wild movement and caught her right foot in the sand, posed so she could look longingly at the white haired boy in the distance. "Let's greet them, Uri-nii! There are only three – they must have left one to defend the rest of the Kandas – so let's go greet them. Wouldn't that be polite of us?" She inquired, finally flicking her eyes to the taller man.

Uri forced himself to nod. He could make them out now – all three. Kanda Yuu, Allen Walker, and Sable Adair.

Sable. That traitor.

"You can have him, if you want to make him bleed so badly. I will occupy myself with tall one."

Rhode cocked her head at him. "What about the blonde one?"

"Heh," He smiled, pushing his black bangs back so the five crosses on his forehead were as obvious as the seven on hers. "The moment I touch the other, she won't even matter anymore."

0x0x0x0

"Ty-chan…" Lavi whispered. He was getting close to fainting; he could feel it in his eyes and hands. He could see little silver lights dancing in a sea of red and orange even with his eye closed. "Ty…"

A soft shushing brought him to silence, a hand brushing through his hair told him that Bookman was still too much in shock to shake the man's hand. Bookman, shocked. Lavi wished he could see it. Instead he tried to content himself with the skin under his fingers and the palm smoothing through his hair, the lips pressing gently to his temple. It wasn't enough, not really. He wanted his lover to take the words back and tell Bookman his name was Tiago Valente, and he wanted to know that Bookman wasn't going to tell a soul. Not now. Not when he needed him.

His hand pressed just a little more surely on Tyki's chest and an overly hot tear seeped from his closed left eye. _I won't let them take you away. Even if it kills me, I won't let them hurt you. Damn it, why did you tell him? Why did you say something stupid? Why can't you just pretend to be someone else? He would have known you were lying…_

_He would have known you were lying…_

It clicked.

"You see, the reason I told you who I really am," Tyki said with a hint of a smile in his voice, "Is because now you cannot inform anyone that I am lying about being Tiago Valente. If I had told you that I was indeed Tiago you would have known I was lying and gone immediately to the head officer to have me removed and questioned. But, as I have told you that I am Tyki Mikk, the holder of Noah's Pleasure memories, you cannot. If you tell the Supervisor who I am you will be picking a side, something you are not allowed to do, if I am not mistaken." The tightening of the arm around Lavi's back made him sigh in appreciation. It was easier not to panic with his arm there.

Tyki kept talking. "Even if this is what I am – an enemy – it does not matter to me. I love him. I brought him here so that he could live, if I leave I will be killed by my one-time comrades. For those two reasons – love and self-preservation – I would like to stay here. Stay without living in a darkened cell to be questioned whenever someone else sees fit. I want to stay and be human. With him."

The room faded into silence when he finished. He sank lower on the pillows, curling his whole body like a protective shell around his lover. Lavi wanted nothing more than to draw the other man close but his arms would not let him. If he did it would be the last conscious move he made.

"Well," Bookman cleared his throat and shifted on his feet as he spoke. "_This_ is unexpected."

"Dn…" Lavi tried softly. Tyki rocked him gently from side to side in a rhythm that reminded him of sitting in the bed in Durnshire. It was only moderately reassuring.

"It's ok, Lavi." Concernedly, Tyki whispered to him. "I won't leave you no matter what they do. Even if he tells the whole world who I am, I won't leave you. Please don't speak, please. You're so warm… the fever is worse because you spoke. I need you to sleep for me, even if you don't want to." The words made Lavi's hand press into his flesh more surely, his left eye opened just a crack. He was glaring. Even if the words remained unsaid the message that glare intended was anything but lost on Tyki.

_If you think I am going to sleep right now, you can get off the bed and curl up on the floor for being stupid._

"If you don't want to sleep can you at least try not to talk? If you do that anymore I will have to call our little discussion short so a nurse can be sure you are alright." Tyki momentarily laid his lips on Lavi's forehead and the redhead whimpered at the contact, eye drifting closed. The Noah could see his words were only half believed, so he kept up the rocking and touching in an attempt to let the boy know how serious he was. He would not let them be apart. Ever. Losing Lavi was not an option any more than dying was at the moment.

"A Noah… here in the Order… and not a soul has died by his hands while he has been." Bookman mumbled to himself thoughtfully. "What to do…what to do… neutral… betting with the war… things to consider… heart… love, duty… don't have the time to call them. Hope…" The old man turned away from Tyki for a moment, eyes closed while he hummed his words to himself. He was in a hard place indeed. If he said something that was blatant interference, but if he was silent and something happened that was just as bad. If he told Komui the man was lying and he asked his ideas, he would have to lie, which was worse interference than the truth. There was no clear way to be neutral.

And Lavi…

Lavi clung to the man so desperately. There was only one way to fix that and he didn't like it.

Lavi wouldn't like it. No one would like it.

Tyki cleared his throat as quietly as he could to bring the old man's attention back to him. His expression was almost too human for the Bookman, too sincere, and the gradual tempo he followed when brushing his fingers through the apprentice's hair was too kind. He did not look like a Noah. He did not act like a Noah. He acted like he had a unified heart and soul. "Please, if you can… think about us before you decide what to do. You have my word that I will not kill or harm anyone, I can only hope that that will be enough."

Bookman breathed in a slow breath and released it before he spoke with a voice devoid of emotion. "I will have to contact the others about this… development. Until then I will not speak of it, Tyki Mikk. What you have told me shall remain in confidence. For now..." He lowered his head only a little, his sleeved hands clenched together under the fabric of his shirt. "Please take care of him."

The Noah of Pleasure nodded as surely as he could and watched the Bookman stroll stoically from the room.

0x0x0x0

Sable was annoyed, and yet happy. She wanted to grin and skip closer to Allen, to spin in fun little circles and hold hands with someone, but at the same time she wanted to hit the next person who spoke to her and throttle her bother for being a fool. When she thought about it she decided the annoyance was hers and the happiness was Uri's – she didn't like people enough to want to spin in circles with anyone (well, maybe Hitori) so that was a logical conclusion. It was even more logical when she found herself wondering what would be the best way to kill the Japanese Exorcist walking beside her.

She shook her head in an effort to dispel the strange thoughts and sighed. If she had to feel two things at once why couldn't it be two forms of happiness and not annoyance?

_Whatever. If I need to feel crappy that's fine. He needs some glee for when I rip off his arms and poke out his eyes and roast his body over a fire._

"Sable? Are you alright? You look kind of angry." Allen chimed with one of his blindingly bright smiles. The poor kid was going to go crazy with the fake grins if he didn't get laid soon, Sable knew. She wished she didn't know. She wished he hadn't asked.

"Oh it's nothing. Just wondering how it is that we three got suckered into investigating Noah activity _without_ General Cross coming with us. It's like I can do anything if it's Uri anyways. Just wave and talk about childhood memories." She lied without smiling.

Kanda che'd at her lightly. "Okaasan and Hito-to can't do anything if someone comes for them. This is our best bet for keeping everyone alive."

"Kanda Yuu, keeping people alive… I never thought I'd see the day…"

"_Dame."_

"Hey, it's a good thing! I'm not insulting you!"

"Drop it, _baka onna._"

"Ok, ok, gosh… it's not like I'm trying to make you feel bad about anything, just saying that before you guys went off to Sweden I think you would have—" He stopped walking and she stopped talking, his sword sang a ringing soprano note as he pivoted to face the direction they had come from, blade ready. Allen was about to protest at his lover's violent move when Sable stepped around him, hands held slightly out to her sides, eyes searching. He was flummoxed. What could make the two of them stop swapping insults so quickly?

He stood so he was facing the two of them, feet moving him backward across the sand. "What? We'll never find anything if you two—_ugh!_"

He hit something shorter than himself and hard, but not hard like a rock, hard like a person. He froze and the other two looked in his direction, wide eyed and serious, murderous intent dancing in their eyes while he stood immobile. A pair of skinny arms curled around his waist and pulled him into a hug. His spine remained ridged at the press of a face into his right shoulder; the scent of cherry flavored candy filled his nostrils. "I've missed you lots, Allen Walker. _More_ than lots."

"_Rhode."_ Kanda watched Allen's face fill with fear at the sound of the girl's voice and heard the same emotion echoed in his whisper. There wasn't a thing Kanda could do about it with her arms wrapped around him like that either – not without hurting Allen in the process. He was stuck. He was useless. The expression on his lover's face changed and his focus drifted slightly to Kanda's left, he thought he sensed movement.

There was something there.

"Love, behind—!" The samurai was already moving by the time the words were half out of his mouth. Allen watched as his lover ducked the blow intended for his head and swung his sword expertly at the dark haired Noah who turned just fast enough to be missed. Sable staggered away too slowly to avoid a swift kick in the abdomen. She sank against the sand, left hand to her face, right buried in the earth. She had been too weak to help, even if Uri hadn't come. Kanda was alone in this fight.

Allen made the step away so he could turn on the girl behind him, but a candle prodded him suddenly in the throat – he hadn't even seen the thing manifest itself in front of him.

"Tell me, Allen," Rhode cooed from his back with a tone as saccharine as the bouquet from her lips. "Why did you call that boy '_love_' just now? How come you're watching him with your hands and shoulders so tight? It couldn't be… that you're in love with him, could it?" She giggled at the idea, not believing, knowing that couldn't be the case. She could feel him lean against her just a little to avoid the candle better and reveled in his warmth. He felt right. He felt good. She wanted to have him forever.

And to make him bleed.

Allen closed his eyes to the fight in front of him and spoke the words as strongly as he could. If he timed this right, he could slip out of her hands while she was in shock. "We are."

"You are what?"

"Together. I call him that because I love him. We're a couple." The arms around his waist went suddenly stiff.

"Allen Walker? With that man?"

He nodded. "It's been almost six months."

She was silent for a long moment, the only sound the crashing of the surf and the whistle of Mugen in the air. When she did speak her voice was very small, very hollow, a mere shadow of the happy chime it had been only a moment before. "So… you're like that, eh? Not looking for anyone else… you're… going to be together… _forever?_"

Allen hit the candle with the hard knuckles of his left hand, shattering the tip as he stepped around on his right foot, Innocence glimmering into solidity on his shoulders as he went. He used the motion of his punch to carry his arm down where she had been standing, intent on wounding her as best he could before attempting to speak some sense into her. His fingers found nothing but sand.

"Uri-nii." The voice was above him. Allen glanced up to see Rhode standing on the edge of a rather large boulder, the base of which was surrounded in footprints he hadn't noticed before. He dared not take his eyes off of her. "Do you know what they are, Uri-nii? Do you know what they did?"

Allen heard something crunch and a low scream. It ripped his gaze from the girl and her tearing yellow eyes.

Kanda had done an excellent job avoiding blow after blow, the two of them dancing around Sable in the sand. She hadn't moved from that spot but her lips moved in a silent chant of thoughts she could not control. Gingerly she sank down until her head rested on her knee, blood pouring from beneath the bandage on her forehead. _Stop. I don't want to feel his thoughts anymore. Not Kanda's or Uri's._ She held her right arm at the sound that had drawn Allen's attention to them, but it wasn't her bone that had snapped.

It was Kanda's.

The Japanese Exorcist stood with his tied hair hanging down his back without touching it, his right arm bent at an awkward angle over the Noah's own, sword buried in the sand, mouth wide with shock and pain. He struggled to stand for a moment before sinking to his knees on the beach; the fingers of his left hand sought his blade at once.

"Kanda!" Allen stepped toward him but a colorful wall of candles blocked his path, pointed tips seeming to gleam in the fading light. The sun reflected a grotesque red from the sea, dying it a color too much like blood for the boy's enjoyment. It was like something from a nightmare. He could feel tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as a foot came down harshly on Kanda's left wrist in a manner that made him cry out in agony. Kanda was helpless. Allen had to do something.

Uri jerked Kanda's head up by his hair, breaking the tie he was so rough. "Lovers, aren't they? I should have told you when I understood that, I'm sorry Rhode. Shall I fix that for you? To make up for it?" He avoided a kick Kanda aimed at his groin and brought his foot down on his ankle with just enough force to hold it in place. "Do that again and I'll break it."

"Fuck you."

"Sorry, I don't like the cock."

"Che."

Rhode seemed to think it over for a moment – Allen stole a glance back at her to see her dabbing her eyes on her white sleeve. "I'd forgive you for not telling me if you did…"

"What…?" Allen softly asked, but no one answered. Instead his eyes jerked back to his lover and the man holding so fiercely to his hair. He needed to _do_ something!

Uri placed the palm of his hand delicately on Kanda's forehead, an eerie smile creeping across his lips as he did. Behind him, Sable shuddered. "Well then, Kanda-san… this is going to be different that last time won't it? Don't worry; it won't hurt at all. Well…" He shrugged as his golden eyes grew distant. "Not you at least."

Kanda closed his eyes and did the only thing he could think to.

He thought of nothing at all.

0x0x0x0

**That's it for now! Thanks for reading and reviewing! Seeya next chappy!!**


	77. Rememberance

**Don't kill me!!**

**Anime spoilers this time. I really wanted to get it out of the way so the plot can go into overdrive. And there can be… other stuff that you won't even guess at until you read the chapter. 8D**

**Disclaimer of D'stop: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… I think the world would hate me…**

**WARNINGS: Anime spoiler!! Implied man-on-man. Cursing. Violence. The whole nine yards…**

**0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0**

Rememberance

_The Lady Eloquence.  
The Snow Side Lodge.  
The Sow Side Log._

'_I love you.'  
'I'm glad.'  
'Glad?'  
'Because I love you too.'_

_He couldn't feel anything. He couldn't hear anything. He couldn't move. The world was a dark place lit by a red sun, covered in blood. He was angry. He was cold. And in the back of his mind, in the black space that harbored something precious, a warm and bright light was extinguished. He didn't miss it. He wouldn't miss it. He hadn't even known it was there._

0x0x0x0

Allen screamed when Kanda fell backward against the sand, head tilted back, eyes dilated regardless of the crimson twilight. His cry was not sound of pain or a sound of denial; it was a noise so angry and primal he did not recognize it as something he produced. His claw of a left hand hacked at the wall of candles as he repeated his mindless shriek, enraged tears flowing from his eyes and down his reddened cheeks, blurring his sight. He needed to do something. He needed to get to Kanda. He needed to make him safe. He needed to wake him.

He needed to stop the Noah.

His heart was beating hard against his ribcage, the tears making it hard to suck in air quite fast enough. And there was Uri, eyebrows raised as if in question. Allen wanted him dead. Allen wanted him to suffer. Allen wanted him to scream.

"I'll kill you!" The words tore from his mouth at an impossible volume; they were hardly distinguishable from the guttural roar that preceded them. "I'll fucking kill you all!" His voice cracked on a sob. "I'll kill you…" It hurt to repeat it. I hurt to think it. Every part of him wanted Kanda. Noah, akuma, humanity – they did not matter if the he did not have Kanda. "I'll…kill… I'll kill… I'll… kill…"

_What's… happened to me?_ He asked when a candle caught his cheek before he could knock it out of his way. He didn't feel the pain that should have accompanied the wound; he could hardly feel his fingers. _I've never wanted… to kill someone like this before…do I really want to hurt him so badly?_ Another candle caught him on the other side but he did not feel that either._ I don't… I don't want to kill him. I want him to stop. I want to _save_ him._

_And Kanda._

He slowed his chaotic movements, stepping back from the wall that kept moving to intercept him. By the time he was out of reach of it he was panting heavily, bleeding from tiny cuts across his face and shoulders, sweat sticking his hair to his face. He swallowed hard in an effort to stop the desperate moan of anguish on his lips, the sound having gained emotion as it grew quieter. He silenced himself after a moment, left arm slack at his side. He would wait. There was nothing else to do. This was their game; he would simply have to play it.

When Uri spoke though, it wasn't to him. "Rhode… are you alright Rhode?"

Allen didn't look at her. He wouldn't look at her. Instead he stood silently on the sand, waiting for one of them to say something about what they wanted.

"I think… I don't think I…" She couldn't finish it. Instead she made a sound like a sob at him. "After this you can finish it for me. I'm not in the mood anymore."

Allen closed his eyes. It didn't matter what she did. He would still save Kanda.

"Did I do something wrong Rhode? I'm sorry. Do you want to kill one? It'll make you feel better before we go." Uri stepped away from Kanda and toward the white haired boy, amazed at how broken he looked. Bloodied and tear stained, silver hair made ruby in the garnet light. An idea struck him and he voiced it before he could think otherwise, "He's not dead you know." He was half serious. "He just won't wake up until my power is done with him."

Allen blinked up at Uri; the wall of candles cast the writer's face in yellow light, reflecting oddly from his metallic eyes. When Allen spoke he found his voice was tiny, almost lost at this volume. "What… did you do?"

Uri grinned just like Sable. "You will just have to see."

"Uri-nii," Rhode interrupted from her boulder. The word was the only prelude Allen was given. A candle caught him in the left shoulder but that wasn't what bothered him – indeed he was so numb from crying her hardly felt it – what struck him was that it came from behind. He threw himself forward, turning to face the girl as he stepped back toward the first wall of candles, left arms slightly lower than his right, a harsh grimace on his face. Turning proved that he was encircled now – perfectly surrounded – with just enough space between the projectiles to see Rhode's disinterested expression. She was completely unpleased. "You know what I want?"

Allen saw movement from the right and moved to avoid it only to be hit again in the left side, this time more deeply. His right hand clamped down on the flesh beneath his ribs, his feet carrying him two more steps before a third candle struck his right leg and sent him sprawling in the sand. What was she doing? None of these wounds would kill him and if they did, it would take an exceedingly long time. Was she toying with him?

He didn't know.

His left calf trembled as he teetered precariously to his feet, yanking the taper from his flesh and dropping it in the sand. His leg would fine, he noted, but placing weight on it was painful and risky. He needed to counterattack before anything else happened – before she hit him someplace vital.

A glance proved that Uri wasn't where he had been before.

"You said you wanted to see him bleed." The voice was too close, Allen spun as fast as he could with only one good leg, claw flailing. This couldn't happen – he wouldn't let this happen. His hand passed through empty air and he wobbled on his leg before he started to fall, a heavy fist connected with the side of his face with enough force to make something _pop_. The sand under his feet seemed to fall away, the sky darkened at the loss of vision in his left eye. His stomach gave a tremendous lurch and a lightning bolt of pain shot through the back of his skull then down his spine, his teeth clipped the end of his tongue with the impact, sending a second jolt in the path of the first. He lost the ground and the sky, Uri was nothing but a vague idea on the edge of comprehension.

He hit something. Sand and sky separated at an agonizingly slow rate, fuzzy for more reasons than Allen cared to count.

It took a moment for him to realize that he had connected with the wall of pointed candles, and once he had noticed he wished he could forget. His battered coat did something to shield him against the jabbing wax weapons in his back but he felt dazed. He was losing blood and figured he had a concussion from the throbbing pulse in the side of his head, if not something more life threatening. His left eye stayed blind, even if the world had righted itself.

This was bad.

He tried to move and wipe away whatever was obstructing his vision but his coat constrained his movements. When his sleeve connected with the flesh of his eyelid a searing vibration sang into his brain and scrambled the sight in his other eye, pain danced down into the roof of his mouth to leave him breathless. His hand fell away – he made to curse but the press of a cold palm on his forehead made him stop short, right eye drawn to the Noah he had not even managed to scratch during their meeting. The man was smiling from ear to ear at him.

"How do you wish to forget your life Allen Walker?" Uri chuckled. "Shall we start with Mana?"

0x0x0x0

Four hours after Bookman left, Lavi was still sleeping soundly, arms wound securely around Tyki's waist, head buried in his chest with his patched eye down. It seemed to the Noah that even if the reoccurring nightmare was still hard for the boy to deal with the effects of it were wearing off faster and it happened less often. Indeed, so long as Lavi knew it was him, Tyki could place his palm delicately over the redhead's eyes and kiss the tender flesh at the side of his mouth and receive little more than an appreciative sigh in response, perhaps a dreamy whisper of affection.

He was ok. Lavi would be ok.

The dark smiled.

By the time the dinner cart came around Tyki had convinced the Head Nurse – rather charmingly – that he was simply a part of the furniture. She was a hard woman to persuade, yet she gave up on extracting him from the bed when Lavi longingly whispered his name in her presence. It would be too much, she knew, to make the man leave while Lavi was still having such violent terrors. Her only option besides letting him stay was to place the redhead in restrains as to not harm himself or others upon waking and she did not need someone else to tell her what an entirely terrible idea that was.

So she wheeled in the cart, placed the boy's meal where Tyki could reach it, and wheeled away with a frown.

Lavi perked to life at the smell of mashed potatoes, steak, green beans, and cornbread, rumpling the covers as he blinked at the cooling food. His stomach swiftly informed him that he had slept through lunch.

He pulled the tray up to himself and picked up a fork only to have it slipped from his fingers a moment later, a chuckle filling the air behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and glared at his lover as best he could, having just waked only about half of his face was functioning, so he was far less threatening than he aimed to be. The resulting expression was something between disgruntled and confused.

"There are two forks dear, I wouldn't let you starve." Tyki smiled, laying the prongs of his utensil almost tenderly on his lover's nose.

Lavi continued to look unamused. "Why are you forking me?"

"Because fucking is out of the question?"

Lavi's mouth fell open so wide he only managed to half disguise his shock with an ill mannered yawn, which he ended with a sly smile. "Well… it's only out of the question so long as _you_ think it is. Now get that off of my nose before I stab you."

"You can't stab me."

"Oh really?"

"Truthfully. Go ahead and attempt to eviscerate me with silverware, unless it is Innocence endowed it will simply slide through me like everything else I do not wish to touch. In the meantime I will keep my hand exactly where it is, even if it leaves you with an imprint of my making."

"Ty-chan."

"Yes dear?"

"I think you talk more than I do."

Tyki frowned. "Shut up and eat."

Tyki ate dinner off of Lavi's plate, skillfully wielding his fork around the newly wakened Exorcist's in a manner that left them both dissatisfied with what ended on their eating utensils. Lavi would cut a bite of meat only to have it vanish over his shoulder an instant later, Tyki salted the potatoes only to have his lover eat the salted portion without stirring it in. Stealthily, Lavi attempted to lift the cornbread to his lips only to have it skewered against the plate and divided into not-quite-equal halves for each of them. The green beans were the only thing that was not fought over – Tyki avoided them, Lavi shoveled them with more enthusiasm than even Allen might have mustered.

Tyki was becoming somewhat entertained by the situation when Lenalee tiptoed through the door, three books and a newspaper tucked under her right arm. The two of them raised their forks in greeting before turning back to what remained of the steak, neither of them even remotely concerned with what the other would eat when it was finished.

"You know…" She said softly as she eased the door closed. "You can always get more food… you don't have to share." She crossed the space between the door and the bedside stand and laid her burden on it just as Tyki slipped the last piece of steak _through_ Lavi's fork. The apprentice Bookman frowned.

"That's not fair."

"Life's not fair."

"Meany."

Tyki chuckled at him and held the bite out to him, grinning over his shoulder. "If it means that much to you…"

Lenalee watched in silence as her longtime friend delicately ate directly from the hand of a Noah.

"Well," Lavi said around the food, "Even if we _can_ get more, someone would have to leave to go get it. And I like my pillow just where it is. And if I ate much more than that I think I'd sleep for a week anyways." His eyes fell to the little pile of goodies Lenalee had brought for him as she lifted away the little tray and placed it on the floor. He swallowed and grinned at her, expression brighter than the light of the sun in the half-dim room. "And I have reading material! Lenalee, you shouldn't have!"

She smiled back at him – it was hard not to when he was being like that – and started moving books for him to see them. "Today's newspaper, local, because I'm sure you could use it for something, _The Awakening_ – Nii-san saw me reading it and threw a fit for some reason… _The Picture of Dorian Gray_, and _Wuthering Heights…_ it was either this or walk to the library, so sorry if you've read them all."

"You didn't go to the library?"

"No… I borrowed them from Sable's room."

"You mean you stole them." Tyki interjected.

"I _borrowed_ them. Thank you."

"Suit yourself…"

Lavi frowned at the selection before picking up the second book, fingers dancing over the red cover with something like remembrance. He tilted his head at it, turning the cover open to look at the first page distantly, Tyki leaning over his shoulder and blinking at the pages thoughtfully.

"I've never read it." He said quietly. "But I know how it ends. How does that work?" He shivered a little and an arm snaked around his waist to hold him steady. He closed his eye and breathed deeply, willing the memory to wait for a dream or something. "Was it you, Ty-chan? Did you read it?"

The Noah nodded into his shoulder, slipped the book from his hands and drew him closer. Lenalee frowned from the side as Tyki tilted Lavi's head back and placed his other arm firmly around his chest. The redhead swallowed hard and leaned back heavily. "Do not fight it dear, let it come."

"But Lenalee…"

"Will already ask you questions as things are, let it happen." He closed his eyes and tilted his face into the boy's neck, but his next words were for Lenalee. "Is there a lock on the door?"

She shook her head before remembering that he couldn't see her. "No. Why?"

"Shit…" Lavi closed his hands on the blankets and blinked repeatedly up at the lights, breath moving faster and faster in his lungs. He looked pale and panicky; a strange fogginess clouded his eye in a way that made her think there was something wrong with it, something wrong with him. She wanted to comfort him but she knew that that wasn't her role and it wasn't an option. Not right now. "Fireplace… rocking chair… this is _bad_ Ty-chan… I've never… I can't…"

"Damn it." Tyki interrupted. "Lenita, I need you to be sure no one comes in here. No one. If someone comes in, terrible things will happen."

"What? Why?" She was moving as she spoke dragging one of the visitor's chairs away from the wall to lean against the door to pin the knob.

"I can't explain it all right now, but we _must not_ be disturbed." At last he opened his eyes and she saw that the irises were ebony shot through with flecks of gold, his pupils lost in the darkness. Inhuman, completely inhuman, but the emotion he held in them was so close to fear it made her shake to look. "Please."

She nodded.

"Ty-chan… can't… s-see anymore… I feel… _fuck_…" His body relaxed against the older man's and his eyelid sagged closed over his sightless eye, but his lips moved in a slow stream of hardly understandable words. "I can't feel… anything. Is it… what should I…"

Tyki breathed in deeply and rested his face so he could feel Lavi's heartbeat against it while he reached into his mind with his voice. _"Help me to call him back."_

0x0x0x0

"No!" Allen writhed in place, hands incapable of doing much more than brush against each other with his elbows held in place by the candles through his tangled coat. Tears of anger and fear stung in his blind left eye, he could feel blood running down his face in sticky lines, taste it on his lips. Everything wanted to spin. The blow he had taken rimmed the dying sun in a haze of gold and sent his insides jerking when he turned his head too quickly. Fire tickled up the back of his neck to rest at the base of his spinal chord, burning toward his throat.

This was _very_ bad.

"Not Mana?" Uri smiled at him, a look that had no pity in it whatsoever. "How about Kanda-san then, hm? Which one would you rather keep, your father or your lover? Not that it matters, you will lose them both in the end."

Allen's mouth fell open. Choose? Choose between Mana and Kanda? How could this man even think that was possible!? There was no picking one over the other! They were what _made_ him. What _defined_ him. Without one or the other… without his past… without anything… without Kanda…

He closed his eyes and tried to think of someway out, someway to break free. He could not and would not let this happen. Not now or ever. He was an Exorcist. He had his Innocence. He needed to _do_ something!

The fingers on his face felt oddly warm against his skin, though not hot. They were willing him to bring something to mind. They wanted him to think of Mana.

_This can't happen!_

_Innocence,_ He half-prayed, envisioning his long fingered hand in his mind because there was nothing else for him. He could not push this man away nor could he step back without killing himself on Rhode's tapers. He had his Innocence. He would have to find away to make that enough. _I need more from you. I need to stop him. I need to defeat him._ As the words passed his mental lips he tried to look at Uri but he found himself unable to draw the man completely into focus. Black hair bled into gray flesh, yellow eyes blurred to the point of being without whites. He couldn't see Sable in him anymore – not with the too wide smile on his lips. Allen could only see something he pitied.

_No, wait. That's not what I need to do._ He frowned at where he thought Uri's face to be, a strange thought crossing his mind._ I need a way to fix this, not destroy it. It doesn't matter if I kill Uri, his Noah will just be reborn into someone else down the line. I don't want to kill him._ He concluded with a painful swallow._ I need something that will let me stop Uri's power. Help me be a real Exorcist. Help me save him._

"What do you think you're doing?"

_Because I love them all. Together... we can… we can…_

Uri jerked his hand away as if burned but did not step away from the white haired boy he had been seconds away from breaking. He stood in place, expression changed to one of stark horror as his left hand gripped at his right shoulder. He watched the boy bring his left hand forward and clench his wrist with his right, strange light seeping from his skin.

"_I… need more…"_ He said in a voice that was half human sounding. Uri blinked at him as the limb between Allen's fingers began to change. He could not take his eyes off of it. He could not move. He could only wait to see of what became of this young man who had willed himself into a ball of light. Uri could vaguely see numbers, high numbers, flashing passed his eyes – before he saw what had become of the boy Exorcist.

His left hand was gone but in his right he held a sword.

The weapon was the length of Allen's arm, the width of his spread fingers, silver but for the golden cross emblazoned down the center. It was striking. The hilt ended with a woven pommel and an elegantly wrought cross that swung back and forth on a hoop when he moved. It was so bright and familiar to Uri he did nothing but gaze at it in the fading light.

Rhode watched on, mystified, as Allen ripped his coat down the back in an attempt to remove himself from his wax prison. There was so much blood – all his blood – and she felt her heart flutter in her chest at the matching red of the sky and his skin, the flaring mark over his destroyed left eye. It made her feel strange. She wanted to be down there so she could taste him again if only for a moment, but at the same time she wanted to stop his pain. It didn't make sense to her. As beautiful as it was, as much as she had wanted to torment him until he begged for death, she couldn't do it now. She wouldn't do it now.

"Die quickly, Allen Walker. I won't let him have you."

No sooner had the words passed through her lips that Allen raised the sword over his head and brought it down on Uri's stationary form. She watched her sometime brother open his eyes in pain and shock, hands clutching at his face and chest even as the blade passed through his skull and down his body. The blonde girl, who had remained kneeling in the sand beside the fallen Japanese Exorcist, threw her head back with a harsh, mirthless laugh.

"Damn it, Moyashi…" Sable coughed blood into her left hand while her brother staggered back, looking at his hands without seeing them. "It's about time you did something to make me function." Sable pushed herself onto her feet and stumbled toward the opening Uri had left in the wall of flamboyant candles.

Uri blinked at his clean hands and looked up at the boy who had cut him, confusion prominent on his face. "You… I know you… and I didn't… my… Noah…" He choked, gore seeped sickly through his lips. A row of crosses burned white on his flesh and down his bloody brown shirt to his hip, a larger one over his heart. He tripped over his own feet in an attempt to back away, landed with a sound somewhere between a groan and a gasp, his eyes – one topaz and the other emerald – stared up at Allen in wonder.

Uri did not understand.

"Don't… fight anymore, Uri Adair." Allen said through lips that did not want to move. "You're human aren't you? Just like the rest of us? A different kind of human maybe but you're still human. And you shouldn't… you shouldn't…." He limped after the fallen man until he could point his blade at the man's chest. "You should quit."

"Uri! The sword!" Rhode said loudly, but Uri didn't look at the sword. He was looking at Allen. Only at Allen.

"I didn't… want to be a Noah…" He was crying but he could say why. "My memories… they didn't want to be memories… but they…" Uri stiffened and tried to move back as the blade fell once more, but a warm chest stopped him short, arms curled around his shoulders almost as protection. He gasped, knowing the hands that held him as well as he knew his own.

Sable crushed her face against his shoulder, holding him as tightly as possible with half of his thoughts and a quarter of Kanda's memories running through her head. She was confused by the rampant noise in her skull but she would get passed it if it meant stopping Uri. She would simply hold him in place. She would just embrace him if he wanted it or not. "So…wanna give your little sissy a hug?" She laughed lightly into his ear in a way that made his skin crawl. "Don't worry; it won't hurt at all. Well… not you at least."

"Sabe… what are you—"

"Do it, Allen! Stop thinking and do it!"

He did as he was told.

Rhode was on running even before she hit the sand, feet moving her as fast as they could toward her relation. She watched Uri fall back against the blonde Exorcist who held him, eyes fluttering shut as he went, sticky hair pushed back from his forehead. Rhode saw seven scars – not the five he normally had – for a moment before they faded from his face entirely. Gone. His stigmata was gone. What would make something like that happen? It didn't make sense to her.

_That sword…_ She thought, waving her hand to gather the candles she had yet to move. _It looks just like the Earl's. And he's using to try and cut the Noah out of Uri. This isn't good. I might want to stop Allen's pain but… not if he does that to Uri. I can't lose him too._ She skidded to a halt in front of Allen, between him and the unconscious Noah in the sand. The space between them filled with her multicolored candles, pointed at every critical place she could think to place them.

"If you move I'll kill your… your… _comrade_ and poke you so full of holes your friends will think you're Swiss. Got it?" She growled and watched him shift on his feet as he glared. A purple candle flew as quickly as she could will it into Kanda's right hand, but the Exorcist didn't respond – instead Allen became perfectly still, mouth open in silent protest. That was his weakness, it seemed. So instead of barreling ahead like he would have if it were someone _other _than Kanda, he leaned on his sword like a crutch as if to show that he wasn't going to use it.

"Sa…ble…" He breathed at the blonde behind Rhode, but the Exorcist did not respond. She lay with her arms draped loosely around her brother, eyes closed as if sleeping in the deepest of dreams. Allen blinked repeatedly with his right eye, unsure of the left was moving at all being he couldn't see out of it, and tried not to collapse in a heap in the sand. He could fight on, he knew, but standing still brought every bruise and scrape to his attention. If he kept standing around waiting his adrenaline would run out and that wasn't an option: pain, blood loss, his mild concussion – it would all hit him without adrenaline driving him onward. Things were already swimming in his vision so he did not know how long he could last.

Rhode bent to hook her arms around Uri's waist and heave him away from his sibling. She was too small to lift him entirely, but she dragged him three steps before checking to be sure he was breathing. A door flickered into existence behind her and she pushed Uri through it, seeming to know that what was on the side would not harm him or otherwise cause trouble.

"Allen," She turned back with her work done, expression blank. "I would like to punish you for what you did to him… but… I think what he did is enough. Next time I see you though, don't expect me to let you walk away."

He scoffed. "What do you want with me?! Why are you… what did he do?"

This time she grinned. "If I can't have you," Her right hand drifted to her lips, gold eyes smiling. "No one will."

She blew him a chaste kiss.

The moment the door closed behind her Allen moved. Worry for his lover brought him to the Japanese boy's side even before he could check on Sable, his heart danced in his throat at the strangely void look in Kanda's eyes, the grayish hue to his features. The instant his sword reformed into his left hand he withdrew the candle from his lover's flesh and set about trying to wake him.

He did not attempt to hide the fear in his voice. "Love, can you hear me? Kanda?" He shook his shoulder vigorously even as he fought the tears burning in his eyes. "Kanda Yuu. Kanda, wake up. Please awake up. I can't… you can't… you're _breathing_ damn it! _Wake up!_"

"Oo 'it me wif a sledge'ammer?" Sable groaned from behind him. A fleeting glance was all he needed to see that she was perfectly fine, though apparently dizzy. She blinked at him a few times, drawing his face into focus before he looked away to continue his attempt at rousing his lover. "How come it's… so quiet?"

"Kanda won't wake up."

She shook her head – a movement she immediately regretted. "No… I mean that's bad but… why can't I hear… whatever you're thinking?"

"Sable?"

"Never mind, keep shaking him. I'll… be over here. Trying to become oriental. Oh…" She plopped her hand onto her forehead in a feeble attempt to remember where her face was. "I meant oriented."

"Kanda? Love? Can you hear me? Kanda?" Allen cupped the side of his lover's face and lost out to the tears at last, sobs shaking his beaten shoulders until he laid his head on the other man's chest. He repeated his call again, louder, and listened to the steady thrum of Kanda's heart against his face. He could hardly see him with his right eye pinched against his jacket. "Please Kanda… wake up… please…" His words faded into a whisper.

Allen counted heartbeats. One hundred nineteen of them and a deeper breath changed the rhythm against the skin of his face. He forced himself up, steadied himself on his right arm while he looked at his lover's changing features.

"Love?" He whispered the word. The samurai blinked his eyes closed and open again a few times before pulling his head up enough to draw the British boy into focus.

"Moyashi?" He swallowed hard while Allen smiled one of his ridiculous, painfully bright smiles, joy shining off of him like light from a lamp. A few more blinks and Kanda found himself pressed against the cooling sand, arms twined around his neck, Allen sobbing quietly into his shoulder. He went stiff. Something was wrong, very wrong, something _bad_ had happened and Kanda couldn't tell what it was.

"I was so worried…"

"Moyashi."

"Yes, Love?"

Kanda sat up, peeling the British boy away from him as he went. Allen frowned at the half-terrified, half-angry expression he wore, but allowed his arms to be pushed away to his sides. And then Kanda glared at him. He hadn't seen a glare that powerful in more than four moths. "What the hell did you just call me?"

"Love." Allen repeated, more slowly. "Are you… feeling alright?"

"Che, I might ask you the same Goddamn question,_ baka Moyashi._" His lover spat the words like venom as he drew up his left hand and flexed it, wrist no longer broken. "What happened? This… everything looks… _wrong_." He finished with a glance toward the sea. "Where are we?"

Allen turned his head to the side and spoke very gently, as if afraid what Kanda might do otherwise. "China, Kanda. We've been here since yesterday."

"But China isn't on the way to Sweden. Why the hell are we in China?"

"Because…" Allen froze. No, that couldn't be it. That could mean that Kanda had… forgotten everything. He shivered. That could _not_ be the case. Kanda would not just _forget_ everything that had happened since November because a Noah tried to make him. "We… went to Japan. We're on our way home now. We went to Sweden…almost… six months ago." _Damn it, don't cry. Don't cry. Stop it. _"Do you… remember anything?"

Kanda frowned at him, seriously frowned. "Che. I remember…" His frowned deepened as he searched his recent memories, hunting for something closer to _now_ than what he had thought was _now_. After a moment he shuddered and gasped, left hand coming to his face for a moment. Fear. And them mild indifference. "Something… happened between you and I… something… I didn't want to forget. But I don't know what it was. The last thing I remember clearly is when you said you didn't think I was a narcissist. And I…" He trailed off but his eyes took on a distinctly different quality, almost as if he knew something else but he wasn't going to say it.

"Kanda?" Allen proded.

"When you called me _love_, I shouldn't have... Che, we…" Allen could see by the way his lover's hand was shaking that searching his mind was hard. He remembered _something,_ though not everything and that would be enough for now. Allen could remind him of what had happened later.

Allen placed his right hand on Kanda's left so he could drag it away from his face. He had never seen Kanda look so frightened, not when there was nothing to physically harm him. Allen pulled him closer, aware that Kanda seemed entirely too confused about the gesture, and rested his pounding head on his lover's shoulder. "Don't try that hard if it's difficult, if you remember anything at all then the rest will most likely come back on its own. _God_ _Love, _I was so worried… I thought you were dead or close to it. You may not understand what's going on but… Kanda…" The Japanese Exorcist hooked him around the waist with his left arm tentatively before holding him with more force, breath slow and deep.

"You're hurt."

"Don't fix it. I'll be fine."

Kanda shook again. "I healed you while I slept…but I don't know where or why."

"You must remember _something_ or you wouldn't be holding me." There was an unspoken plea on the end of his statement that Kanda managed to catch.

"No more talking." He said softly. "Before we go back… to wherever we are staying, I want to try something."

"What?"

"Che. Just shut up, Moyashi."

Allen was silent. Kanda closed his eyes and ignored the confusing emotions running through his head. He wanted to push Allen aside because he could not remember anything that would make him feel this way, but he still felt it. It felt _right_ in a way that he could not even begin to explain. So he laid his face in the crook of his lover's neck and inhaled his scent, slowed his breathing and focused his mind on remembering that single sense and nothing else.

A bed.  
A bath.  
His clothes.

_Love._ The little word followed that smell like a clinging fog. It fit but it didn't fit, he knew it was right but he didn't want to believe it. No matter how he looked at it, _something_ there, even if he didn't know what it was.

"Oi, Kanda…" Sable broke his concentration and his eyes jerked open, breathing suddenly ragged. "You're wife passed out."

"What are you…" He pulled back to question her wording when Allen's head lolled to the side, his bangs falling away so Kanda could see his left eye for the first time. The lid was turned in so the lashes pressed against the orb, which seemed displaced and oddly shaped. He cursed and leaned his lover against him to see what else the boy hadn't told him about, trailing his fingers un his spine until he found the numerous punctures from whatever fight he couldn't remember, the ones across his shoulders more than an inch deep.

_I should be able to heal him if it gets worse but…  
Wait. Since when do I care?  
I don't care.  
Obviously I do.  
No, I don't care. I just know I can do it if I need to.  
Don't even lie to yourself. I care.  
No I don't.  
Yes, I care for him. I care for Allen Walker.  
I DO NOT!_

Sable groaned as she wobbled to her feet, eyes bleary in the now near darkness. It really was quiet. "I don't think you should carry him, not with your right arm like that. So… now that I'm not… _Oooh, hello left foot, move when I tell you_… all… discombobulated let's go back to the inn. I'll carry the spout, you ask questions on what happened since… the whole kissing thing happened between you too, 'kay?"

"I don't trust your feet."

"Oh come on. It's wearing off; I'll be perfectly five in fine minutes." Sable walked the space between them without falling or tripping, but Kanda still wasn't sure about her navigating abilities. She seemed almost drunk. "It's not like we have very many options anyways. Either I go find the inn and get help, which will take longer, or I heavy Mr. Bean here while we talk. Which one sounds you better, eh?" She frowned at herself for a moment before smiling at him crookedly. "Pretend I said that right, for my sake."

"Heavy?"

"Heave."

"Che." Kanda tilted sideways enough for Allen to roll against his left shoulder and sigh. The slight motion brought the British boy's right eye open.

"Kan…da?" He mumbled into his lover's jacket, blinking slowly. "I feel… dizzy…"

It seemed natural for Kanda to touch the side of his head and smile, if only a little. His face seemed to remember the expression more than he thought it would, same with the flurry of warmth that filled his chest for a moment when Allen lifted his lips in return. He felt as if it was all something he had done before in a long distant dream. "You have a concussion. Don't go to sleep again, Moyashi." He stopped himself when the urge to kiss Allen suddenly swept over him. That, it seemed, was too much to quickly. He couldn't even _remember_ kissing Allen before, and having the urge now was not something he would give into. Not until he knew everything.

Not until he knew the truth.

"-kun."

"What?" He did not think he had caught the whole word.

"Moya…shi-kun…"

0x0x0x0

Hitori waited silently by the window for Sable and the others to return, either reading or watching depending on how impatient he was feeling. The book was entertaining but he was too worried to think too hard on anything by Sable, so the darker it became the more he tended to blink out the clear glass window with an expression of silent worry. He did not like the idea of Sable out there with enemies – not at all – but there was nothing he could do to stop it, not a thing he could do to help. He could huff out a cloud of frost on the cooling window and write their names if he wanted, but that was not going to make her any safer than she was before.

_Powerlessness sucks._ He sighed, turning his eyes down the street to the sea. He had never left Japan before now but he wasn't frightened by the idea of leaving. It was exciting and adventurous and he got to see and learn things he otherwise wouldn't. But even so, he was still powerless, even with the new experience.

A commotion in the street brought his eyes to two figures, one oddly fat – top heavy – the other thin and lanky, with a long curtain of ebony hair swinging down its back. He squinted his eyes at the shadows in an attempt to see what they were.

Yuu. And Sable. But Allen was…

His book thumped on the table and then banged onto the floor, his chair slid against the floor before tilting back on its legs and crashing back into the wall. He did not stop to right it. Hitori grabbed a coat – whose wasn't important so long as he had it – and burst through the door, feet galloping down the stairs two at a time regardless of the odd looks that got him. None of it mattered really. Hurriedly he yanked first one arm and then the other through the sleeves of – as it turned out – Sable's jacket before barreling headlong through the lobby and out into the street. He was panting but it didn't matter. He needed to see that everything was alright.

"And… here he is now!" Sable chimed as they came around the corner. He couldn't see her smile but he knew it was there, same with his brother's glare. "Let's get Allen up to… someplace that's not my shoulder real fast… my brain needs a breather."

"What happened?" Hitori asked as calmly as he could. He held the door back while the other tree wandered in, Yuu cradling his arm, Sable holding a foggy eyed Allen. It was Yuu who spoke.

"Hito-to?" His brow was furrowed as if he weren't sure of his eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"What? You don't remember?"

"He doesn't remember shit." Sable informed, taking the stairs just as quickly up as Hitori had taken them down. She was somewhat overburdened but that did not seem to slow her down. "Uri wiped his memory of the last six months or so. Feelings are all he gets, no specific incidences."

Kanda watched his brother's eyes go perfectly round and wide. "Wait… you don't… you don't remember desecrating my room with your _wife_?"

"Che. She said I don't remember so I don't remember. Don't ask stupid questions."

"Wow…"

"What do you mean 'desecrating' and why do you keep calling that Moyashi my wife?"

Sable paused on the landing and looked back with a pallid face. "Anytime one of you want to get the door so I can lay him down…"

Kanda sighed and dragged and hand through his bangs, ruffling them messily against his forehead. They were too long. As he ascended to the rooms he noted that as a valid piece of proof that a lot had happened in the last half year or so – otherwise he would have cut it sooner. Allen's strange white locks seemed under cared for also, the length difference slightly more obvious with his hair pulled back in a pony that no longer kept his hair from covering his left eye. The British boy seemed taller also, though it was hard to tell with him curled up brokenly against Sable's back.

When they came into Allen's room Kanda stopped to look over the furniture and belongings thoughtfully. Two suitcases, his and Allen's, at the foot of one bed. He _remembered_ that bed. He didn't know how or why he would recall something so simple, but he could.

Sable laid Allen face down across the mattress while Hitori searched desperately for something to cut his jacket off with, the British boy mumbled something into the bedspread that none of them heard in their frantic haste. Kanda would have helped but instead sank against the hard wood floor, sapphire eyes unfocused in the direction of the bed, remembering. He shivered, bringing a pale hand to his face in an effort to make the recollection come at a slower pace – perhaps in a proper chronological order – but the touch did nothing for him. The others had not noticed his fall and continued to be oblivious of it while he sat in silence, seeing things in his mind as if he never had before.

_He called me beautiful… _He made the memory into words in an effort to focus on it. _I didn't mind being under him at all. I wanted to… do I still…_

'_I'm already going to Hell for touching _this,_ but that doesn't stop me does it?'_

"Kanda?" Allen's whisper brought him back as if he had never been lost at all. The Japanese Exorcist glanced up at him without moving, expression unreadable. "Are you… ok?"

"Che." He pushed himself up on shaking legs and wobbled to the bedside, unsure hand extended toward his lover's face. He was scared shitless of touching that face but he wanted to do it regardless, his hand wanted to. He felt sick. "Fine." He stroked the place under the boy's left eye with his thumb as softly as he could. The contact was almost enough to send him running from the room. "I remember… the bed."

"Uh huh…"

"I remember it, _baka._"

"Hmm…" Allen grinned at him as much as he could while lying on his face. "Dun call me… shtupid… my head hurts…" His silver eye lost focus for a moment before he reached up with his left hand to catch Kanda's right, his fingers curled bit did not grip against his lover's hand. "I want… to sleep… but… if ya wanna lemme pin you again…"

"Not a chance in Hell."

"Love…"

"Che."

Hitori finally produced a pair of overly large scissors which Sable took in hand immediately. Kanda was about to protest the idea of her holding a sharp object but his fears were quelled with a look at her clear emerald eyes, the seriousness of her expression. He expected her go straight to the cutting but instead she turned to brother and gave him a small, fleeting smile, an expression that said more than words might have expressed.

"Take care of him first," Hitori wandered away from the grinning blonde in search of bandages. "Then we can grope until your hands go numb."

0x0x0x0

**I shall cower in fear of the hate mail!! AHHH!!**

**Reviews are love! 8D**

**And, just so everyone knows, I am indeed sorry that there is once again no omake. I just… can't bring myself to write the idea that I had. And only Sailor Moon fans would get it. Maybe next time! :-)**

**See you all next chappy! Thanks tons for reading my ungoodness!**


	78. Dark

**I wanted this done two days ago, but that isn't how these things work. Kanda kept doing stupid stuff, so I have about 9 scrapped versions of the second scene saved for later reference. I guess it wasn't a total waste of time if have more material to potentially use for later, right?**

**I've been reading Ouran High School Host Club recently and I really like it. Tamaki is so dumb you can't help but want to pat him on the head and tell him he's stupid in a cute way. 8D**

**Ok. Enough tangent.**

**DISCLAIMER of disclaiminess: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… 3 foot tall Kanda would have called Allen 'Moyashi' in 159. And not noticed the irony.**

**Warnings: Implied man-on-man, cursing.**

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Dark

Lavi flipped a page in his book, rocking slowly with his foot on the floor, the other drawn up onto his knee. He felt that he had been frightened just a moment before, but now it didn't seem so bad to be stuck in a rocking chair, reading. There were a couple hundred thousand other things that he would rather not remember than this.

Like bondage that didn't have to do with Tyki.

He heard something like a disgruntled groan and glanced – out of his right eye – toward the girl who had made it. She lay on the floor with her knees bent so he could plainly see up her skirt if he wanted – but he was distracted by her face too much to care about her choice of undergarments. Her childish features were familiar to him, though the fear in his gut was not reflected in the man he was dreaming as. Instead his hands closed the red covered book but left a finger to hold his place and he smiled at her, grinned at her too round eyes and her down turned mouth, the tip of her tongue that otherwise would have scared him near out of his wits.

'_Ty-ki,'_ She said the name almost like two separate sounds it was so drawn out. _'I'm bored… Earl-sama won't let me play like the rest of you and I have nothing to do! Gah! Skin even took Relo with him!'_ She rolled upward, shaking a dilapidated brown doll at him, seemingly indifferent it the fact that they things button of a right eye was hanging down its face by a string, twisted mouth draping open as if the fabric of its jaw were too weak to hold it closed. _'Do Relo, Uncle Tyki! If he can't play with me you can!_' She threw the toy at him.

He didn't even think before he caught it.

_I do not want to be here._ He thought purposefully, his grip tightening on the cover of the novel. _I was somewhere else… I was with someone else… I was… where was…_

**Lavi.**

The voice was loud and unfamiliar his head jerked toward the source of it, the book tumbling from his fingers. The room was mostly cloaked in shadow but for the light given off by the fireplace, yet it was surprisingly easy for him to pinpoint the source of the sound: the darkest corner of the room held something that was moving.

'_What…'_ He caught something like a hand with his eyes but it wasn't any hand he knew the owner of. The doll went to the floor next to book, his feet tried to push the chair away but he only managed to rock it backward, which in turn sent him out of it when his feet slipped on the floor. The hand stayed just within the light, black and printed with odd lines, long pointed nails on the fingers. It did not act menacing but that was not enough to make him touch it. _'What…'_

**Lavi. Want Lavi. Lavi come back.**

He shook his head, stepping back only to find himself stuck between the darkness and Rhode, who was frowning at him the same as Allen had before.

'_Who are you? What do you want?!'_ His feet caught on themselves suddenly and he tripped, landing firmly on his backside on the floor. It did not hurt. _'What are you?!'_

He could not see a face but he _felt_ the dark smile. He felt it with the raising of the hairs on the back of his neck. The sensation was much like stepping bare foot through a spider's web; instantly creepy and gross and yet worrying and frightening – goosebumps blossomed across his shoulders and down his arms. That thing reeked of evil.

**Pleasure. Desire. Want.**

Lavi froze his thoughts, stilled the trembling in his hands. There was just no way something like that could be… could be… _'Ty-chan?' _

0x0x0x0

Kanda stayed by Allen's side while the other two dressed the wounds on his back and leg. The longer he stayed the more he was urged to hold the younger Exorcist against himself and ask what he had forgotten, but he did not give into that desire anymore than he had the one to kiss the boy. Instead he left his useless right hand in his lap and left handedly corrected the folds in the British Exorcist's eyelid, saying things he hoped were soothing all the while. He could feel that the swiftly swelling flesh under the half deflated orb was badly bruised, too much so for him to tell if the bone beneath was broken. The flesh was blue-black and yellow from the blow, a consistency like putty where it hadn't swollen itself as hard as rock.

He wanted to _fix_ it.

It did not occur to him until he was cleaning the vitreous humor and blood from the side of Allen's face that he had been touching his cured left eye, and he was completely indifferent to it. He felt worried about the foggy quality of Allen's pupil and frightened that he would not be able to see out of it. All of those feelings were odd. It made him frown.

But what was odder was wanting to make it all better. _Now_.

"Kanda," Allen mumbled. "Do you… remember… what happened when we got to Sweden?" He winced at the feeling of the last bandage secured on his back. Kanda did not like to see him wince.

"Che. I remember… blood. And snow."

"That's more than nothing." Allen enthused.

Kanda brushed his bangs back and grabbed a roll of gauze from the bedspread. None of these were pretty coverings but they would all function and this was going to be no exception. He tore off enough to pad the wound as he spoke. "It doesn't matter, does it? I know that…" He glanced in Sable and Hitori's direction for a moment to see if they were paying attention – they were gathering the medical supplies and paid him no heed – so he went on. "We… did… things… but I don't remember what or how or when. I…" The words were there, they wanted to be said but he didn't trust himself. His mind told him one thing and his fingers that held the wad of gauze told him another. "I…"

"Kanda." Allen interrupted.

He raised his eyebrows in answer.

"Will you kiss me? Please?"

His heart turned to rock and plummeted into his gut. Even with his heart pounding away in his insides he felt himself lean in as if he had done this a thousand times before, his lips hungry for Allen's touch. He was tense but the tender caress of contact calmed him enough to lead him on. He was granted entrance into the warm expanse of Allen's mouth almost as soon as he had touched it, warmth and the slightest of hums encouraging him to delve that intimate space as if it were his own. He didn't remember this, not in the least, but he knew exactly what to do with his tongue to make the smaller boy moan into his touch, the sound bringing with it more mental images that could ever be true.

He felt the heat rise in his face when he attempted to pull away but instead found himself gripped firmly by the collar, no longer in control of the situation. Teeth grazed the skin of his lower lip, a questing tongue gently passed into his mouth, brushing at the roof and then softly over his lower lip. An undignified sound started in the back of his throat – his left hand started to drift toward his lover's skin.

_Stop it!_

Panic sent him tumbling backward to escape the experienced mouth against his, landing painfully on his broken right arm. He cursed and Allen gave him a thin lipped smile, left hand dangling off of the bed.

"You remember _that_ at least." He sighed. "Are you ok?"

"Che... Don't… do that."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to."

Allen's face fell a little but he still managed to look amused. "Do you… know what we feel for each other, Love?" He waited a moment, silver eye watching the samurai as closely as he could while fighting sleep. "Do you remember accidentally telling me one night in Sweden what _you felt_?" Allen reached out with a weak left hand and Kanda extended his own in return, letting the boy take it between his cold dark fingers. He watched the tired white haired Exorcist roll as far as he could onto his side and place his hand lightly on the skin of his chest. "You touched me right here, just enough for me to know you were there, and you spoke to me. Do you remember what you said?"

The color drained from Kanda's face, his hand tried to pull away but Allen held it still. His eyes were tearing, the still half bandaged left one threatening to displace the blob of gauze on its lid.

"Kanda, do you know?"

"No. I don't."

"Love, I…"

"Stop calling me that." Kanda hissed, pushing himself to his feet and yanking his hand back as he went. "I don't know what happened between us so stop calling me some name you think I'll respond to."

Allen blinked the gauze right out of his eye. "You don't think… I should remind you?"

The tears on Allen's face made Kanda's chest feel tight. He gripped his arm to his side and closed his eyes to the spectacle, feet already carrying him toward the bathroom. He couldn't take this, not anymore, not with a proverbial knife tearing at his chest every time he so much as glared at that stupid, idiot, useless Moyashi. He fought an involuntary shiver as he brushed passed Sable on the way into the bathroom, his left hand reaching to close the door even before he had turned on the light. The wood slammed into the frame, vibrating through the wall with enough force to rattle the mirror over the sink. He left the light off as he sank against it with his knees bent up by his chest, breath hissing into his lungs and out again in a rhythm too close to hyperventilation. He tilted his head back and forced himself to think about something – anything that wasn't those tears on Allen's face or the impossible feeling that his heart was going to burst through his ribcage and crawl someplace closer to that brainless bean sprout.

Nothing came to mind.

He tried to sooth himself from the inside out, but his mind kept brining back the feel of Allen's lips on his, the _need_ that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the center of his being. It hurt. It hurt worse than his broken arm to walk away from Allen like that. He didn't understand _why_. Even if the two of them had been intimate – lovers even – he didn't remember any of it, so why would it affect him so terribly? It wasn't as if he really _cared_.

"Shit." He purposely bashed his head against the door, sending a beam of pain into his eyes. That, at least, distracted him long enough to breathe twice, but he found himself incapable of thought. Self-mutilation was pointless. The fingers of his left hand clawed at his loose hair, tangling the top as he leaned on his knees, right arm laid out beside him, eyes open in the darkness. It didn't matter that he couldn't see anything. It didn't matter that he felt hot tears searing in his eyes. What mattered was the realization that he _did_ care more than he had thought he did.

"…I don't know. I can't read minds anymore, but I think he's confused mostly." He heard Sable say from the other side of the door, her voice gentle. "He might remember how to kiss you or even how he feels for you, but that doesn't mean he understands it."

Allen's reply was softer, withdrawn. "He… understands that I love him, I think. What else is there?"

"Uri is the Noah of Understanding. My guess is that he took what he needed to make Kanda _not_ understand himself instead of what he need to make him not understand you. It's a lot like what he does with Innocence. He wipes the memory – so to speak – so it doesn't know what's good or bad anymore. Everything becomes an enemy."

He heard a soft groan. "So I'm Kanda's accommodator and he's corrupted Innocence and he thinks I'm evil like an akuma? Great parallel."

"No, he doesn't know what you are. He just knows that he wants to be near you."

Kanda pushed his head forward so it was between his knees and pressed his ears so he couldn't hear them. He didn't need them talking about his brain like it was something they could fix – he didn't need them saying what he had been like before. For the time being he did not understand and he did not need them to help him see what had once been.

On the other side of the wall Sable tucked the last of the gauze around Allen's head with a soft pat. Allen looked up at her with his right eye as he leaned back on the pillow heavily, grimacing at the pain in his spine. "Then he should be near me." He said seriously. "I won't lose him to Uri. I won't lose him to himself either. If he won't come to me…" He blinked slowly, still fighting tears. "I'll go to him instead."

0x0x0x0

When the voice spoke this time it was softly, filled with longing, and the sound of it made Lavi's hands clench in the fabric of his pants.

**Please, Lavi come back.**

'_Is something wrong?'_ Rhode asked from the floor. _'You're screwing up this memory like you've done the others.'_

He looked at her again, but only for a moment. _'Sorry, I'm bad with this sort of stuff. I shouldn't even have this memory should I? I mean… it's not… white.'_

She giggled as he pushed himself to his feet, eyes back on the dark. _'You are pretty smart to notice. But you had to have this memory. It was the black that had to send it.'_

'_Why?'_

'_Because,'_ She smirked. _'What do you think will happen when the white is gone?'_

**Lavi. Want. Hurry. Return.**

He glanced between the two of them, stuck between asking questions and following this strange version of his lover's voice. They were both so pressing…

**LOVE.**

The word picked for him. His feet slowly carried him to the edge of the shadows, dress shoes clicking on the hard floor, gait reluctant. The hand that had come into the light turned over as if to offer itself as kindly as it knew how, but the lack of a face still made him hesitant. He could see all sorts of lines and curves in the dark, things that didn't seem human shaped like that hand, but none of them allowed him to trace the line of a jaw or the curve of a neck.

**Please Lavi, come back. Cannot stay forever.**

He extended his right hand until it touched the warm dark skin of the creature before him. Fingers curled delicately around his flesh and tugged him gently forward until he was standing half in the shadow and half in the firelight, still incapable of drawing a face into focus. A second hand caressed the side of his cheek, but there was more to it than simply a hand – there was something like a vine that hooked around the back of his neck and turned down his back, securing his retreat.

He willed himself not to panic. _'You're scaring me.'_ He informed in a strained whisper.

**Sorry…dear one. I am… afraid of… losing you.**

'_What do you mean come back?'_

**To… bed…**

He remembered.

Lavi grinned and stepped closer, twining his arms around what he hoped was the man's shoulders. His face found what had to be neck and he pressed himself closer; hair tickled the side of his face, arms and vines curled around his back to hug him more surely. The shape was the same, the smell, the slow way they rocked back and forth on their feet and the painful fire burning in his chest – there was no way he was mistaken. _'I knew I was somewhere else. How did you find me? How do I get back?'_ His eyes closed, fingers losing themselves in his lover's surprisingly long hair, the locks were as smooth as silk in his hands.

**No time.** The response was quieter than before but the arms that held him did not seemed weakened. **Pray.**

'_Pray?'_

**Yes, dear one. Pray.**

0x0x0x0

Hitori waited until the sound of water falling into the bathtub stopped before he stole a hurried – and perhaps last – kiss from Sable and walked in on his bathing brother. The door squeaked open and Yuu's eyes did the same, his face, neck, and shoulders the only things visible above a line of thick suds, but his left hand quickly came to the sides of the tub when he saw that he was being disturbed. His hair was in something of a sad, lopsided bun that Hitori would have teased him for on a brighter day, his cheeks slightly flushed in the steam. Hitori waved him back again as came inside, eased the door closed behind him. Yuu, with something like an expression of annoyance, let himself sink back into the warm water.

"Che. What do you want?" His voice was ragged and shaking as if he had strained his throat in an attempt to keep from screaming. Hitori frowned at it. His brother couldn't even pretend to be properly irritated anymore.

"He's sleeping but I don't know how long it will last."

The words made Yuu close his eyes and slide almost completely into the water.

"Yuu-nii," Hitori continued with a small sigh. He didn't want to do this. "This would all be easier on everyone if we just told you everything that happened. Maybe not in detail, but at least to give you some fucking idea what the hell is happening here. Otherwise you might do something stupid."

He watched his older brother look away from him slowly and brought his dripping left hand to his face to rub at his eyes. Hitori watched him lean on his arm and smile mirthlessly, blocking out the light with his fingers. "I already did, didn't I?" He chuckled with as much enthusiasm as he smiled and shook his head as if to refute his own question, his voice had a distinctly frightened quality that Hitori wasn't used to hearing. "I can't remember one Goddamn moment we've spent together that doesn't include me wanting to wring his little idealistic neck between my fingers. But…" He let his eyes come open so he could stare at nothing, the glare gone from his sapphire gaze as if washed away by the water. "Walking away from him like that it… I… I feel sick. I feel…"

"Like your heart is going to fight its way up your throat and out your mouth to go sleep next to him if you don't go do it yourself?"

Yuu nodded. "Yeah…" He frowned suddenly, eyes fixed on his younger brother with an expression that was distantly related to a glare. "How did you know that?"

Hitori shrugged, his lips pulled wide in a liar's smile. "Lucky guess."

"Hito."

"Really. I've read about these things. You'd be amazed what great description there is out there."

"Hito."

"I'm serious! Not my words, someone else's."

Yuu was all out glaring now. "Really, then who's were they?"

"_Amo…"_ His elegant eyebrows furrowed together in thought while his right hand moved so his index finger could tap at his chin. He looked like an old man, but for the color of his hair. "Uri Adair, I believe. I don't think you've read him."

"Che." Kanda rolled his eyes at the lying boy before him and lowered himself until the hairs on the back of his neck were threatening to go into the water. How easy it would be just to sink in and hold his breath for a long as he could – which had been pretty long the last time he checked – just to see if Hitori would get the hint and leave him alone. Or change the subject. "Whoever said it was right."

Hitori sighed with something like a sad smile as he leaned against the door with his right leg bent up behind him, expression falling. Kanda _knew_ he wanted to say something but didn't prod; he wouldn't prod unless it would make his brother stay silent and that didn't seem to be happening today. Or ever.

"I just… want to see you happy again." Hitori muttered. "And you _were_ happy. Fuck, you _cooked_ for him one day and the entire time you did it you were grinning your face right off. He got sick and you didn't sleep for at least three days you were so worried. Even if you don't remember it, you should be told about it, at least so you know what's going on and what he expects right?"

"Hito-to, stop cussing."

"Shit, Yuu! I only curse because you tell me not to."

Kanda blinked at him. _So I've told him to stop before_. "Would you leave? I'm trying to bathe."

"Yuu-nii, I'm trying to make things right."

"I don't care about right and I don't care what you think we were. I want to be alone."

"You're not listening!"

"Neither are you!"

"Did you even _hear_ what I said? You _stopped_ sleeping for him, Nii-san. Do you remember being… oh… eight and falling asleep on the roof? How about the cherry tree? Or when you fell asleep in the middle of a kendo lesson? The Yuu I knew growing up could fall asleep anytime, anywhere – train, carriage, bed, floor – you fell asleep _at noon_ on your _birthday_ when Baa-san went inside to get presents. And you were standing on one foot at the time!" His voice had grown louder and louder as he progressed, but it was Kanda's response that drove him to yelling.

"And?"

Hitori's face flushed. "And you're a fool if you don't see what he did to you! You – the man who can sleep anywhere – couldn't sleep for more than _three days_ because you thought _he_ was dying of some incurable disease! And when he got better – he almost died first – do you know what you did? You _cried_ because you were so afraid of losing him! Maybe you do not understand what that means to you but I know. I know because I—I—I…" He swallowed the word and shook his head as if to dispel it from his mouth. _Don't want to say that right now._ "It doesn't matter how I know. All that matters is that you lo—" He was cut off by an abrupt splash that signaled his brother's descent into the tub. He ground his teeth at it, curse words flying as his fist collided with the door.

"_Bokke!"_

Kanda pressed his hands to his eyes under the water, taking advantage of the full length of the tub to stretch out his legs as he did. He did _not_ need to hear this. He did not need to _think_ it. He did not need his heart to go thumping away at his ribcage like it wanted out _now._ All he needed was peace. Silence. Darkness. A place or person that would not try to make him think. Because he would never know how he felt if they kept telling him how he felt.

Under the water, eyes closed, the world was nearly perfect. His heart beat in his ears like a steady drum, the slightly too hot water made his skin prickle just enough for him to know it was there. Here, he would be able to think.

Or he should have been able.

Fear crawled into his intestines and knotted them around each other before pouring ice over them. He didn't know _why_ he was afraid; all he knew was that he _needed_ to see Allen.

Kanda came up out of the tub as suddenly as he had gone in. Hitori had been prepared to scream at him again but stopped when he saw the horrified look on his brother's normally stoic face. Without draining the water or pausing to be sure he was at least relatively clean the samurai hauled himself to his feet, pausing only when he tried to use his broken right arm to steady himself on the railing. Hitori reached for the nearest towel and threw it at him; a wet foot came out onto the bathroom mat even before the fabric was around Yuu's waist.

"What are you…"

Kanda shook his head and wrung most of the water from his hair with his left hand before turning hurriedly to the sink. He pulled open the cabinet and yanked out the required medical supplies as hurriedly as he could, and then attempted to shove them at Hitori.

"Help me bind my arm."

With shaking fingers Hitori took what he was offered, working as if frightened by his brother's change of character. "What are you going to do?"

Yuu shook his head again, this time forcefully, and Hitori saw a glimmer of wetness in his eyes that couldn't have been caused by the bath. "It doesn't matter. I just… I have to see him. Even if I don't know or understand it, I can't keep saying there's _nothing_ there. I don't know if you're right but there's only one way to find out."

"How's that?"

"I have to see him, to start."

"Yuu-nii-corn," Hitori bit the edge of the gauze and ripped a new start the roll being he couldn't find the true end quite fast enough. "You have the oddest way of showing denial that I have ever seen."

"Shut up, Hito-to."

0x0x0x0

The Chinese girl chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip as she watched the Noah and the Exorcist breathe in tandem, Lavi's eyes open to the lights above him. It had been perhaps a half hour since she had been told to keep anyone from coming in to see them and her hands had begun to shake with worry – there was something seriously wrong if Lavi didn't say anything for a half hour, even in his sleep.

She prayed that she would not have to wait much longer.

The more she studied Tyiki Mikk the more she saw in him that was human. The observation frightened her. With his strange eyes closed and his somewhat messy hair hanging over the stigmata on his forehead he looked like nothing more than an attractive Portuguese man, sleeping soundly next to the apprentice Bookman. When his face was calm his eyebrows left his forehead completely unwrinkled, the beauty mark under his left eye stood out just a little more when he wasn't blinking, and his five o'clock shadow only served to make him look more normal than he did completely shaved. Human was the only word she could think to describe him besides perhaps _lazy_ or _uncaring_.

After another five minutes Lavi blinked his eyes closed and sighed, muscles suddenly limp against the man that held him. Lenalee felt her face crack in a smile but didn't speak – for all she knew Tyki still required silence to rouse himself from the trance like state he had placed himself in – and instead gripped the edge of her skirt and twisted it between her hands in an effort to keep still.

Lavi shifted on the bed enough to wind his arms around Tyki's neck and bury his face in the man's shirt. "Σ' ευχαριστώ χρυσέ-ή μου. Δείτε επίσης." He whispered with a press of his lips to the older man's pulse.

Tyki's brown eyes came open just enough for Lenalee to see the color of them. His gaze looked distant but he still drew the boy tighter, a ragged sigh shaking his frame. "Anytime, _Amante_." His right hand stroked the back of Lavi's head while his breathing became deep and slow the rhythm of his hand changing with the rise and fall of his chest until it fell down the redhead's side to his hip and stayed there. Lavi hummed at him in question, but the hand stayed where it was even when the Noah's mouth pulled into a sly smile. "That took more… out of me than I thought it would." He chuckled, hooded eyes blinking slowly. "I am sorry. I cannot even hold up my head at this point."

Lenalee watched Lavi push himself up on his right arm and touch the side of the man's face with his left hand, just under his tired eye. "How come it was so hard? What did you do exactly?"

"Working together… without letting the _other_ me take over…" He explained softly. "Is… not…"

"Ok, ok, tell me later." Lavi suggested with a soft kiss. Lenalee kept watching, even if she felt like she did not belong. They were both so… so… "You still love me. Lots." He grinned.

"And you, me." Tyki whispered. "Maybe in a week…"

"In a week what?"

The Noah managed a smile that was two parts tired and one part lecherous leer. "And we…can… have…" But the words died on his lips and his eyes fluttered closed, a slow sigh escaping his partly open mouth. Lavi's expression was one of deep affection, eye slightly narrowed from the smile that rumpled the bandage on the side of his face. Gently, as if he might hurt the older man if he were to rough, he kissed Tyki's lips, almost indifferent to the fact that the sleeping man was incapable of returning the gesture with more than a dreamy sort of movement. When he was finished the redhead pulled back and laid his face under the Noah's chin, his arms still behind his neck.

"Thank you, Lenalee." He spoke just loudly enough for her to hear. "Do you mind if I don't explain to you what happened until he's awake again? I can't do that great a job of it yet because I haven't had to deal with it long enough. So…" He looked up at her for the first time, emerald eye shining just as brightly as it had before he had lost himself in a memory. "Please?"

She swallowed in a dry throat but managed a shaking smile; her hands at last relinquished the twisted disaster that had once been the end of her skirt. "Alright."

A weak twitch of his lips was all the word got her, but his gaze still held the shadow of love it had had for the man he shared the mattress with.

"Thanks."

0x0x0x0

Kanda stood over Allen knowing that if he chose that moment to open his eyes, he would see him wet and staring and wearing nothing but a towel. He didn't really care though. He kind of _wanted_ Allen to open his eyes and see him, if just to give him leave to say what was on his mind.

_I have no idea why but let me sleep next to you._

The more he thought about it the more he thought he sounded like a stalker or a psychopath, but the steady pressure of his heart in his chest kept him from thinking anything else. The need was still there, even with his eyes on the boy, even with his fingers trailing unconsciously over the wood of the headboard.

It was as if the closer he got, the nearer he needed to be to feel fine.

After what felt like a year of standing in the stillness he finally relented. It didn't matter _why_ he wanted to, only that he _did._ With an annoyed sound in the back of his throat he threw off his towel and grappled a pair of pants from under the bed, cursing irately under his breath he yanked back the covers to find the silver haired Exorcist staring up at him with round, expectant eyes, lips a fraction of an inch from grinning at him. Kanda simply stared down at him without moving, heart thumping away at a speed similar to that of a frightened humming bird's.

"I can't scoot over." He said baldly.

"Che." Kanda shivered. "I'll move you."

Allen didn't answer. Kanda scooped the boy up as nicely as he could with only one arm, aware that the press of his hand on the enflamed flesh of Allen's back made him cringe almost to the point of tears. He didn't want that. He didn't like that. So he turned Allen against the mattress, holding him as flat as he could until the British boy gave a hiss and his bare chest came into contact with the sheets, his hands closed on the fabric beneath him, and his right eye squinted shut. Before he knew what he was doing Kanda found himself stroking his fingers through the boy's white locks, cooing at the pained look on the wounded boy's face.

"_Daijoubu."_ He heard himself whisper. _"Gomenasai._" The boy wouldn't know what he was saying but it didn't matter.

"Love…" Allen's lip twitched. Kanda couldn't stand to see him cry again. He joined Allen on the bed and slouched until he was comfortable, his head on the pillow, right arm lying across his stomach without being in the way. He then reached out with his left arm and took Allen's hand in his, refusing to look at the metallic lines streaming down his face. "Love…I…"

"Don't." He said softly, refusing to acknowledge the burning lump that had formed in his throat. "Please… just… let me hold on to you. If only for a moment."

The sound Allen made forced his eyes open as surely as a scream would have. He had pulled Kanda's hand to his chest, pinning it to the sheets. Sobs shook him so terribly they broke as twisted howls in his throat, choked off by his effort to bite his tongue. He kept his face turned into the mattress in an attempt to muffle the sound but there was no stopping it now that it had started, no delaying the inevitable. The horrors of the day, the pain of it all, had finally caught up with him enough to make him break pitifully, and the sight of it made the tears finally escape Kanda's eyes for a moment. This was the fear he had felt, the horror. That this would happen and he wouldn't be there to stop it.

"Moyashi-kun," He rolled closer, pulling Allen by his hand until he could feel the boy's straining, gasping lungs on his ribs. "Moyashi, it's ok, I'm not dead. You don't have to cry like this, it's not…"

Allen's hand found the skin of his chest and trembled against it, his words swallowed by his tears.

Kanda wound his good arm under the smaller boy's torso and dragged him up onto his shoulder, following his instincts. It didn't matter _why_ he wanted to do it, all that matter was calming Allen, helping him, and making him _safe._ "It's alright. I don't hate you. I might have forgotten what happened but I know I don't hate you. You're ok. I'm ok. I don't hate you." He repeated it because the words seemed to make the sobs less frequently, and more quietly. He said it because he wanted nothing more in the world than to see Allen smile.

"Kanda, I'm sorry…" Allen mumbled into Kanda's hair, right hand stretched under his body to touch his lover's left hand, opposite laid across Kanda's chest in desperation. It was easy to see that he wanted to be as close to the Japanese man as he could get, and this time Kanda was not going to stop him, not with how he felt. "I was scared and you seemed so angry… I didn't want… I thought you had… and I _know_ you don't want me hugging you and kissing you right now…"

His lover made a soft chucking sound under his breath and hugged Allen against him, allowing the frantic embrace the boy offered. Kanda spoke to the side left side of Allen's face, lips just beside his ear. "I won't leave you. I may not know what's going on, but I won't leave you. It's awkward but… Every few seconds I'm not with you I start wondering if you're alright or if I said something wrong, and when you cry I…"

Allen shook his head into Kanda's chest, fighting back the tears. "It's ok. You don't have to tell me. Not if you're fighting for words." Kanda's left hand was trailing through Allen's hair again and that coupled with the steady rise and fall of the chest half under his made him want to sleep despite it all. His body needed it. "I get it."

"Che. But I don't." Kanda kissed the flesh he could reach – Allen's neck and ear – and felt his lips twitch in amusement when he saw a fading line of bruises down the line of the boy's neck. Just looking let him know how they'd got there.

A sudden, frightening line of thought struck him.

How far had they gone?

How much of it had he been the instigator of?

How come the thought of lapping and kissing and biting at the Moyashi's neck made him grin from ear to ear?

Was he sick or did it have to do with that _need_ that rested like a sleeping creature in the pit of his stomach, threatening to wake if he moved away for even a moment?

Allen derailed his train of thought. "It's ok that you don't get it, Love. You're still… _connected_ to me so… you don't mind if I sleep on you, right?"

'_Good. Now let me sleep on you.'_

"Not really, but… Moyashi-kun," He said it on purpose in a way that made Allen turn his head to look up at him, no longer crying. "I'm… sorry for how I reacted to how you kissed me. I panicked. I didn't remember a few things that I do now." He leaned in enough to press his lips to the British boy's, letting his mouth do what he thought was right. After a moment he allowed Allen to tentatively explore the warmth of him, tongue playing back encouragingly when the white haired Exorcist seemed to falter in his willingness to take what Kanda offered. Before long Kanda found himself going on into a second and third kiss, his hand drifting down to press the boy more firmly against him, a raspy moan broke in his throat at the feel of a palm on his chest, pressing wantonly against his skin.

It scared him a little that he wanted more.

Allen pulled away when he felt Kanda shaking, the hand that had drifted back his hair suddenly clamping. He looked to see a depthless pair of sapphires watching him, so deep and dark in the night he wasn't sure if his lover was actually seeing out of them. With his slightly steadier left hand he touched the side of the samurai's face, running his hard thumb back and forth across his expressionless cheek to soothe him.

"What is it, Love? What did you remember that made you change your mind?"

Kanda blinked at him for a moment, continuing to fondle his hair. He really needed to cut it. "We were on a train and it was cold. I had closed my eyes because watching you read made me want to touch you, but I didn't sleep long. You were annoyed at me and pretended to fall asleep on the opposite seat, but you didn't have your coat and I'm not stupid. When I gave you mine…" He smiled a little, enjoying the ability to recall something from their shared past. "You crawled up on the seat with me and stuck your ice cold hands up my shirt before I made you go to sleep."

"Kanda! That makes it sound like I tried to molest you!"

"You can't rape the willing."

Allen's mouth fell open a little. "Do you remember _that_?"

Kanda frowned at him a little before a tiny smirk played out across his lips. "I remember being smashed up against a wall because you wanted to win some stupid game against Sable and that idiot Lavi."

"Love! Oh God, Love! You're remembering! It's not much but it's a start." He tilted enough to place a short kiss on his lover's neck, then three more to his collar bone. He didn't give a damn about the stabbing pains in his back or the shooting ones in his eye, he was too happy. "I could just… I could… well, I'm wounded so it wouldn't be smart, but I could…"

"_Baka,"_ Kanda hissed at him, thumping him lightly on the head. "The only thing you can do is rest. Stop wiggling, my arm is broken you know. And don't call me God."

Allen smiled as brightly as he could with only one eyes and a large swath of gauze across his forehead. It was a strange feeling but Kanda thought the expression was absolutely adorable. He gave up to the urge and placed his fingers gently over Allen's lips and allowed himself a winning grin. "What?" The boy asked from behind his hand.

"Stop being cute and sleep."

"Cute?"

"Stop."

"How am I being cute?"

"Che. How am I Japanese?"

Allen furrowed his brow. "That's how you… oh… ha. _So_ funny."

"Go to sleep."

"I did."

"I didn't."

"Then I can just watch you sleep. I'm fine."

"Allen," Kanda narrowed his eyes in the closest thing he could get to a glare. It wasn't a real glare though, and he knew it. "If you don't sleep, I don't sleep. That's how it works, isn't it?"

Slowly but surely Allen nodded at him, crestfallen. He did not express his desire to make Kanda remember everything that had happened, instead he laid his head seeing eye down on Kanda's chest, a deliberate sigh in his lungs. Even if he didn't want to sleep he still could, his body needed it and having Kanda beneath him, feeling the warmth of a hand on the top of his head, smelling his soap – it all made him want to sleep peacefully, regardless of his own wishes.

"Ok, Kanda." He whispered into the darkness, laying his left hand on his lover's shoulder, his right on the mattress he still half rested on. _"Oyasumi."_

The word shocked the Japanese Exorcist but he didn't say anything about it. Instead he closed his eyes to the lightless room and comforted himself with the rhythm he had established with his fingers going back and forth across his lover's hair. "Goodnight."

0x0x0x0

**Yay!! Another chappy is done! Thank you all for continuing to read and encourage me. Sorry this took so long. :(**

**On a lighter note… summer is coming! That means work, sleep, friends and… the end of TFL? Maybe. It should be done sometime this summer. We'll see.**


	79. Forever

**Here it is, 79. Almost 80. Holy crap. Heh.**

**Updates are kind of slow these days; it's rather hard to keep everything in line for how I want it to turn out. Sorry…**

**Disclaimer of D'Really: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the anime would not be licensed in America where it will be sinned against with terrible American voice acting.**

**WARNINGS: Um… men-touching-men sexually.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Forever

604,800 seconds. 10,080 minutes. 168 hours. 7 days. 1 week. That was how long it had been since Lenalee had learned the truth about Lavi's memories. She hadn't said a word. Not _one_ word to _anyone_. But now, standing next to her brother, looking at the x-rays, she was tempted to say something. She was tempted to blurt out her theories and not lie to him _again_ about what was going on.

She hated lying to him.

Komui frowned at the film over the light and did not react to his glasses sliding down to the end of his nose. They didn't really matter. With or without them the picture was still completely illogical and pointless, basically _wrong_. There was just no way for it to be right. It didn't make sense. It was _impossible_. It was more than impossible, it was a miracle of science. It was making him feel utterly and completely stupid.

Because he really just could not figure it out.

"Nii-san…" Lenalee said for the third time in ten minutes. He sighed and pushed his glasses up, holding his right hand out wordlessly in explanation. Behind him, Reever slurped his coffee and shook his head, just as lost as the supervisor.

"I'm no orthopedist but shouldn't it have taken more than a week to do that?" The Australian offered at length. He kept slurping his coffee, seemingly unaware that he had started a rhythm that made Komui want to shove the cup directly up his nose if it would stop him from doing it. He breathed twice and slurped again. "I mean… wasn't there a gap there when he got here?"

Silence filled the small laboratory. A breath in, another out, a second in, a second out. Slurp.

"It doesn't make any sense!" Komui burst at last. "Even for an Exorcist, his recovery rate is _ridiculous! _He should be malnourished and sickly and pale if his bones have repaired this much – the rest of him should be calcium deprived – but he's not. He should still be recovering from blood loss but I walked in on him hobbling around his room because he's restless – that's not right." His voice fell again, his hands pressed his beret onto his head and he squinted his eyes at the film again, expression annoyed. "I should have someone check his other wounds… if they are all like this…"

"If they are all like this what?" Lenalee goaded.

"I don't know. There's something else going on here that we don't know about. That's the only explanation I can think of." He let go of his beret and Reever slurped again – Komui turned with a murderous gleam in his eyes and simply glared at the man, who grinned over his cup as if the expression of loathing on his supervisor's face had made him feel drunk. The expression made Lenalee feel somewhat sad for him; he only got to the Grinning Drunkenly Stage after he'd been through the Annoyed at the World Stage, and that came after two days of not sleeping. He was moments away from a full on collapse with how he was going.

"Just _drink_ it Reev."

"Sorry."

Lenalee used her clipboard to cover the end of her nose and quietly reminded herself that it was _not_ a pet name. Not at all.

"Lenalee," Her brother turned back to her and she quickly pulled down the clipboard, looking completely neutral. "Would you please inform the Head Nurse that what she thought is true, there is no reason for Lavi to continue to stay in the medical ward. I will have to order a few more tests but none of them should require that he stay in bed. So long as he doesn't get thrown into buildings or hit by a train, he should be fine."

"Really?"

Komui nodded. "The cast can come off as well, though a cane might be good to be safe. Please ask what the Head Nurse thinks of that."

Lenalee turned for the door in time to see Reever bring his coffee cup to his lips again, but this time it slipped from his grip, spilling liquid down his labcoat and across the floor, the cup clattered on the tile but did not break.

"How long has it been since you slept?" She asked with a travesty of a smile.

"Oh… not long ago. I'll be fine. I'll just go sit down for a while."

Komui made a horrified face and bent to pick up the mug. "Jesus, Reever, you need to tell me when you miss a night, that way this doesn't happen." He laid a hand on the shorter man's shoulder and guided him to a chair, setting the cup on the desk beside it. "You can go, Lenalee. I'll get him back to his room." He gave her one of his best big brother smiles and she nodded, giving him leave to turn back to the bedraggled man who was now staring almost conversationally at the far wall. She watched Reever turn slowly in his chair until he was facing the desk that now held his coffee cup and, after a moment, he pulled his arms against it and began to snore. "Or that works."

Lenalee laughed softly at them both before walking thoughtfully away, smiling. Maybe, if things kept up, she would be happy keeping silent.

0x0x0x0

For the eighth day running Kanda spent the second part of his morning lying next to Allen in bed, reading a book he didn't remember finishing. After that fist night things had changed. It was hard to say how or why exactly, but Kanda found that he didn't really mind the new things that happened between him and Allen. Every morning he would wake to a kiss (which he did not mind anymore), and Allen would contentedly cuddle with him until he tried to walk down memory lane for an hour, then he spent time talking to either his mother or Hito until he couldn't stand it anymore or he felt like training or looking at Allen again. It was an awkward schedule – and he always ended up breaking it to see more of the white haired Exorcist – but it worked.

Or at least he thought it worked. His cuddle partner eventually proved him wrong.

While Kanda plundered the pages of his rather dry and historically steeped read, Allen traced circles on the older boy's shirt, dancing delicately across the place on his ribcage that always got him a moan of pleasure. He outlined the turn of his hip, the upper turn of his belly button, all of the erotic places he could reach from this position. In the time he had taken to recover, Kanda hadn't once attempted to more than kiss him and, in all honesty, he wanted more. Lots more. It wasn't just his own needs that bothered him either; he wanted to see Kanda like he had been, and _happy_ about it.

His fingers went swiftly under his lover's shirt and he leaned up to kiss the older boy as vigorously as he dared. Kanda had come to accept that gesture even if he was reading, but Allen's hand kept traveling, running in a teasing line first up his chest and then across, displacing his shirt.

Kanda's book went down on the nightstand and he whimpered into the contact before hurriedly capturing the British boy's hands and pushing them away.

"What are you doing, Moyashi?" He panted, face flushed. Allen's tongue, which he could not stop while holding his wrists, sailed down the side of his neck, catching every nerve along the way. _"Moyashi!"_

Allen gave him a lopsided smile before his face fell into a pout. "It's been more than a week Love, I want to… I mean… you haven't _asked_ me about it but we _do_ sleep together. And I would like to do it again sometime in the near future. Like… in five minutes." He ignored the suddenly round quality to his lover's eyes and took advantage to his shock to lift a leg unsteadily over the mattress and straddle his lover. His eye was still blind, his back still sore, but he was perfectly fine for this sort of thing – travel would be a different story.

Kanda didn't even respond when Allen once again slipped his palms under his shirt, mouth hot open against the skin of his neck. He wished that Kanda would touch him and not lean on the pillows like a corpse.

"Allen," The Japanese Exorcist spoke distantly, hands on Allen's hips. "What do you mean we sleep together?"

The British boy snorted into his throat. "I mean we have sex Kanda. I mean that I love you and I show it in a physical way. I mean we do anything but actually sleep." His words made the samurai go pale, but he kept at it regardless. "And I would _really_ like to hear you scream…" He felt Kanda shiver yet he wasn't thrown off like he thought he would be, or moved closer like he hoped. "You may not remember but…" He nibbled on his lover's earlobe, feeling him quake. "_I_ do…"

Kanda's hands tightened on Allen's hips, his swallow was audible. "Allen… I don't think we should—"

"Give me two reasons."

"You're hurt and I'm unsure."

"I'm not _that_ hurt. And this is like your second virginity, of course you're unsure."

"Moyashi, I just can't imagine it. Even like this. I don't… remember…"

"I can _help_ you remember."

"Allen, no. Stop. I need to _think_." He lifted Allen away from him but froze at the pinch of teeth on his neck, fingers gliding over places that made him gasp. It was so good feeling he didn't want to make Allen stop touching him. His heart was pounding, his hands tingled, he felt like he couldn't breathe. "You say we've done this before but I basically _haven't_. This is too…"

"Too what, Love? Fast?"

'_You're too slow without me.'_

A finger found his left nipple and he tensed, breath coming in hurried waves, throat suddenly clamped. This was bad. His back arched of its own desire, driving him into the smaller boy, hands sliding without aim or reason down the curve of his backside. With the way things were going, he was going to do something stupid.

"If we've done this before, if we've – _ah – Moyashi—"_ A strangled sound of enjoyment growled out of his throat at the feeling of lips moving swiftly toward the corner of his mouth, a hand yanked at his shirt until he finally moved his arms so that it came up and over his shoulders, leaving him exposed for the younger man. He could see blatant hunger in those silver eyes as he pressed back farther into the pillows, Allen rising to his hands and knees to chase his mouth downward as he sank lower. It was all so fast. The knee between his moved enough to press on his innermost thigh, the hand that had continued to moved against his chest went instead to his neck where it curved around the base of his skull and helped Allen to pull him up into the kiss.

The British boy moved away and looked down at Kanda with raised eyebrows, his weight on his right arm on the mattress. "Am I scaring you?"

Kanda shook his head.

"If I scare you, will you tell me?"

The Japanese Exorcist did what he thought was right and touched the side of Allen's face with his healed right hand, following the curve of his face to his ear. "Two things."

"What?" Allen was too enthusiastic with the word.

"No sex. _Yet_."

Allen frowned.

"And if we _have_ done it before…" Kanda could feel the beginnings of a blush and fought it to no avail. "Who's the seme?" As he said it his eyes wandered off to his book, refusing to look at Allen, refusing to acknowledge the little giggling sound the boy made at him. He glared at the lamp and jabbed Allen in the ribs, making him snort. "Don't laugh at me, I'm serious! I need to know these things!"

Allen chuckled again, his face less than an inch from his lover's. "If you even know the meaning of that word you should be able to figure it out yourself."

Kanda glared up at him and chewed on his upper lip. "Che. Just tell me, Moyashi. Otherwise I'm never sleeping with you."

"We trade off."

"Now I know you're lying."

"It's true!"

"Right. We've never had sex."

"Kanda! I'm not lying! We have too had sex! And we switch! It's how things are!"

"And what? _I_ invented this system of _sharing_?"

"Kind of…"

"Liar."

"Look, the first time I… I topped you and the very next morning you had it in your head to return the favor." Just talking about it made Allen turn the color of a ripe tomato, "And we just kind of took turns with it after that. I mean, I don't know if _you_ have a preference – I only do sometimes – but you only complained once. And that was when we… were in Hitori's room… and… it was awkward…" His gaze wandered away to the side before snapping back to Kanda's face, a smile playing on his lips. "We can try it both ways if you want."

"I said no sex."

"Yet. You said no sex _yet_."

"Che."

"That means the answer might be yes in ten minutes." As if to prove his point Allen captured Kanda's mouth again, laid enough weight on the older boy's hips for him to whine into the contact, because even if Kanda was against it Allen might find a way to drive him to it. When they parted he found the expression on Kanda's face somewhat comforting – he had come a long way in a week, to say the least.

"Well, if you won't let me lay you can I at least have a slightly more enthusiastic kissing partner? You haven't even touched anything but my butt."

"I like touching your butt."

"You admit it!"

Kanda rolled his eyes and gave a quiet che before tugging Allen down against his chest. "Either kiss more or hold still so I can read."

"Ass…"

0x0x0x0

Hiroko pouted childishly from the sofa, arms folded across her bosom while she glowered. Her angelically arched right eyebrow twitched righteously at the womanizing general across from her, her small fingers curled around the pommel of her katana. She _hated_ him. She had never hated him more than she did right now. She could just yank out her sword and hack him into tiny little chunks to relieve a fraction of the anger boiling in her gut, the ire burning in her soul. He was just so… irksome and annoying and _manly_.

_Shut the fuck up,_ She thought at herself. _He's as manly as Whore-chan making that kicked puppy face._

General Cross Marian skillfully pushed the needle through the fabric of the blue yukata, stitches perfectly spaced and even, a tiny smile playing on his lips as he worked. He was just so _good_ at what he was doing – absolutely immaculate – that she couldn't _help_ but hate him more than any creature she had ever before encountered. And at the same time she wanted to do something… exceedingly sexual and dominating, like throw open her yukata and stick a leg on the table.

But she _would not_ do that. He was Cross Fucking Marian! Sitting down and sewing a kimono for his disciple did not wipe him of man-whore-hood!

"Is something wrong, Hiro?" He asked in a casual voice, it almost made her gasp. "You look flustered."

Her twitching eyebrow danced a little more rapidly. "I am _not_ flustered. I am plotting your death."

"Do you always blush when you think of killing men? Or only the ones you find attractive?"

"Neither. And if I did I won't blush at an ass-faced girl like you."

"Ass-faced? That's a new one."

"Shut up and sew, _woman_."

His lips cocked in a half smile and he pulled the thread expertly through the fabric, seemingly satisfied with the action. "I'm not doing this for your boy-daughter and I'm not doing it for my idiot. I'm doing it because if I didn't the hems would be crooked and you would be in a foul mood all the way back to England."

"We aren't going for a week."

"It'll take a week to redo what you sewed."

"You will not!"

"This kimono is beautiful! Would you _really_ put it on my filthy disciple with crooked hems?! Give him a _chance_ to look good, Hiro."

"I pinned that so straight it made Yuu-kun _blush_ to be near it! There is nothing crooked about my hems!"

"If you weren't a woman I would punch you."

"If you weren't a man I would share stitching techniques!"

"Damn it, Hiro stop saying things that make me want to be ungentlemanly!"

"You _aren't_ gentlemanly to begin with so it doesn't matter if I do!"

Cross sat the kimono aside and placed a booted foot on the table edge and leaned across it to take her by the front of her yukata. He was somewhat surprised when he didn't find himself impaled or gutted. Instead there were small fingered hands on his elbows, tentatively playing on his skin. He noticed after a moment that Hiroko's knees hardly even graced the tabletop.

"If you keep this up, Hiro." He said softly, pressing her forehead to his lips. "I'll have to start calling you _sama_."

"Fucking man-whore." Yet, even as she cursed him, she leaned up to accept the kiss he offered. It wasn't a matter of _wanting_ to kiss him; it was simply proving that – if he did try something – she would not lay back and let him do what he wanted, she would fight. She would declare war on his body and she would win.

When his hand loosened on the fabric of her clothes her hands followed the curve of his arms before moving to his hips, opposite arm curled unthinkingly behind her back, drawing her closer.

And then the kiss broke.

"You _really_ need to stop yelling at me." He whispered in a sultry sort of voice, fingers dancing on her spine. Kissing her and not having her was maddening. She didn't get it. He had never wanted anyone the way he wanted her.

She shrugged, giving him a smirk that reminded him vaguely of Komui mixing potions. "Then stop saying things to make me yell."

"You want to blame _me_ for this?"

"Che! Who else can I blame?! No one else is insulting my hems thank you _very_ much. Now let go of my back before someone finds me on the table."

She seethed at the eyebrow he cocked at her, the suggestive glint in his eye. God she _hated_ him.

"Before I do that Hiro, you may want to _let go_ of me."

"Oh, right."

0x0x0x0

Crowley had been picked up by Lenalee in the hall while Miranda tagged along from outside of Kanda's room – she still thought it was hers sometimes though it was hard to say why. Now, after talking casually about Lavi and the weather and the fact that Miranda still hadn't met Ty-chan, the three tromped into room 126 with wide smiles and merry chimes of hello.

But the bed was empty.

"Well," Crowley said with a smile. "How about we all grab some food and then try his room?"

Lenalee shrugged. "Alright."

0x0x0x0

"My room! It's been so long!" Lavi chimed, twirling as quickly as his right leg would let him. "Oh, my plant looks nearly dead. But the rest is the same!" Much to Tyki's amusement Lavi lumbered from the door to his bookshelf and proceeded to wet a rather dilapidated looking houseplant with water so stale it was almost moldy. Then, with a winning grin at his lover, he sank down on his disused bedspread and patted it in invitation.

Tyki smiled at him and slowly crossed the space between his place just inside the door and the bed. The room was slightly longer than it was wide, the walls thick stone just like the rest of the Tower, the floor the same. Lavi didn't have a rug. There were two bookshelves, a desk, a bed, a dresser, and an upright wardrobe, that was it. The redhead's room – to put it plainly – was boring.

"You could use another chair, dear." He said lightly, letting his gaze wander back to the boy beside him. He could see that the bandage over his chest was gone – Lavi had left an extra button undone as if to bring attention to it – and a perfectly straight pink line was all that remained of the grievous gash that had marred his left cheek. And he was walking, even if it was with a cane.

He was well.

Every second since they had left the medical wing had been torture for Tyki. The smiles Lavi gave, the sound of his voice, the way he wiggled his headband because he wasn't used to it anymore – it all reminded him that he _wanted_ the boy, and being reminded made his hand itch to touch Lavi's skin again. Logic told him that the first thing on his lover's mind upon leaving would not be sating his drive to have him, so he swallowed the growing desire as best he could and clenched his fists so that his nails dug into his palms.

But it didn't help.

Lavi threw himself back on his bed, breathing in a sigh that make Tyki shake with yearning. The rise and fall of his chest alone was seductive. The fall of his hair was unfathomably attractive, the turn of his chin like something a god would envy. Tyki's breath hissed through his teeth so he wouldn't launch himself forward and take what he wanted.

"Well Ty-chan, the only furniture I find absolutely necessary is the bed." He smiled at the horrified expression that got him. "How about we put it to use, hm?"

"You want – to sleep?" Tyki ground out the words in a way that made Lavi frown.

"Not really. Are you ok, Ty-chan?" The redhead pushed himself up on his left arm, which made the white fabric of his loosely buttoned shirt hang down his chest in the dim light. It was almost more skin than Tyki could stand to look at without touching.

**I WANT. NOW.**

His nod was an obvious lie. Lavi watched the Noah purposely shift his head so his bangs fell down over his eyes, blocking the rapidly changing color of his irises from sight. Without a thought for his own safety or worry for his lover's sanity, Lavi reached out and took the older man by the shirt collar and yanked him down beside him, at once rewarded with a gasp and a hand on his shoulder. He took advantage of the space between his lover's teeth, slipping his tongue hurriedly into the gap with a needy shiver. He heard the man above him hum almost questioningly and growled back, right hand sinking into the man's hair while his left toyed with the buttons of his lover's shirt.

_It's been so long…_ He thought at the feel of a palm on his stomach, pressed up from under his shirt. They broke to breathe before coming back again, the fingers of Lavi's left hand working as hurriedly as they could at the fabric that separated them. _It's not even because I want to do it, I want… him. I want to feel him…_ _I want to—_ The thought died at the press of teeth on his bottom lip, the pain drawing a gasp from his throat. He felt himself respond to it – positively – but fear clamped his heart in his chest and his hand clenched in his lover's hair, the taste of blood on his tongue made his stomach lurch. Before he knew what had become of his hands they were pressed against his lover's shoulders, holding him back, his lungs pulling in air and thrusting it out again as if he had not breathed in minutes. Tyki blinked down at him with wide eyes and lifted his eyebrows.

"Did I perhaps do something that is no longer to your liking?" He inquired in a husky whisper with a tender touch to Lavi's face. "Tell me, _Amante._ I am uncertain if I have the will to stop myself."

The redhead wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and shook his head, features pale. "I'm ok just… no blood for a while. I start thinking things I shouldn't think."

"If you make me promise to wait, I can."

"No, you'll go crazy. I'm fine."

"No biting?"

"No bleeding."

Tyki lowered his face enough to daintily touch the skin of his lover's forehead, right thumb caressing the skin of his cheek. "I don't want to hurt you. Do not _let_ me hurt you. Whatever happens, _tell_ me if what I'm doing is bad so I can do something else."

"I will, Ty-chan. I'm sorry. I didn't know I would… be like this." He hugged his lover tightly for a moment, forcing down the fear that had gripped him. He needed to breathe in this man's scent and use it to dispel the memory of blood shed and torture – because Tyki was safe. Even if he wasn't entirely harmless he was safe. "But I'm ok. I'm with you, so I'm ok."

Tyki placed his lips softly on the warm junction of neck and shoulder, curling his arms under his lover to lie against him. "Whatever you think is best is what I will do. It's been so _long_…" He let the thought go unvoiced at the feel of the hands that held him slipping to his shirt buttons again. He was not sure if Lavi was ready for this, or if he was, but he pulled back enough to see the redhead nod and smile. "But I don't want you to do this if it's just for me."

"Ty-chan, how long has it been since we had sex?"

"Um…"

"No, not um. It's been _eleven_ days nine hours and forty two minutes. In other words, way the hell too long. Now off with the shirt so I can _do_ something."

"I still do not think you are well enough for this."

"If we don't do this now, what will happen tonight when your other half gets horny?"

With a crooked smile Tyki responded honestly, "I don't know."

"Then let's do this and be nice about it, ok?" He pushed the fabric of his lover's shirt to the floor, running his hands down the front of the older man's chest. That alone made him feel so much better. Having his hands free made him want to grin. "It may not be the best we've ever done, but if I leave on the leg brace and you don't punch me in the ribs, I think we'll be ok."

"When have I ever punched you in the ribs?"

Lavi missed the teasing quality to his words and pouted up at Tyki, palms on his abdomen. "You haven't but you might some day, King of Deviance."

Tyki blanched. "Where did you hear that?"

"A dream I had a long time ago. Not important at the moment. Would you stop leaning over me sideways so I can touch you properly?" He pushed himself back with his left foot, yanking the other man sideways as if to hint at where he wanted him. "If we're going to _do_ this I want to do it right. Ok?"

"Dear." Tyki pushed Lavi's hands aside as he spoke, seeming amused.

"What? Ty-chan! Don't push me off I really want to—"

"Then we should lie on the bed correctly, should we not?"

Lavi felt like groaning at the suggestion but let Tyki pull him up into a sitting position all the same, his chest and leg still protesting. The Head Nurse had told him his bones were more or less solid again, though why it would happen so quickly was well beyond her understanding as a physician. She also did not understand why, though many of his lacerations and broken bones had mended, his bruised ribs remained bruised, as did the numerous other contusions on his back and legs. A miracle, she deemed it, but it seemed only half-complete. If God thought to grace him with good fortune why not make him entirely better? Why not make Tyki human? Why not so many other things? Resting on his weight on his torso made him think that this was not God's doing anymore than it was Komui's. Unless he had a twisted sense of humor.

"The bandages might be gone but you are still hurting a lot." Tyki observed when he pushed himself off of the mattress and moved the cane that Lavi had left leaning on the bed frame. He leaned the crutch against the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, watching his lover rearrange himself with a sympathetic expression. "The dark and I do not want to make it worse."

The redhead leaned back on his dusty pillow with a trembling sigh, expression determined. "You won't make it worse, I promise."

Tyki quickly captured his lover's lips. The dark still _wanted_ but it had remembered that it loved this young man just as much as it could, so it had eased its demands to something of a gentle chorus of suggestions in the back of his mind. Yes, it still urged him to kiss Lavi, and to place his fingers just on the boy's chest, but it was his own desire that drove him to deepen the action, opposite hand pressed into the blanket by Lavi's shoulder. It was also his own fear that made him pull away at a whine in his lover's throat.

He looked down at the flushed Bookman apprentice and blinked at him in question, picking at his shirt. He really did _want_ him.

"Are you alright?" Tyki's tone was perfectly soothing, his expression worried.

Lavi nodded but his lover could see through the lie. "I want to do this, Ty-chan. If I don't do it now it will only be harder to next time. And… it's not fair to you." He explained with a hard swallow. "And it does not hurt that bad."

"Trying to convince me, or you?"

"Neither. I'm stating a fact."

Tyki gripped the fabric of his lover's shirt and slipped it off, ignoring the sound of protest when it passed right through Lavi's fingers and landed soundlessly on the floor. He could plainly see the dark marks on the boy's skin, some of them faded to yellow or pale blue, others still black. It made him angry. It made the dark angry. He hadn't made those bruises. The only one who was supposed to make bruises was him.

"Lavi…" His voice was a whisper between them. "How can you even _consider_ doing this with how much it will _hurt_?"

To his surprise, the redhead smiled. "I like being hurt, remember? Besides, it's not like I don't _want_ you or anything. You sitting there all shirtless and unshaven and concerned – I could handle myself just looking at you, but you might die watching."

"Lavi!"

"See? Just talking about it makes you feel scandalized."

Tyki turned so his left leg was placed just between Lavi's knees; his right knee on the outside of his lover's left. That way if he placed weight on the body beneath of him, the good leg would feel the pinch. "I won't let you do that." He laid his lips on the underside of Lavi's jaw, sucking lightly at the tender flesh there. He heard Lavi hum at him and felt hands curl into his hair, a contented sigh and a lazy smile came next.

If Lavi kept up the little sounds of enjoyment, Tyki's ego would swell to the size of a small walrus.

His lover's inaction did not bother Tyki in the slightest. This, in his mind, was better than the redhead trying to kiss his lips directly off of his face like he had on the train – indeed it was safer for both of them. While his mouth trailed a hot line of open kisses down Lavi's battered chest his mind could be on keeping him pleased, not keeping him from being hurt, and his right hand could wander the narrow curve of a hip instead of holding back arms that would be broken all too easily. Vaguely he wondered if it was better for Lavi also, to have his hands placed just so he could stop them at any moment rather than in a position that drove Tyki onward. Things were slower, but what were a few more moments after eleven days?

"Ty-chan?" The name made his eyes flick from the dark hollow of Lavi's navel to his closed left eye. He laid two more fleeting kisses just above the line of his pants before ascending to his face again.

"Yes, Lavi?" He turned his attention to the dangling silver hoop on his lover's left ear, toying with it rather enthusiastically before burying his face in the turn of Lavi's neck. "Should I stop?"

"No, it's great. I've been thinking, how come you call it 'the dark and I'?" His tone was perfectly conversational, and the fact that his hands stayed on Tyki's skin made the Noah feel more comfortable. "You _are_ the darkness, aren't you? That and whatever is left of you from before it woke up are what make you who you are, right? So shouldn't it just be _'me'_?"

Tyki chuckled before pulling back from his licking to run a hand through Lavi's hair. He liked that hair. "Nothing I do is decided by only one half of me or the other – usually. I am two things with one purpose."

"What's the purpose?"

"It was to destroy the world. Now it is simply to survive so I can be with you."

"That's…" Lavi left it, not willing to take credit for the changes in his lover. "But when you say that, do you mean so both of you can be with me?"

Tyki nodded into the younger man's neck, eyes closed. "We both love you. Would you cast the dark aside because it still wants to kill humans? It doesn't work that way. Even if I _can_ stop being the Noah of Pleasure, I don't want to. I would feel empty. And it would hurt the person who inherited this God-awful voice that keeps reminding me that I want to have you right _now_."

"Ty-chan," The redhead guided his lover's face from his neck upward so he could place a plaintive kiss on his lips. "I love you how you are, no matter what that includes. Now let's get along with showing it, shall we?"

"Gladly, dear."

0x0x0x0

Hitori was reading his book again – the same one from seven days prior – when Sable draped her arms around his shoulders and leaned into the side of his head, snuggling. He cracked a smile at it, suddenly incapable of reading the words before him.

"What? I don't get touched _all_ morning and now you want to cuddle with me?" He inquired with a lift of his eyebrows. She tried to look miffed.

"No… I was just walking passed and had the urge to hug you. Is that so impossibly hard to believe?"

"Yes."

Sable curled her arms more tightly and sighed into his hair, emerald eyes looking at his book after a moment. She wouldn't argue with him – which was odd, she argued with everyone – about if she had indeed been coming to see what was outside and simply _had_ to touch him. It was true and he knew it.

"Hitori."

"Sable."

"I really like you."

The Japanese boy put his book on the table with a laugh, turning his gray eyes to her with a smile. In the sunlight she thought his gaze might have been pale blue, not the dead shade of his mother's. Like thin topaz over pearl. She liked looking at them because no matter how he felt or what he was thinking, they never changed.

"Attempting a confession?"

"No, trying to convince you once again that you shouldn't join the Order."

"Because you like me?"

"Because I don't want you to die."

Hitori reached out with his arms and pulled her close, grinning lopsidedly at how she stealthily slipped onto his lap, her embrace changing as she went. It was dangerous, having her like that. It made him wonder if self control was really worth it.

"Sabe, I'm not going to die."

"You will if you volunteer to be a Finder."

"Who said I was that stupid?" He said with a grin. Even if they were both wearing pants, just knowing that she was _right there_, on his _lap_ was almost enough to send him groping for her cleavage. _Stop it,_ He thought with a slight exhalation of breath, _She's being serious. Just tell her what you're planning._ "Would I be reading half of this crap if I wanted to be a _Finder_?"

"No. But the likelihood of you _and_ your brother being accommodators is ridiculous."

"One in roughly forty-two and a half billion." He chimed for her benefit.

"Wow. That makes me feel special." She smiled at him for a moment while her hands lost themselves in his hair; it was always so soft she wanted to touch it. "But if you don't want to be a Finder and the odds are against you being an Exorcist, what's with all the reading? With how you're going at it, I'd think you wanted Komui's job." She didn't give him time to respond; instead she leaned in to kiss him, glad of the arms that hooked around her back to steady her.

Hitori hoped that maybe, someday, she wouldn't kiss him at the end of a question, but for now it was fine. She already knew the answer anyways. And having her mouth against his kept him from saying anything stupid. It didn't keep his hands from wandering down her back though.

"Hito…" She said in that same warning whisper she always used.

"Sorry." His hands stayed where they were.

"Every time you do that I think you're _trying_ to make me do something idiotic. It's too soon, Hon."

"I know," He shook his head though, and closed his eyes to the way she ran her fingers through his bangs. "I wouldn't try to make you do something you don't want to. I love you." His lips parted and his blue-gray eyes snapped open at the sound of his own voice, arms suddenly rigid. He looked up at Sable, who looked down from her perch on his knees with an expression of mild amusement. That wasn't what he had meant to say, at least not with everything it meant, but he wasn't going to take it back. There was no taking that back, even if it fell out of his mouth at the most awkward of moments. "Oops?"

Sable chuckled at him, leaning down to just touch the side of his mouth with hers. "Oh? That's nice."

He sighed out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "You aren't going to kill me, are you?"

"Pfft. No, but I'm not going to say it back either. I like you a lot, that's all I'm saying."

"Ok. Wanna get off so I can go quietly die in the bathroom really fast?"

Sable giggled at him and the sound made his fears slip gently away. "No. If you're going to die, I'd rather be right here to try and stop you."

0x0x0x0

"_Moyashi!"_ Kanda's left hand caught Allen's shirt again and the samurai used it to yank him upward – away from that sensitive place next to his navel. It was obvious to him now that if they had not slept together they had come implausibly close; Allen knew every nerve to touch and place to breath on to have him panting in a number of moments. By the time he dragged his lover's face back up to look at him the tightness of his pants was more than annoying – and entirely the silver haired boy's fault. "What the hell are you trying to do to me?! I told you _no_."

"You never said I can't try to change your mind, Love. Besides, you _are_ enjoying yourself, aren't you?" As if to prove his point Allen ran his left hand across the fabric of Kanda's leg, watched as the touch made him tense. "Please, let me… I won't do anything but use my hands. I promise." He tilted his head at Kanda's face, blinking. "Why do you look like you don't know if you should laugh or cry? Love, really I—" His right hand was sailing determinedly for Kanda's belt but the Japanese Exorcist caught it before it could get there, grip sure.

His eyes, when Allen looked, were perhaps as serious as he had ever seen them. Crying and vomiting, not laughing. That's how he looked.

"Listen to me, Moyashi." Kanda said darkly. "I may not hate you, I may be fine with kissing, but I won't let you do that. Not until I figure this out."

"Kanda…"

"I mean it. Until I can honestly tell how I feel I don't want you to do that. It's not fair."

"Life's not fair."

"Che. No is no, Moyashi." He said sternly. "I'm not going to use you like that."

Allen lifted an eyebrow at that, pulling his hands back to his stomach and sitting on his knees. He might have looked the picture of innocence – shaggy hair around his face, slight blush, loose shirt hanging around his shoulders, one sleeve covering his right arm – if Kanda hadn't been there for what he had just caused. "I wouldn't mind."

Kanda's face turned the color of bleached parchment. _"Baka_._"_ He took hold of Allen's wrist and jerked him forward without mind to his injuries. The British boy hit his chest with slightly more force than he had intended but Kanda did not allow that to phase him; he wound his left arm behind the boy's neck and his left around his hips, allowing his body to press against his lover's warmth with all the passion it wanted. He still could not explain it but Allen looking at him with that expression – somewhere between loving and lusting – he couldn't stand to let him sit there. "Give me time, that's all I need." He tried not to break Allen's spine when he felt warm tears fall against his shoulder.

"I know," He replied softly, drawing his knees up on either side of Kanda's hips. Like this he could feel his lover's heartbeat as if it were his own, his breath as if they shared lungs. But it didn't help. He wanted Kanda to tell him he loved him again, to show it with more than caresses and bone crushing hugs, but he wasn't going to get it. It was worse this way than it would be if Kanda used him, at least then he could pretend. "I just… it's so difficult. What am I supposed to do? Tell you everything that happened again and hope you remember? Have you describe how you feel? I can't just _sit_ here and do nothing until you remember that you… what we were. It… hurts to try it."

Kanda nodded into him, stroking at his hair with his left hand. "I hate not knowing what this is. I hate hurting you. I hate it when you cry. I hate _me_ for not letting you do what you want, even though I know I'm trying not to make it worse. I'm sorry." Kanda turned his head against Allen's cheek and breathed him in; trying to sooth the feeling that if things kept going how they were the boy in his arms would slip right through his grasp no matter how tight he held him. "I really am sorry."

"It's ok, Love." Allen sobbed as quietly as he could manage. "I'm still yours."

"Mine?"

'_Mine.'  
'You don't have to bruise me for me to know that.'_

"Forever."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**So! This chapter was mostly to fill you in on what has happened in the seven days that have passed since 78. It feels hollow, but it's not really.**

**I think there will be a lemon next chapter. Oops.**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	80. Worry and Like

**It's only long because I didn't want to rob you of fluff and a lemon. I swear.**

**Allen is a ****little OOC**** this chapter, I am sorry. It had to happen because that was how he reacted in my mind and it was too cute to pass up using. 8D**

**Angsty beginning. Because someone actually said that it wasn't the same without it. (jk)**

**I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lavi cosplay would be cheaper to get DAMMIT!**

**WARNINGS: YAOI LEMON. GRR.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Worry and Like

Kanda held Allen for what felt like hours, running his fingers slowly through those silver locks, no longer speaking with words. He remembered sitting this way before, on a ship, only he had been more than willing to take off his clothes then. His mind was a jigsaw puzzle of memories that refused to connect to each other if even by a single thread for even a single moment. He was at their mercy. One thought, one idea was missing from every one of them and he couldn't name it – and not knowing what it was, not understanding why he wanted nothing more than to make Allen smile – was chewing away at him. As horrible as it was he wanted nothing more than to do whatever it took to make his lover happy.

He wanted to be strong and say that things would improve on their own. He wanted to pretend that he knew what he felt even if it was a lie, if only to please Allen.

But really, that wasn't what Allen wanted.

So he gave up remembering. He gave up holding back. He buried his face in Allen's shoulder and let himself cry into the fabric of his shirt, quietly at first, sobs shaking his shoulders as he let go. He felt Allen try to retreat in surprise and curled his fingers in the fabric of his clothes, quivering with strain and hurt, incapable of controlling his reactions. He didn't know why he had done any of it. He didn't know why he did it now. He didn't understand himself. The only thing he understood was fear.

And hate.

"Kanda?" Allen asked softly, running his palms up and down his back in the most soothing way he could manage. It seemed almost spontaneous to Allen that one moment Kanda would be wondering what he meant and then clenching him so desperately the next. He wound his arms as tightly as he could around Kanda's back and pressed his face into the side of his own, just so his lover would feel the beat of his eyelashes on his cheek. "Love, are you alright? Kanda?"

The Japanese man tried to nod but he figured the motion was lost with a suddenly violent wave of tears. _Mine,_ He thought distantly, hardly comprehending the word. _He's mine. But it's more than that. He's only mine. And I… I'm his. Oh God, what have I forgotten?_

"Moyashi?" He mumbled into the boy's clothes, "You're… mine, aren't you?"

"Yes. That's the idea. And you're mine."

"But it's more than that. It's not ownership."

"No, it's not."

"I _need_ you. That's not it, but it's part of it. You said to me… in the snow… that your heart would die if I did and I think I… I think…" He sobbed again, painfully, and Allen wept with him. He was just as lost by Kanda's reaction as Kanda was, just as terrified. He wanted to help anyway he could but he could not see a way. He silently listened. "I don't know _why_ I need you only that I do. I want to know why. It will drive me insane if I don't figure it out. But… you're here and I…"

"Don't talk Love; you hurt yourself every time you talk."

"Che. I hurt _you_ when I don't talk. That's worse."

Allen turned his tearstained face so he could kiss the side of his lover's mouth but a pair of lips met his instead, strongly enough to turn his arms to jelly if he let go. It was sloppy, broken by a moan based only on emotion, but Allen still used it as an excuse to hold the back of his lover's head in his hand and press it against him, wishing that somehow, someway, they could be closer.

"I love you." Allen whispered. "I love you more than anything. More than akuma, more than people – more than _food_. It doesn't matter if you don't remember love, or if you don't understand it, and it doesn't matter that you feel like you're falling apart right now. What matters is that we will get through this. I won't let you go. You're _mine_." As if to punctuate that statement he rocked forward a little, pressing Kanda into the pillows. "Even if you hurt me, even if it takes years, I won't stop. So don't talk anymore. Don't try to fix it when you can't."

Kanda didn't protest. His back slumped against the pillows and his arms pulled Allen down with him, refusing to let go. Eventually he lay wrapped in his lover's arm, eyes closed, shivering from head to toe, and he did not know how to think his way out of it. He could not retract his emotions from the situation like he normally did simply because the situation revolved around his emotions. Logic had no meaning. No matter the cost, no matter the pain, no matter that lack of understanding behind it, he needed to stay where he was in Allen's arms.

Because they were his arms too. They were his and they would hold him.

That thought somehow made him happy.

He snuggled into the British boy in wordless thanks. It took him a long time to clear his head enough to think, but once the words were there they came easily to mind, each one more sure than the last. _Even if I don't understand it, even if I'm not sure, it doesn't matter. Whatever I did and why doesn't matter, what matters is what I do now. Why I do it now._ His right thumb rubbed back and forth across the white haired boy's back, just across the base of his spine. _And the truth is that right now there is nothing more important than him – why he's more important shouldn't be a problem, should it?_ He swallowed hard, having at last defeated the tears that would undoubtedly leave his eyes swollen and puffy and perfectly mock-able if Hito saw them.

_I think I might…_

"Allen." His voice was rough; his attempt at simply speaking came out more like an angry grunt.

The boy didn't answer.

"Allen?" He opened his tear sore eyes and glanced down at his lover, fingers at once pushing back the hair that draped over the British boy's face. Sleeping. The Moyashi was sleeping on him, arms still rigid, quicksilver irises hidden behind lids so delicate Kanda might have been able to guess what he was dreaming. To Kanda he seemed perfectly peaceful, too fragile to be disturbed for something like his thoughts. They had been through so much, fought so hard, anyone would want to fall asleep after that so Kanda didn't blame him, indeed he thought it seemed like a good idea for the time being.

When he spoke again it was just loud enough he could hear himself if he tried. "Moyashi-kun," His fingers glided slowly through Allen's hair even when it was gone from his forehead. "I think I… might... but still," He laid his lips softly on Allen's face, closing his eyes. _I have to be sure. For your sake, not mine._

* * *

Lavi grinned at the feel of Tyki's hands on his hips, the press of his mouth on the skin of his throat, and allowed his hands to wander across Tyki's chest without aim. He hadn't had the chance to find all of the special places on the older man's body that he wanted to, but he knew enough in theory to just let his fingers find them – using his tongue would have to wait for another day though, so for now he watched and felt.

He toed off his right slipper and shook off the left, a moment later the sound of falling shoes came to his ears. _He doesn't even have to untie them; just let them fall through his feet,_ He thought at the touch of a bare foot against his.

The more he looked at Tyki the safer he felt. The man had been a constant in his life since the day he had dreamed of his betrayal, which looking back seemed impossible. Not only had Tyki lied for him, he had also turned his back on the only family he had and essentially damned himself, and now he was holding back in little ways to keep Lavi happy. It made him a little sad, to think of everything the Noah had done for him and how little he had done in return. He wanted to make it fair.

"Lavi," Tyki murmured into his shoulder and he ran his fingers over Lavi's inner left thigh, making him gasp and shiver. "Your mind is wandering."

"S-sorry." The redhead realized with the word that he had been holding his breath, his hands fisting in Tyki's hair. He let a lopsided smile flit across his lips while his finger's guided Tyki's mouth to his, kissing them softly before speaking again in a softer voice. "I was just thinking about how great you've been to me and all and was thinking – _Ty-chan!"_ A leg brushed against the crotch of his pants, his hands clamped once more, this time on his lover's shoulders. He hadn't expected to be that aroused – indeed he had been so consumed by his thoughts he had hardly noticed his physical reaction to what was going on, now it was all he could focus on. The lips that teased his left nipple immediately brought a plaintive moan to his throat, his spine curving away from the bed for more. He panted at his lover, somewhat annoyed by the perfectly mischievous smile the older man wore, and lifted his hips upward in a wordless plea. "Ty-chan… I wasn't… paying attention…" He gasped out. Tyki hummed against his chest and sank lower, nipping as he went. "If you don't… start now…"

He heard the zipper of his pants come open.

"On you I mean! It's been so long I'll—"

"It's fine Lavi, if you don't have plans we can do this all day." Tyki spoke just loudly enough for him to hear, jerking Lavi's pants to his knees. "I don't care if it only takes you two minutes the first time." Tyki watched Lavi's flushed face nod at him, eye hooded, and slowly lowered his lips to the space between inner thigh and pelvis.

* * *

"_Ty-chan!"_ The call sounded just before Lenalee's fist could hit the wood of the door and she stopped the motion in surprise. That was Lavi's voice, but the tone quality was off, almost like a scream but too cheerful. It was odd. She glanced back over her shoulder at the other two waiting guests and raised an eyebrow.

"Did you hear something?"

"_Oh God! Aaah!"_

She _definitely_ heard that.

Crowley allowed his narrow face to fall into his hands and proceeded to message his forehead with his fingers. "You don't think they're—"

"_Ty-chan!"_

"I think we should come back at a different time!" Lenalee said with a forced smile. Her vampire-like friend nodded, an obvious shiver running down his spine. She turned to Miranda with the same artificial grin, intending to guide her away from the door as easily as Crowley, but the woman wasn't looking at her. Miranda's great dark eyes were focused only on the wood of the door, her thin hands pulled up to her mouth in an expression of deepest fear. Slowly, she blinked at it.

"Um…" She started, placing her hands delicately on her neck. "You don't think that maybe he's hurt?"

There was another wave of whimpers and a low moan, then a sound like a whine. Miranda took a step toward the door.

Crowley cleared his throat and stoically spoke to her, taking her trembling hand between his. "That is _not_ a hurt sound, Miranda."

"Really? He sounds like he's dying…"

"_Oh God!"_

Lenalee placed herself between Miranda and the door, incapable of fighting the quickly spreading blush on her cheeks. Behind her the door continued to produce incomprehensive sounds of anything but agony.

"_Don't! Don't stop!"_

Miranda tilted her head, a thought coming out of her mouth as soon as it crossed her mind. "Maybe he likes it?"

Lenalee nodded. "I think he does… Miranda, let's go to the library and have a chat, ok?" She patted the smaller woman on the shoulder and smiled at Crowley's second shiver. "You've never… I mean… it's none of my business but – do you have _any_ idea what's going on in there?" As she asked she guided them down the hall much too slowly for her liking; Miranda's feet seemed unwilling to leave the space in front of Lavi's door. "At all?"

Miranda shook her head, fear clouding her face. "N-no. Why? Did I – did I miss something important?"

The Chinese girl smiled at her as reassuringly as she could hope to and turned them down the hall toward the library. "No, I think between Crowley and I we can – huh?" She looked to where Crowley had been a moment before and saw nothing but air. Scared away. The poor guy couldn't stand the thought of helping. "Well... I guess I'll tell you myself."

* * *

Tyki pinned Lavi's hips against the mattress, lips closed around the top of him, tongue slipping wetly over his hot skin. His pace was almost too slow, sucking and caressing and brushing softly with his teeth before starting the cycle over with slightly more intensity. The apprentice Bookman had changed his grip to his orange blanket they laid on after only a few moments, when his fingers tugged too strongly on his lover's hair for his own liking. He twisted the fabric in his hands and tilted his head back, growling.

"Ty-chan… I'm so… I'm… don't…" His lover hummed his acknowledgement, sending ripples of pleasure dancing up his spine. The redhead bucked as much as his left leg would let him and the Noah accepted as much of him as he could, working hurriedly now that Lavi had shown his need. It took only a few tense moments and a startled yell for the younger man to slide over the edge of his climax, sweating and breathing as if he had run a mile in the heat. Tyki swallowed hurriedly and pushed himself up on one arm, leaning in to lick the warm flesh of his lover's neck.

Lavi caught Tyki's shoulder with his left hand and held him back, eye suddenly wide as he panted. He breathed deeply for a moment, sucking air in and releasing it as quickly as his lungs would let him, face blanched with obvious fear. Tyki's face soon reflected worry instead of desire.

"Lavi, are you alright?" He came closer to his lover, watching him gasp, hands at once moving him to something closer to a sitting position. "Should I get someone? Or…"

Lavi shook his head but coughed into his shoulder all the same, a wheeze Tyki had never heard him make before followed. His reddened cheeks grew slowly paler until the episode passed entirely, leaving him somewhat winded and weak against Tyki's arms. The Noah watched the Exorcist fight to swallow, fear of what had happened before driving the inhuman need from his veins and leaving him nothing but worry, nothing but the memory of death that still lingered fresh in his mind. He could never forget what almost happened outside the gate to the Tower.

"I'm… ok…" Lavi managed, bringing his right hand to his forehead. "I'm alright now. Really." He wiped his mouth on the back of his other hand and tried to smile, a small bout of coughs breaking the illusion. "Just a… minute and I'll stop, I swear…"

Tyki sighed at him before kissing the skin of his lover's forehead, half smiling. "You still have bruises dear, even internally. It is enough for now."

"Wha'cha mean?" He pushed his eyebrows up under his headband with a questioning look of dissatisfaction. Tyki almost laughed at his willingness to go on regardless of his obvious lack of physical ability.

"I mean we are stopping now. When the matron told you take it easy I do not believe she took into account what the two of us were likely to do."

"But Ty-chan, you—"

"Will be perfectly fine." Tyki blinked at him with brown eyes and kissed him again, this time on the lips. He tugged the younger man's fallen pair of pants back around his waist before he curled an arm behind his lover's shoulders and another under his knees, lifting him easily off of the mattress. "Move the blanket would you? I need another arm or you need another chair to do this properly."

"You could set me on the _floor_. I'm not an invalid."

"Lavi, move the blanket."

A reluctant hand came down and took the corner in its grasp before flinging it aside hurriedly, displacing an unhealthy amount of dust as it went. Lavi sighed at Tyki, pouting with every fiber of his being. The Portuguese man lowered him down on the sheets with a soft, human smile. "Puppy eyes -- or eye, rather -- will not make me do you dear, not matter how much you want me to."

"Weren't you the one who _wanted_ me so badly?"

Tyki leaned in to capture Lavi's mouth with his own aware that. Though the voice in his mind was not exactly silent, he was not overcome with the urge to have his way with him. It was a distant longing, a desire that would grow in days not heartbeats, and the licentious hand on his pants did not make it keener. He pulled back for a moment, running his fingers lovingly across the younger man's cheeks. "Tasting you counts." And his lips came back again, knee pushing into the mattress when he leaned against it for support. His lover caressed the back of his neck, dancing soft flames down the side of his jaw and across his shoulders, the hand that still held his belt tugged suggestively until his second leg joined the first.

After a long moment Lavi broke the kiss, still pulling on the leather strap in his hand. His voice was breathy but not near as bad as it had been before. "C'mon, Ty-chan… even if you're half-satisfied you still want me don't you?" He licked his upper lip and pushed his fingers over the top of his lover's belt, just barely into his pants. "I swear, if I get so I can't breathe I'll tell you. Just… please…" Tyki blinked at the suddenly sad expression on his lover's face, the glimmering tears in his eye. "Can we?"

"Lavi…" Tyki sank onto the bed and pulled the smaller man into his arms, fingers tracing his face and down his neck. Even if neither of them understood it but he could still see his lover's hands tremble. It was familiar, somehow, but he couldn't name it – he couldn't remember ever seeing someone look up at him with a perfectly round gaze and close jittering cold fingers on his. This didn't have to do with Lavi's bruises, it was something else, something worse, something dark that struck fear into his heart. "You're not remembering anything are you? Lavi?"

The boy's eye blinked at him as if he couldn't see. "No. I just had the sinking feeling that… I'd lose you." He jerked suddenly on Tyki's arm, yanking him closer. The Noah could smell the musky scent of fear on him, tempting. "Please, I feel… I don't want to be…" Tyki continued to frown at him because he could not see what was wrong.

"What? Lavi, you are so frightened. Tell me…"

"Ty-chan," He lurched forward, kicking his covers and smashing his sore leg beneath the healthy one, his right arm hooked around Tyki's back and forced him closer to the mattress with his arms, though the older man managed to hold himself up despite the assault. He looked up at his lover with a pale expression and brought his lips softly to Tyki's, breath shallow and hurried against the man's face. Tyki reached out in an attempted to gather Lavi up as quickly as he could, but the apprentice Bookman held himself slightly stiff in his grasp, looking at him with a hungry eye.

"Promise me." Tyki's hands fell slowly down Lavi's back. "That you will be fine.

Lavi nodded his head desperately. "I will be. I will. I promise. "Remind me that I'm… not..." _Alone_.

* * *

Allen woke a few hours later, groggy, left eye throbbing beneath its cover. Poking at it did not cause little spider webs of light to dance on the inside of his skull, so he did not think it could actually see yet – it was just complaining for the sake of it.

So he rolled over, arms falling into the cold, empty place his lover had occupied when he had drifted off so suddenly. He frowned at it. It seemed too much to hope that Kanda would still be there when he woke up – it was too soon. He would have to content himself with simply smelling the man's pillow or stealing one of his shirts for the time being.

He sighed and rolled his face onto Kanda's pillow, which crunched at his weight.

"Pillows aren't supposed to crunch." He whispered to himself with a frown. With a tiny groan he rolled himself up onto his arms and looked down at the supposedly soft cushion to see a piece of paper folded twice over – no name on it to tell him that it was meant for him to read. Nonetheless he sat back on his haunches and took the little note in hand with a grin, almost too reminded of leaving the Order all those months ago, and unfolded it as quickly as his fingers would let him.

The hand writing was quite a bit more crooked than what he remembered.

_Moyashi:_

_-kun_

_Got up, you were still out of it, and your stomach was like thunder. How do you sleep with that__  
thing? It's ridiculous how loud it is. Anyways, I figure that pit is empty so that's where I am.  
No,__ this doesn't mean anything, yes, I am worried. Don't even think of following me.  
_

_Before I forget – when we left the other day I think you wanted to bathe together. If you can  
promise me that there will be __no unwanted touching__ in the tub, I am willing to give it a shot.__  
Maybe seeing you naked will jog some memories or something. I don't know. Maybe I'm just  
a __pervert. Whatever. The point is you can stop grinning like an idiot and try to think up a way  
to not rape me_ _no matter how willing you __think__ I am. No arguing._

_We're poor. It may take a while to get food. Don't eat my clothes._

—_Kanda_

_P.S. That stupid rabbit brat always tells me my letters are depressing, so I hope you like the face.  
:-\_

Allen read it through twice, grinning like a small child in a candy store. This was the single happiest moment of his life – or at least it felt like it – and he wanted nothing more than to have Kanda walk in at that instant and see him smiling at it. Instead he turned the letter over in his hands, smoothing it for easier folding and keeping forever and ever and ever.

But there was writing on the back, in the middle of the page, just lightly enough for him to read it…

_Other side, dumbass.__  
Sorry.__  
You aren't dumb.  
And I like you._

"Haaaaa!" He clamped the paper to his chest and fell heavily back onto the blankets, ignoring the slight sting in his skin as he rolled from side to side, humming to himself in complete and utter glee. _He likes me! He likes me! Naked bath! _"Hee!" He reread the back note, sighing at it in complete delight. "_He_ likes _me!_ He _knows_ that he likes me!" He giggled again, completely lost in his own little world of happiness. "So much better than not hating. And a _naked bath!_"

He had to take deep breaths to keep from screaming his happiness in a Lenalee-like voice. It had never occurred to him that he would be _this_ affected by Kanda's realization of his feelings, but he wasn't frightened by it. It was a step. It wasn't a giant leap, but it was a step. "Yay…" He grinned at the ceiling, wishing he could keep his eyes from tearing he was so glad, and his chest from feeling tight. But he couldn't. He was going to cry again, this time for different reasons.

"Crap." He laid his right arm over his face, letting the soft material of his shirt soak up his tears. _I'm going to look like a panda…_

"Oi, Moyashi!" There was a thump on the door and a sound like scraping. "Open the door! If you're sleeping… sniff really hard so the smell will wake you up."

Allen fumbled his way off of the bed with just enough speed to trip his slightly unpracticed feet in the sheets of the bed. He fell forward with a yelp, bashing his chin on the floor but keeping the note to his chest, the bandage on his left eye came loose. "Ow…"

"Moyashi?" The door questioned.

"Just a sec. I tripped. Ow!"

Kanda weighed the plates of food in his hands, trying to find a way to open the door without putting them down. He was worried. He was more than worried. His heart was thudding away at his chest like someone had threatened to cut off his arm or something. "Allen?"

The British boy wiped at his scratched chin and heaved himself to his feet using the nightstand as a crutch, wobbly. Bandaged or not his back was bleeding again, he could feel it, and his hands were unsteady from the pain of it. "Hold on a sec… I don't want to bleed on anything."

"You're bleeding?!"

"Calm down Love, I'll be _fine_."

"What did you do?! Fallen on my Mugen?!"

"Kanda, give me some credit, I'm not entirely blind."

"Che. Will you open the door so I can _know_ you're alright?"

"How worried are you?"

"Worried enough to kick the door in if you don't hurry up and _open_ it."

At that moment, when Kanda was reaching with his right pinky into the never ending void that was his pants pocket, a shirtless, blushing, entirely too cheerful Allen threw open the door and smiled at him as if he did not have a new red mark on the underside of his chin. Kanda offered him the plate that had been hindering his right hand and glared at him – the expression was impossibly hard to maintain though. Glaring at that smile was like kicking a baby chicken with an oversized boot; it made him feel bad.

"Food!" Allen cheered at him, taking the dish. "From your note I thought you had climbed into my stomach or something."

"What? Don't be an idiot."

Allen hummed at him, flipping his hair away from his only seeing eye with a bend of his head. The bandage on the blind one was making his hair fall funny. "I'm not; you just need to learn to write better letters. I don't even know what this is and it smells so _good_. Where did you find it?" As he spoke the younger Exorcist took two steps back, lifting the food to his face and inhaling the scent with a smile. His stomach gave a sudden rumble.

"I didn't find it. It seems Okaasan is covering whatever bills your general charges so I put it on his tab." Kanda explained with a short shrug of annoyance. That struck Allen as odd. "Apparently she thinks blood loss and blindness takes you off of the list of people to push debts on."

"What about you? Or Sable and Hitori?"

Kanda showed no sign of caring that the names were paired together. "She knows I won't pay it. Hito's too young and Sable's a girl. It's not like she's broke, so don't worry about it." Allen turned away from him and waltzed slowly toward the bed, searching for something to pick up his food with besides his fingers. Kanda watched him without speaking, the wet gleam of fresh blood on the boy's bandages filled him with the desire to go and _fix_ him at that moment but he denied the urge, clenching the plate more tightly between his hands.

"I don't see a fork…"

"Che. I have chopsticks, and there's blood on your back." Kanda tried to keep his voice steady but Allen still glanced over his pale shoulder with a bright grin, an expression that started the samurai's heart pounding away in his chest enthusiastically. There was something horribly wrong with him. If there wasn't something wrong with him, Allen had learned to seduce him with nothing but a glance and that seemed silly, even if he liked him liking him and feeling a sudden surge of lust at his expression were two _very_ different things. He decided to stare at the stain on Allen's back rather than at his desirable expression.

That didn't help. He immediately thought about _fixing_ so he could go _back_ to lusting. His fingers shook against the ceramic plate.

"Kanda? You look kind of… like you're blushing." Allen commented. "If I'm bleeding you shouldn't be blushing."

'_Stop blushing, your body needs that blood.'_

"Kanda?"

'_Why don't you smile at me?'_

"Love?"

_Kanda stumbled across the kitchen, sinking to his knees when he came to Allen's side. He couldn't have hit Allen. He hadn't wanted to hit Allen. Yet the pool of blood around him was expanding by the moment, his already pale skin fading to a transparent white. His eyes were wide but closing, his hands clutched around the inch deep gash in his torso._

"Kanda? Love? Say something!"

'_Dammit, say something!'_

"Kan-da!" Allen hardly caught the plate as it slipped out of his lover's grasp, completely unthought-of. The sapphire eyes that looked down at him were too wide to be Kanda's, too scared, too soulless. He watched Kanda's face turn sideways at him, lips parting gently, before a hand came out and barely grazed the skin of Allen's chest, seeming to search for something.

"There's… no scar." His voice was too small for Allen's liking.

"What?"

"I cut you but there's no scar." His fingers traced the invisible line across Allen's skin, nostalgic gaze following the movement of his hand precisely. Kanda did not think about the fact that he was touching the British boy in such an intimate way nor did he notice the slight flare of color in his cheeks, instead a strange smile blossomed across his face and his hand came to rest on Allen's hip, lightly. "Do you… mind if I kiss you right now?" He was already leaning in and the little sound of encouragement Allen made drove him to step into his lover and connect their mouths as firmly as he could without knocking away the food.

He wanted it.

Kanda was not at all surprised when Allen allowed him to explore the expanse of his mouth nor was he deterred when his free hand cupped the warm flesh of the boy's neck to pull him closer. He was nervous – nearly scared – but he did not stop what he was doing until the plates began to teeter in Allen's hands. He pulled away, smoothing the bandage that Allen had displaced so horribly with his fall. _"Kireina."_ It was easier to say it if he knew the British boy wouldn't understand.

"_Ee? Honto?"_ Allen smiled up at the suddenly terrified pallor to his lover's skin. _"Aishiteru._ And now that that's out of the way… _Ikadekimashi?"_

"That's horrid. Give me a plate. I'll check your back after we eat."

* * *

Tyki gave in. He could not stand the way Lavi looked up at him, fretting, cold hands shaking, and he could not deny that tasting would only last him so long. He took the younger man's left wrist and pressed it into the pillow, clamoring over him with fire flowing in his veins. Whether his eyes were brown or black or gold he was unaware, but he felt something turn within him and take hold of his heart – but it wasn't a bad sensation, the Noah that live in him wanted to feel as well.

The dark man captured the redhead's mouth with his, urged by something other than his own will to touch the side of his lover's face with his free hand: the limb tingled. A shining green emerald of an eye stared at him when the kiss broke and an icy hand took a firm hold of his side in a desperate effort to feel him, a shock of electricity followed the touch through his ribs and down his spine. He breathed softly against Lavi's forehead before turning his face down to place his lips gently against the smaller man's.

**I still want, you know. Even if what we did is enough, I still want.**  
_Me also._  
**I really do love him. I never thought that would happen.**  
_So much for heartlessness._  
**Do be quiet, hypocrite.**  
_I've always loved people; I am not a hypocrite._  
**I highly doubt that you would have done this to all of humanity given the choice.  
**_Better than killing them, isn't it?  
_**Agree to disagree. It is not important.**  
_Agreed.  
__**I want him.**_

"Dear," The timbre of his voice was somewhat frightened but he did not allow the emotion to show in his eyes. "Why are you suddenly so terrified?"

"I don't know. You were standing over me and I guess… I thought… I don't know. Do we have to talk about it?" Lavi's right hand slid up Tyki's side to his chest.

"Eventually, yes."

"But not right now?"

Tyki shook his head as surly as he could without truly meaning it. He wanted to know what was wrong – why his lover looked prepared to do anything for him – but he would not ask until something was done. "Not if you do not wish to think on it. Shall I take the time to cover every inch of you in kisses again, or would you rather I remove your pants beforehand?"

"I really don't care so long as I can touch you."

The Noah grinned too wide to be natural, dark eyes made darker by the shadows cast in the dim lamplight. "Be careful what you say, you may change my mind about things. Even if what I have done is enough to sate me for the evening it is far too easy for my desire to come back again with you talking about _not caring_. I did not have you like I had planned; you are not entirely _mine_, so saying that you have no preference is a terrible temptation to me, _dear_." He leaned in close, eyeing the glint of an earring from the corner of his eyes dangerously, knowing that he wanted to play with it like he always did. That was more than just the voice in his mind willing him. "If you say you do not care I will not care, and in the end that might be painful."

"Ty-chan, stop talking about having me and do it already. There's nothing wrong with this. There's nothing wrong with me."

"Lavi?"

The redhead shook his head hurriedly before attempting to explain. "It never used to scare me, not before I was me. Being alone was nice – I could be whoever I wanted when I was alone, I could think however I wanted, say whatever I thought, it didn't matter. But now I'm afraid of it. And I want you to make me feel like you're here." He curled his right hand behind his lover's neck; Tyki could almost hear how fast his heart was beating. "That's why I couldn't breathe. Not because my lungs are bruised or because I'm not healthy, because I was terrified of what would happen if you left.

"It's a stupid fear. But I can't get my mind off of that morning when you left me there, on your bed, and… they came for me. I can't forget any of it and my brain is just too stupid to understand that it won't happen. That it _can't_ happen."

The Noah lowered his lips so they hardly brushed his lover's, driving the words from them and the fear from his eyes. He let the boy's wrist go free and touched the sides of his face, speaking to him as softly as he could without letting his voice waver. "I will not leave you. Even if I walk out that door I swear I won't be gone forever. I came back for you, didn't I? You weren't left there. And even if I'm not with you, you aren't alone. There are so many people here it's a wonder no one has walked in on us yet."

Lavi found the strength to laugh at him, if only briefly. "I know. But knowing and _knowing_ are different, you know?" He giggled again, this time with a real smile. "That was a lot of knowing in once sentence, huh?"

"I think you should stop talking."

"Why's that?"

Tyki rocked his hips forward and gently caught Lavi's right hoop between his teeth, flicked his tongue twice across his flesh before he dropped it. The line of goosebumps that prickled into existence down the redhead's side made the Noah smile at him without looking strained. "Because the point is that you want me right now, isn't it?"

Lavi's other hand joined the first around Tyki's neck and served as a means to lift him a little into the older man. "Yeah," He smiled a little at the caress of a warm mouth on the flesh of his neck. "It is." He sighed at the soft press of a hand to his stomach, the hot touch of tongue to his throat. Experimentally he sucked at Tyki's collarbone while his right hand slipped to his lover's thigh, searching to see how much in need the Noah was. An undignified pant told him when he had found what he was looking for.

Tyki hummed at him, rocking forward again as his lips fell from the path they had been trailing down and across to Lavi's opposite ear. The hand against him left no question as to what was going to happen – if he could stop – and he bit tenderly at the apprentice Bookman's chest with a growl, he turned his face up in an effort to let the boy see his eyes.

"Lavi… I want…"

In response Lavi lifted himself as much as he could into the older man, showing his willingness. "Then _do_, damnit."

In an instant Tyki was ripping at Lavi's pants again, tugging and pulling and cursing when the material refused to follow his will. There were hands working at his belt buckle as well, fiercely tugging at the leather as if panicked, trembling with anything but uncertainty; by the time the troublesome fastener was on the floor he was forced to sit back in order yank down his lover's garment. He dropped the pants beside the belt.

The moment his knee brushed the apprentice's left leg a second line of chills ran upward from the point of contact, forced a strangled moan from his throat. The heavy material was almost erotic on the younger man's sensitive skin and Tyki loved the sound it caused him to produce. He could normally make himself wait long if only to hear more of it, but he didn't want to. No part of him wanted to. Lavi didn't want him to. So he nibbled on the hardened nub of one of the younger man's nipples while his left hand helped undo the last two buttons of his pants, and slide them off. He was panting by the time Lavi dragged him up into a kiss.

Lavi whispered his lover's name without knowledge of it as his palms traveled hurriedly across his back to his shoulders. He was pleading for something, softly, but he couldn't name it. He simply knew that what he had was not enough.

Tyki scrambled for a moment, the location of his container of lubricant was lost to him he was so caught in what they were doing. He needed it to go on. But where – if anywhere – did he have it in his clothes?

"Top drawer of the nightstand." Lavi informed him with a harsh exhalation. "Long story."

The Noah chuckled down at him while he leaned to pull open the stand and fumble for what was supposed to be there. After a moment he came back with a small tube of foreign looking lotion, and the discovery pushed his eyebrows together in a suggestive expression. "Do I _want_ to know?"

Lavi smirked at him and pushed himself up on his elbows for a moment, catching his breath. "For his birthday one year I got Yuu-chan a girls' hair set. A couple months later when I had mine roll around, he got me _that_."

Tyki stifled a chuckle. "A bit more subtle."

"Are you kidding? _Everyone_ knew what it was for. Komui thought it was an offer. I'll never forget the look on Yuu-chan's face when he asked him if it was." A soft laugh seeped passed his lips and Tyki unscrewed the cap with two fingers, watching him with eyes that had to be lust filled regardless of the conversation they were sharing. Lavi's gaze drifted slowly to the ceiling. "Almost killed _everyone_ in the room when they – _ah!_" He stiffededd at a suddenly cold finger touching the skin just outside of him, turning in slowly warming circles. His hands clenched into Tyki's shoulders.

The Noah shushed him softly. "Do not let me harm you, darling." He kissed the flesh of the redhead's throat and dropped the lubricant beside him to give him a free hand. "Speak if it eases you but do not expect me to listen to anything besides demands that I stop."

"Feeling gray?"

"I am feeling insane." Tyki corrected with a tone that did not seem worried. He pressed in smoothly with his finger, aware that the space had grown tighter over time. As much as he wanted Lavi he did not want to hurt him by rushing.

"Is it…" The redhead closed his eye and shuddered, more goosebumps rippling up his spine, a harsh whimper gathering in his throat. "Screaming at you to have me? Or to hurt me?"

"Neither." Tyki said at once. "I can't hear it at all."

Lavi looked up at him with a questioning expression and found himself incapable of speaking the words he meant to say. A second finger had slipped in next to the first, his breathing hitched. It took a great amount of will for him to swallow against the sensations and look up at the kind, loving eyes that watch him and lift his hand to the man's forehead. _The scars are gone again._ He observed before letting the limp move back to Tyki's neck. _Why do they come and go like this? It's not random. Or at least it shouldn't be._ "Wh-why not?"

Tyki curled his fingers and his lover arched off of the mattress to meet him, a garbled exclamation on his lips. Explanations would have to wait until later. Tyki leaned in and captured his lover's open mouth with his, muffling the repeated sound of enjoyment Lavi made when he continued to move his fingers, trying to remember the perfect angle and prepare him at the same time. Somehow, regardless of the voice's sudden disappearance, he found that he still would not be able to stop himself from doing what he had wanted – but it was more than that. He wanted to for more reasons that just himself.

A terrible feeling of loss filled Lavi the moment Tyki's fingers pulled out of him and he voiced it despite the mouth against his, releasing a wanton sound into his lover's tongue, fingers delving into the man's curling hair. He tried to calm his heart by thinking of the mouth against his and the hands that worked to lift his hips into a more accommodating position. But it wasn't enough. When Tyki pulled away for breath he almost sobbed.

_My God, I'm broken._

"I love you," The Noah said in a rough whisper, his hands leaving the Exorcist's skin to find the little tube once more. "Are you crying because I hurt you?"

"I'm… crying?" The question sounded like it was spoken through tears. A mirthless laugh ripped out of his mouth and he shook his head at the idea, hooking his good leg around his lover's hips. "No. I'm just being stupid. Don't stop, please." He pulled Tyki closer while his hips were guided downward. "I love you, too and I don't – I – don't – _Tyki!"_

"Please, don't let someone hear you scream that." The Noah pressed his mouth into the pulse on Lavi's neck, reveling in the feel of fingernails across his back. He pressed in fully, seating himself in the all consuming heat of his lover, incapable of properly warning him anymore than he had. "If we must be discovered let it be _after_ we're finished, right dear?"

"Fuck." Lavi hissed, through a jaw held tightly shut. "After the war s'over."

"Hmm." Whether that was a sound of agreement or not Lavi's couldn't tell, but the man above him pressed deeper, leaving a wet line of open-mouthed kisses down his throat. Lavi was somewhat annoyed by how long Tyki was waiting for him to adjust to him but he did not complain about it, he did want to walk sometime in the next few days, even if it meant more tears on his face for the moment. He expected himself to have a panic attack the moment everything was over but he wouldn't say that to his lover. He would lay his head back and moan out his yearning without word, allow a fraction of his fear to sound in the harshness to his voice, lift himself pleadingly, and not fight the tears.

Even if none of it was fair warning.

Tyki's left hand forced Lavi's back against the mattress while his right attempted to lift Lavi's leg slightly higher, the apprentice Bookman sucked in a slow breath while his lover at last pulled away and pressed back again, dragging out the action as if it weren't bittersweet for them both. Hot sweat soaked Lavi's headband, which sat crookedly over his eyes from their movement, the sides of his face glistened wetly in the semidarkness. Still, he smiled at the rhythm that began to build between them.

It was the smile that made the Noah move faster and with more strength, his own passionate gasps mingling with his lover's, the hand he had pressed to the younger man's hip closing tightly in desperation. The pace increased without his knowledge and a ragged cry filled the small room, the apprentice arched into him suddenly, cueing him to repeat the motion for a second time, aim sure.

Lavi followed his every move, fingernails biting into his lover's skin, waves of pleasure singing up his spine with every thrust. He could feel his muscles growing tight, impossible heat filling his abdomen by the time Tyki faltered again him, growling low in his throat. A hand came forward and gripped Lavi's manhood, stroking him as firmly and rhythmically as Tyki could manage while fighting his own release. It took all of the redhead's strength and will to drag the older man down into a kiss at the last moment, violent shivers running rampant through every nerve of his body as he reached his peak and plummeted headlong over it. A half minute later his lover followed, humming into Lavi's mouth as it happened, soiled hand slipping across the younger man's hip.

He didn't want to pull away.

Beneath him the redhead reached up with shaking arms to hold him close, tears still streaming from his left eye. The Noah sighed into his shoulder, returned the embrace as strongly as he could without worrying about the bruised ribs against his. "Are you alright now, darling?"

Lavi nodded into him, his shaking betraying his lie. "I will be, as long as you are."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Sorry everyone who asked for a Yullen lemon, it just wasn't going to happen with how things are. Sorry again for the angsty beginning. Sometimes they just do that sort of thing, you know?**

**But you did get fluff and smut. Yay!**

**Thank you readers and reviewers! You are so great for putting up with my spelling errors and tense mistakes and random typos!!**


	81. Misgivings

**First and foremost – the end of this chapter is not something I am proud of, but it wanted to end there... and I wasn't going to argue.  
**

**AND – this is out so fast because bath scenes just fly! Heehee.**

**Disclaimer of D'Hedgepiggy: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… that under-the-table Lavi scan in the anime would have been slightly higher. As it is you can see how big his ghetto booty is.**

**WARNINGS: Touching and cursing.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Misgivings

To Allen's disappointment – and to Kanda's – the food on his plate had not been near enough to satisfy him completely. With a look that spoke volumes the Japanese man had offered the British boy what remained of his when he proclaimed himself full and Allen had accepted it as gracefully as he could, smiling brightly despite the rumble in his stomach. Kanda, still claiming to be worried, had sidled around behind him and saw to the cracked scabs of his back with fingers only three-fourths nervous about touching Allen's skin.

And then, when the bleeding had subsided, Allen had turned to him with gentle eyes and suggested a bath.

Now, Kanda had his doubts.

He allowed Allen to take him by the hand and guide him into the bathroom, chatting about something completely unrelated and totally unhelpful, something that did not encourage him to feel safe or unguarded. Instead of listening he paid attention to how the British boy moved and how he sounded. He was taller, that was obvious. He walked across the white tile floor on the balls of his feet to avoid the cold and turned the silver knobs of the tub with his left hand, felt for temperature with his right, grinned even when Kanda wasn't listening. The bathroom light was an odd yellow that made his skin tanner than it should have been, cast his snowy hair in streams of gold and bronze, shined nearly scarlet from his averted eyes. He was careful in adding soap to the water, and pulled his too long hair into a messy pony when it threatened to hamper his progress.

Kanda stood in the center of the room and watched it all in silence, allowing his eyes to rove where they would. It was not until he found himself admiring the curve of Allen's backside that he truly began to worry about what he was looking at. Being attracted to a glance was one thing, swooning over his posterior was another thing all together. He brought shaking hands to his face in an attempt to drive the thoughts from his mind, if not from every part of him capable of thinking about it.

The British boy was skillfully unbuttoning his own shirt (which he wouldn't even have put back on after Kanda was finished with his back unless the samurai had suggested it,) still blabbering away as if Kanda were not about to see him naked for what he thought of as the first time since knowing him.

_Yuu, it is not that awkward, you are not that attracted to this… sixteen year old, you can handle this._ He shivered, closing his eyes and biting his lip in desperation. _It's just a bath – he isn't going to do anything but wash your back if you ask him. Calm down. Calm down. It will be fine…_ He heard the continuous sound of Allen's voice and centered himself with it, cooling his rising blood. _You will be fine._

When he looked up again he was not fine. Allen was working at his pants' buttons, amiably.

"I can't do this." Kanda blurted, lurching for the door as quickly as his feet could carry him. Allen's hands stopped what they were doing and his eyes came up, round with shock, his expression pulled Kanda's feet to an itching halt. He wanted to see him naked. He wanted to see every inch of that pure skin before him and he wanted to touch it, his fingers tingled with the urge. But he couldn't do it, not with memories bouncing around in his head without emotion. Allen was a person after all, not an object he could have his way with and leave.

He wouldn't want to leave him if he did.

"Why not, Love?"

"I'm sorry… I just… I can't…" Kanda found himself leaning against the counter when the white haired Exorcist tried to get closer, hands pressed onto the edge of the hard stone top. He really didn't even know _why_ he couldn't say what he was thinking, he just couldn't. "Che. I'm not… comfortable with it. I might… do something stupid."

Allen smiled at him one of those few dark grins he usually reserved for poker games. "The only stupid thing you can do is walk out that door. I won't touch you unless you want it." _Much._

"I've never… I don't _remember_ seeing you naked. You can't just stand there and peel off your clothes while you jabber on about dango flavors – it's not—" He stopped at the press of hands on his thighs, warm against his sensitive flesh. Allen had traversed the space between them and now looked up at him with eyes so kind and worried Kanda could not suppress the urge to cup the side of his face in the palm of his hand. He knew his fears were unfounded but that did not make them disappear like they should have. Instead his heart clamped in his chest and he wondered for a moment if maybe, perhaps, he had been impossibly stupid this whole time.

Because it didn't matter what he felt, he felt it.

"Kanda, what are you afraid of?"

"Losing you."

He let Allen's hands touch the collar off his shirt and experimentally pick at the buttons until the garment hung open from his arms, skin exposed for the second time he could remember. He didn't move when both Allen's the strange black left hand and normal right came to rest in the center of his chest, unsteady and warm palms wet with bath water, soft on his skin. Breathing was suddenly difficult.

"You won't lose me. And even if you don't remember seeing me naked, you have. And I have seen you naked. And we have gallivanted naked together lots. It's not something to be afraid of, really. I mean… we're both guy's a least, so it's not like you have to worry about never-before-seen parts or anything." His fingertips traced slow lines down to Kanda's waistband and paused at the short intake of breath that got him. If that was too much, if that was the line, he would stay there until Kanda let him cross it. "And as much as seeing _me_ without clothes seems to scare you, I think it actually makes you want me and you don't want me to see that yet."

To his surprise, Kanda smirked at him crookedly, teeth showing behind his awkwardly raised lip. "Che. If it does what are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing. I won't even snuggle if you won't let me."

"I bet you'll be snuggling with your eye if nothing else."

"I'm human, I love you, and I lust you – how can you expect me _not_ to look."

"By closing your damn…" He trailed off and made that strange, distant face again, the one he had made while remembering the night he had almost killed Allen. He caught himself on his lover's shoulders when his knees gave out suddenly, his place in the world momentarily forgotten while images passed before his mind's eye, blinding him like a recollection never had previously. He had felt the same then as he did now – like he didn't know what was going on – and somehow that made the moment swallow the one he was supposed to be living, cover it like a strange muting veil.

He was in a bathroom in Sweden, cleaning Allen's blood from his face and hair, fingers sticky with it, trying to hide the warmth in his eyes with a glare. He had imprinted that moment on his mind when he had squinted in the mirror and decided that no one would see it and no one would know, burned every detail of that lie into his eyes in an effort to believe it. But it wasn't true. It had never been true.

The cool tile bit painfully into his knees and the sensation dulled the images in his mind to little more than shadows, Allen's warm arms curling around his shoulders dragged him out of it completely, leaving him disoriented and touching a great deal of skin with his own.

"So it's working." He mumbled drunkenly when he knew where his lips were again. His hands pressed more firmly on his crouching lover's sides and he breathed, centering himself again with his scent.

Allen stopped his gentle crooning. "Did you remember something?"

"Body heat." The Japanese boy informed with a tiny nod. Together they stood up again, Kanda's shirt hanging off his left shoulder, hands not leaving Allen's flesh even when he no longer needed to touch it. "You were shirtless then too," With fingers that were not sure of their purpose he followed the line of Allen's chest to his neck, looking for scars, old wounds, the things that should have been there. Delicately they traversed to Allen's left shoulder and down his too long arm to his strange, hard fingers. "It's different."

"You just noticed?"

"I've been thinking of other things, thanks."

Allen let him pull the limb up and look at it, his fingers fall as they would under his lover's inspection. He didn't speak though, if Kanda was remembering things he wasn't about to stop him for the sake of being naked without touching.

Soothing silence filled the space between them, disturbed only by the clicking of Allen's fingers when his fingers bent or straightened. After a long moment Kanda spoke in a distant voice, though not as distant as the memory from before seemed to have been. "In Japan, there was an akuma and it hurt you. You should have died. I wanted to… save you… that was what made you say that thing about me dying." He brought the hand closer to his face, looking at the knuckles. "And…" A light blush colored his cheeks for a moment while his eyes found Allen's. "The next day… on the lawn… we…we…"

The white haired boy nodded slowly, still not letting himself speak.

"Che. I don't remember everything. Hell, I don't remember half of it but I do know that I surprised you. And you were…and I…" He touched the back of Allen's hand to his lips in a repeat of what he had done with the boy beneath him, eyes closed to the contact. The British boy saw an emotion reflected in Kanda's expression that he had not seen for longer than he wanted to admit, and observing it nearly sent him straight into the man's arms. The soft quality to Kanda's touch and the expression, the feeling that perhaps Kanda was starting to understand, it was all enough to make him grin.

He licked at his lips, silver eyes locked on his lover's lowered eyelids. "What?"

"You can stop smiling; I can't recall what you look like naked."

Allen let himself laugh lightly at that, falling forward into a hug that was entirely Kanda's idea. His bare skin on the Japanese man's chest was far too pleasant for him to stay that way long, but Kanda still angled himself back just enough for Allen to look up without straining his neck or spine. "May I please remind you?"

Kanda's sigh was so deep it ruffled Allen's hair. "Yeah. Just one thing though."

"Hmm?"

"I want to undress you."

"What?! Ka-Kanda!" The white haired boy blushed deeply, his right foot made to move him away from his lover as quickly as he could but the arms around his shoulders kept him still. "Why?! I'll be… I might… it's just a _bad_ idea, Love. Really." His voice was horribly shaky, almost an embarrassed mumble. "And I only have my pants on anyways."

"Che. Have I always liked making you blush?"

Allen glared at him and decided to ignore the question, slapping the arms that held him with his hands in a playful, shy way that made Kanda smirk. "Would you stop touching me and get naked? The water is going to be like ice."

"I think you'll warm it up just fine."

"_Kanda!"_ It was a growl this time, deep in his throat, the tone of it matching the color of his face. "Don't _say_ things like that."

"Che. Why not? You don't seem like you're—"

"Because I might do something really, really dumb and make you hate me again."

"Moyashi, you can't do anything to make me hate you."

"Do _not_ make me test that."

"Che. You'd blush yourself into an aneurism before you did anything that risk—" He didn't get to finish. The left hand that had been swatting at him flirtatiously clamped suddenly on his right wrist, painfully tight, and a second hand took a firm hold of his collar and pressed him back onto the counter, a leg came up passed his left hip to rest beside him. There were lips on his that he did not notice until they were gone and coming back again, desperately, forcing him to retreat just as quickly as Allen came at him. He couldn't think. He couldn't fight. He could only slide back on the counter until his right knuckles and back thumped into the mirror behind him without breaking it, Allen's second knee slipped between his legs and hoisted the smaller Exorcist over him.

His neck tingled with the touch of kisses to his skin, burned at the brush of teeth. He reached to slow the boy's aggressive assault only to have his left arm pinned at the elbow; a harsh growling negative escaped his lover's lips at it. He heard himself choke out an abrasive whimper and swallowed against it, hardening his resolve.

He wasn't ready for this. Even if he wanted it, he wasn't ready.

"Moyashi…" It was little more than a gasp. "Stop."

Allen licked at Kanda's throat, satisfied with the twitch that got him.

"Allen, stop it." His voice was growing louder with every word as he regained his breath to speak with. "I don't want to push you off and hurt you, now _stop!_" The hardness of his voice and the pressure of his hands halted Allen halfway into another kiss, lips parted and eyes wide, eyebrows pressed together in an expression of annoyance. Kanda felt himself go limp against the mirror. "I'm not…" He closed his eyes – the memory of a hallway filling his mind followed swiftly his mother screaming at them. The same thing had almost happened. "I'm…"

"Scared?" Allen's voice was perhaps the meekest Kanda had ever heard it, which contrasted terribly with his actions.

"A little."

"Sorry." He moved enough so he was balanced in the middle of his lover's thighs, hands on his shoulders. It did not take a single word of encouragement for Kanda to place his hands firmly on his barely clothed hips, as if they belonged there. "I won't say that it won't happen again though, not if you insist on teasing me. You may not know all of the details to our sex life but we do have one, so I'm used having you _do_ things when you say stuff like that. It's hard not to… well… molest you when you don't."

Kanda nodded in understanding, a faint glimmer of mischief in his eyes. "If that's the case Moyashi, care to get up so I can push off your pants?"

"Kanda…"

"I mean it this time. I don't want to make what I said a lie."

Allen laid his lips softly on his lover's, just for a moment, before sliding off to the floor. "On one condition."

"Che. What?"

"You take part of the blame for what happens afterward."

* * *

It was nearing dinner when Lavi's eyelid flickered open on his barely lit room, still tired and now twice as sore as he had been upon leaving the medical wing. His leg throbbed, his face hurt, yet, at the feel of warm breath on the side of his throat and a loving arm draped across his chest, he felt happy. This was home. He was safe.

With a soft sigh he reached up and extinguished the light, plunging the room into darkness so thick he couldn't see his hand in front of his face if he tried. He didn't try. With a quiet groan he turned his back to his lover and scooted back into him, murmuring soft encouragement when the man stirred enough to draw him close. He didn't feel sticky, which meant Tyki had seen to cleaning after he had passed out, which was another thing he would have to thank him for. But not now. Not until there was light and he didn't feel like waking up was the worst thing he had done all day.

Tyki cuddled into his neck and shoulder, flush against him. He leaned back a little with a contented sound and smiled into the dark, perfectly happy.

"_Did you miss me, Dear One?"_ The man whispered into his ear, fingers turning to run slowly back and forth on his chest. _"I missed you very much. I hate leaving."_ Lips pressed firmly to the side of Lavi's neck and he shivered at it, too warm and tired to be phased by the Noah's words. He felt himself pulled back more and he didn't resist the motion at all. _"I love you, Lavi-san."_

"Ty-chan?"

"_If you wish to call me that it will suffice – we _are_ the same person – but the other is sleeping at the moment, Dear One. At this moment it is only me, or what can be of me when I am not conscious."_

"What?" Lavi turned his head in against his pillow and strained to see his lover, everything but the vaguest shapes were lost to him.

"_I apologize for expressing myself in riddles, I like them. Allow me to concede why I have bothered to speak through the mouth of a sleeping child, if you would be so kind?"_

Lavi swallowed so hard he thought Tyki might have heard the sound in his throat. He hummed a soft affirmative, turning still more in the Noah's arms. When he came around he could see despite the gloom that his lover's eyes were a color so dark he wasn't sure if his eyes had whites at all, but they were still perfectly fixed on his face. He breathed in slowly and tried to calm himself, pressed his hands to Tyki's chest. He felt the same. He sounded only slightly different. "You're… the other half…"

"_Yes. I have watched you very closely since I came to love you and so I have come to do so myself. Though my heart yet yearns for the destruction of this world it aches to be with you more than that, so I have turned coat and tail to follow you. That, inevitably, brings me to what my purpose is in speaking with you directly. My current endeavor is to remain where I might have the ability to feel you and see you and speak with you on occasion, and as such I wish to ensure that nothing separates us save my soul._

"_What I mean to convey is my desire to tell those with the authority to kill me who I am. No, do not speak my dear; I need you to listen to my ravings before you deem them useless and insane. Every moment that passes I grow closer to doing something dubious. Though you have bound me with my word not to hurt or to kill I still wish to, I still want to, I am still tempted. So long as I am here, hiding, no one will be able to stop me when I lose myself to that desire."_

Lavi interrupted him, unable to sit and listen to words that filled him with blatant fear. "But why do you have to lose yourself? How come a promise isn't enough?"

"_Darling, what am I? I am a memory that is all I am. Depending which memory is closest, which desire his highest, I react different. I would rather, when an angry or hurt part of me surfaces or when I lash out irreparably, that there be someone there to stop it. Otherwise this will be the end of me."_

"The end of you?"

"_It is a long and convoluted explanation but in the end the solution is simple. You must bind me with an oath once more, stronger than before. And then we must tell the Supervisor."_

Lavi's heart clenched in his chest and he flung himself at the older man, regardless of which part of his nature was dominating or how he felt about humanity. The apprentice's arms wound around his lover's bare chest and he pressed himself close, ignoring the pain in his leg and his ribs as well the whispered echo of his name on Tyki's lips. "We can't do that. We can't. They'll kill you! It doesn't matter if you don't want to hurt people or if you don't want to destroy the world, they'll still kill you just for being what you are." He turned his head down and he felt the press of a kiss on his forehead, the touch of a soft hand in his hair. If he had had tears to cry at that moment he might not have been able to control himself. "I don't know what I'll do if that happens."

Tyki's mouth smiled softly into Lavi's hair and his fingers stroked the back of his neck in a soothing rhythm. _"Which would be more threatening to you, Dear One? An enemy who offers himself to you with a plea for sanctuary or an enemy who hides himself until he can no longer cling to the shadows? I am more inclined to trust the first, if only slightly."_

"But I don't want to risk it."

"_There are many things one does not wish to do that must still be done."_

"Doesn't make 'em easier."

"_No. But love does."_

"You're ridiculous."

"_I am perfectly logical, though my logic is based on emotion."_

"I'm tired and now I'm scared, don't go all crazy on me."

"_Dear One that is not the point. We really must tell him. As things are, discovery will kill you as well. Please, for my sake, tell him."_

Lavi sighed in an attempt to keep from screaming. He had never had to deal directly with the dark before, but it wasn't unpleasant. He found that in his heart the two felt the same as it always had – like being close was a pleasant form of pain he needed. "I know you're right but… I don't want you to be. Do you think we can sleep for a while longer before we do? Or maybe just cuddle?" He felt the hand that had been caressing the back of his neck cup the side of his face and turn it upward, as if the Noah could see his features perfectly despite the lack of light.

"_You really see no difference between this me and the 'me' you see everyday, do you?"_

Lavi shook his head gently against the man's hand. "I love all of you, not just what I see a lot of. This is a part of you so no, it's not any different from who you were before."

"_You have no idea how happy that makes me feel."_ The Noah sighed, placing his chin gently on the top of Lavi's head. The Exorcist smiled a little at the gesture, he had watched Kanda do the same thing to Allen on occasion – he had never thought to compare them to Tyki and himself. _"I love you and because of that I will do anything to keep you."_

The apprentice Bookman allowed himself a shaking sigh. "You'll always have me. I will stop Komui if he tries to do anything before we explain it. But first," He couldn't fight the yawn. "I think I'll sleep with you a while longer, 'kay?" He felt the Noah pull the covers up over his shoulders and place a warming arm around him; he was far gentler than Lavi ever would have imagined him with this side leading. His caresses had the same warmth in them, the same lingering tingle, and he still felt safe – perfectly invisible. Nothing bad could happen, even when the light was gone.

"_Yes. Please do."_

* * *

Allen watched Kanda chew his lower lip, obviously stuck between leaping unceremoniously out of the water and doing something he thought he would regret. He had helped Allen remove his bandages, inspected his wounds to be sure nothing was bleeding, and then allowed the younger boy to push off his shirt the rest off the way. Allen's pants had been removed slowly at first, faster when Kanda had them to his knees, and he hadn't said a word when the British boy had expressed the desire to return the favor.

He did, however, turn his eyes away and stiffen when Allen tried to touch him without his clothes. Allen couldn't tell what he was thinking – indeed he didn't know if this was a good idea anymore until his lover took his hand and pulled him into the water. That was when the trouble started.

Because Allen had kissed him without thinking.

The Japanese Exorcist hid his face behind his veil of ebony hair, trying to ignore the fact that the kiss coupled with what had happened on the counter had indeed riled his blood. He knew he was blushing and he could feel that it would take very little persuading to get more out of him than a color change, and he could sense Allen's desire to try something. Sitting in the tub was like sharing the water with a venomous snake that wanted the place to itself. Or a boa constrictor who wanted nothing more than to be his very close, very intimate friend.

But he couldn't just proclaim that he was done and getting out. His hair wasn't even wet yet.

_Che. I need to calm down. I have seen him naked. I have touched him naked, this is nothing._

_Shit. Who am I kidding? I can't even think with him looking at me._

"Kanda," Allen's wet right hand was on the flesh of his upper arm so he looked at it, thankful that his hair hid a goodly portion of his face from sight at that moment. He could see the pair of silver eyes that looked up at him expectantly – the left one yet unseeing – the gentle curve of the boy's throat, the line of his collarbone, and he fisted his hands under the water in an effort not to show what he was thinking. He remembered licking that neck, biting it, all sorts of things, but wanting to now felt more than out of place.

"What, Moyashi?"

"Calm down."

"Che. I _am_ calm."

"No you aren't, you're trying to look calm and failing at it miserably." His voice was just a hair short of scolding as he followed his lover's arm into the foam covered water and took a hold of his hand. He held tight when the samurai tried to slide himself closer to the wall and escape him, he even slid himself closer when Kanda's back hit the white ceramic regardless of his attempt to hold him still. In a matter of moments the white haired Exorcist found himself straddling the naked, blushing, impossibly flustered looking Japanese boy, wet hands brushing back his hair so he could see better out of his one working eye. "Is it really that hard to be near me when I'm naked?"

"What? No – I just – I…" With his head turned at that angle Kanda thought Allen would kiss him at any moment – and he wanted him to. He could _feel_ all sorts of things he didn't remember _ever_ feeling, like the silky texture of Allen's leg on his, the pounding of his heart in his throat. "This was a bad idea. I'm – you're – I just—"

"Sentences Love, otherwise I don't know what you're saying." Allen's fogged over left eye moved properly when he searched Kanda's face for some sort of reaction. He had seen that look before, and recognizing it almost made him smile. "Are you… you _are_! You're trying to keep from thinking dirty thoughts about me and you can't stop yourself. You know this wouldn't be happening if you had let me… help…" His hand let go and he touched the middle of his lover's chest, letting his eyes fall away so Kanda wouldn't feel any more naked than he really was; he might feel helpless with Allen peering into the windows to his soul. "I really… if you're this flustered by it…"

"Allen, if you cry I am going to drown you."

The British boy laughed. "I don't want to embarrass you by saying that I _want_ to do that; I'm not going to cry. But if you want me to say it, I will." He averted his gaze to the right and turned his head so he thought Kanda might be able to see the sincerity on his face even if he could not see Kanda blush back. "I would really like to alleviate your frustration with my hands or my mouth so you don't have to sit there and worry that I might see, feel, or otherwise violate something that you don't remember me becoming more than acquainted—"

"Moyashi."

"—with through the fabric of your pants and mine." Allen went on despite the interruption. He could feel hands on either side of his ribcage but ignored them to go on. "I don't like to see you trying not to—Kanda!" He was suddenly pressed flat against the older boy's chest, his lips captured in a hurried show of affection. He remained perfectly still even after the contact broke and stared down at the serious expression on his lover's face. If he moved, he knew, every point of contact they shared would undoubtedly leave Kanda blithering.

"Look," The Japanese Exorcist tried to explain. "I… I like you. I like you more than I wanted to admit, but I am not going to let you do that. It's not because I don't want you to, either. I do. It's really hard not to take you up on the offer but… I would be using you. I don't want to use you."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

Allen sighed and let his hands move through the water to Kanda's sides – a place that he had touched so many times before without making the man redden. "When you think about it, what do you feel?"

Kanda did his damnedest to speak seriously, without even a hint of his nervousness. "If you do that for me," His right palm touched the side of Allen's face, just beside his eye, which he still wanted to fix. "I want to do something for you in return."

"Love, that's—"

"Don't." He shook his head and ran his thumb slowly back and forth across Allen's forehead, watching him frown. He did not like to see Allen frown; it made him want to frown. "I know what you will say it is but even if you do I won't understand it, so don't. I don't want to apply that word to what I feel until it fits."

"Why not?"

"What if it's wrong?"

Allen's expression told him that he _was_ wrong, that Allen knew what he felt and understood it perfectly, that he was a complete idiot and a true failure at interpreting his own emotions. But he couldn't believe it. He couldn't take someone else's word for his own and pray that deep down, that was the term that defined the pain and happiness Allen brought him. "Even if you don't say it, I still love you."

"I know, Moyashi-kun." _Part of me wishes you wouldn't._

* * *

It had been a long, arduous time for Komui, these past few months at the order. A lot had happened. He had nearly forgotten in the rust of things that a fledgling Exorcist – in experience not age – had taken up residence on one of the abandoned science floors while a special group attempted to uncorrupt the Innocence that had been recovered in Sweden so long ago.

Now, looking at the new Exorcist's jacket, he wondered how he could have forgotten something so important.

"She's so… big…" The accommodator said to Komui with a slow look up at Helveska. "I don't mean your fat; I mean… you're really tall."

The strange hissing sound Helveska made was her version of laughter, Komui knew, and the thought made him smile. He looked down at the speaker; they were nearly the same height so he did not have to look down very far to see the fear and growing amazement in those soft gray-blue eyes, and grinned. "We have it right here."

"And I can use it? I mean, I can sync with it?"

The Chinese man shifted on his feet while he thought of a way to explain things. It had been nearly a month since they had found this accommodator, a week or so since Helveska had informed him that Allen Walker had passed critical point with his Innocence, five days since Sable had called to tell him of Kanda's memory loss, something like thirteen hours since Lavi's release from the hospital, and yet it all felt so fast. But for the corrupted Innocence, that had seemed to have taken forever.

"It should be safe for you to carry it with you, but do not expect any missions for at least a month." He explained, offering a small box for the Exorcist before him. "The more time you spend with it and the more you train, the more it should respond to your commands and function according to the relationship of Innocence and accommodator. It may take time, but if you are willing to try, things will be alright." He watched long fingered hands come from beneath dark sleeves and curl around the edge of the box, dark hair fell across gray-blue eyes as they focused on the weapon. They were almost tepid.

"Is that... it's… he's mine?"

"He?"

"Yeah…" The box was pulled fully away and an arm curled around the outside of it, fingers went in and touched the thing within gently, white teeth flashed at him from beneath the shroud of hair. "He's a he. How could you not know? Aren't you an expert on this sort of thing?"

"Well…"

"Sorry, I don't mean to be rude. It just happens when I'm just excited. It's not everyday you're handed something like this and told it's yours to help save the word with, you know? I feel… special. Warm and fuzzy, I guess." Another tilt of the head and a gentle sigh, those crystalline eyes stayed focused intently on the box now, filled with something Komui might have thought was love. There were very few people who looked at their weapons like that – Allen and Miranda among them. "Is he like that too?"

Komui laughed a little, knowing immediately who was meant. "Secretly I believe so, not externally though."

"How like him."

He placed a reassuring hand on the nearest shoulder and gave a gentle pat, watching the small smile broaden at the contact. "I guess I can officially say this now that you have that in your hands – welcome to the Black Order, if you still want to stay."

The soft laugh the new Exorcist emitted was light, like something he heard in memories. So innocent, those who had yet to see the war. "I do. Even if it's a fight it's a holy fight, right? I can't walk away from something like that – even if I wanted to I wouldn't be able to. There's too much at stake." He saw then a glimmer in those gem-like irises that reminded him of someone else, a distinct anger that had not been there a moment before, something cold and dark and growing. The only difference was that he could see no hate, icy eyes like that usually made him think of hate.

"Is something wrong?"

"No." A curt answer, bit off to keep him from asking more. "I was just thinking…"

"Yes?"

"Never mind," The smile was back again, all trace of anger forgotten, "I'll go to the cafeteria now, I'm sure some of the Finders I've made friends with will want to see my Innocence at last. And… I think he'll be hungry when he wakes up. Can Innocence even _be_ hungry? Or will it freak out like one of those Komurin things that I've heard so much about? And what about the other Exorcists? Does this mean I get to train with them now? Not just watch all shy in a corner like before?"

Komui fought the twitch of his right eyebrow but couldn't hold it back. How dare this rookie insult his wonderful inventions?! "It is no longer mechanical – it only was because that was all the Noah could make it into after corrupting it – so eating will not make it go haywire. Aside from the obvious, it is a normal animal in need of bathing, feeding, and care. As for the rest…" He shrugged. "If you want to, you can train with them."

"Good. Thank you, Komui-san."

"You're very welcome… Be careful with him though. It has taken all this time for him to even let someone hold him, and we do not yet know if corruption can return."

"I will. Herth won't hurt me though; he doesn't want to hurt me, even if he doesn't understand why."

"Herth?"

"Yup. You'll see."

* * *

It had taken a grand total of two hours for Lenalee to dictate the details of Lavi and _Tiago's_ activities behind closed doors and then another half to explain why they might partake in the pastime when no children could come of it. Miranda was surprisingly receptive to everything Lenalee told her, up until she got to the part about what went where – that she found astoundingly hard to believe. But, once she had absorbed the information and confessed that she had never imagined the sounds something like that would include, she quickly left Lenalee to her own devices, intent on mulling thing over and finding Crowley to ask him if such talk made him uncomfortable and that was why he had vanished.

So Lenalee wandered casually back toward Lavi's room alone, wondering vaguely if her brother had done all of the things he was supposed to have covered so they could have dinner together for once.

And then she heard something she shouldn't have.

"…I agree that I cannot tell the Order directly, but it would surely be interference if I do not point out that Tiago Valente is an alias. Komui would know it himself if he looked at the papers on his desk once a month." Lenalee stopped moving down the hall and turned to look at the slightly open door, behind which Bookman's voice was crackling in something close to indifference. Tiago – that was Tyki. Her blood turned suddenly to ice in her veins and she tiptoed closer, pressing herself firmly against the wall on the hinge side of the door. She didn't normally eavesdrop, but this time she needed to. "Does this fall under the jurisdiction of impending discovery or not?"

Lenalee frowned and listened to the silence for a moment, heart pounding in her throat for reasons she did not understand.

"Yes." The old man said without a hint of feeling. "I will watch for that and only take action if it is needed. My second inquiry is for my apprentice – it seems that he has become much too involved with this man, too involved to go on with the path laid out before him. Which is worth more in the eyes of the line: a boy with knowledge tainted by fear and love or an apprentice with no recollection of ever setting foot in the Order?" The words were said so plainly they made Lenalee's mouth fall open to hear them. What could the old man mean? "I agree." He said after a moment. "But I am afraid that he will not allow me to take the persona—"

He stopped short, listening intently to the phone in his hand, old spine rigid. After a moment he grumbled something and cleared his throat; Lenalee leaned back against the wall again. She hadn't heard enough to understand what was going on entirely but she got part of it. Lavi would understand it if she told him, yet she stayed to hear more.

"I see." A pause and the shifting of feet filled the still air in the hall. "I will inform him." There was a click of the phone falling into the cradle.

Lenalee turned as quickly as her feet would carry her, sprinting on her toes to keep quiet, intent on Lavi's room. She didn't understand it all but she knew that he was in danger – as was Tyki – and the knowledge frightened her no small amount. Even if it was nothing she had to know before it was too late.

Bookman knew. Bookman had to know. And there was a chance he would tell.

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Cliffy-not-cliffy cliffy. I know. But… the next scene is going to be… plot heavy and crazy, and I didn't want to get myself into that before I think it out a little more. Annnd…**

**A bit of news.  
First, today is my birthday. I am now older enough + 1 8D****  
Second, I'll be going to visit my sis on Monday, so I won't really be able to produce chapters that fast while I am there. Maybe just one a week.  
Third, I'm going to Yaoi Con! I hope to see some of you guys there! 8D …oh, I should work on that fic for the competition…**

**Thank you all for reading and reviewing! /love and hugs all around!\\**


	82. Admit

**Some things happened a whole chapter early. Oops. 8D**

**I must apologize for the "cliffhanger" at the end of this exceedingly long chapter, not that that's the word for it. Maybe… clifflayer would be more fitting.**

**Also, sorry that Komui is sane and logical; I can't get him to act ridiculously. ;**

**Disclaimer of D'tree: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… episode 86 would have included slightly more Lavi and slightly less no-butt-Allen. Because really, who wants to see that bleeding?**

**WARNINGS: Men touching each other sexually, cursing, and a little gore.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Admit

Little more than twenty minutes after they had dripped and slid their way out of the tub, Kanda found Allen lying silently on the bed in one of his shirts, cuddling against his pillow, dead to the world. Over the time Kanda had spent recovering from his lack of memory he had come to enjoy watching the smaller boy sleep, though why that was he couldn't specifically pinpoint. It made him feel warm. And knowing that Allen could sleep so soundly when surrounded by his scent made him feel protective, important, and, worst of all, loved.

He wanted to make Allen feel that way but he didn't know how. Or why.

_The more I think about it the more I don't know what I'm thinking about._ Kanda's deep sapphire eyes passed over the form of his sleeping lover slowly, drinking in the details no matter how often he had seen them of late. He had the feeling that something had changed about the boy, something he couldn't name, something beyond definition or reason. There seemed to be a gentle glow to him, a soft light that seeped from his fair skin and shone more brightly against his hair. The curse mark on his face was so crimson Kanda had to touch it to convince himself that Allen wasn't bleeding, and that simple touch was enough to make the boy lift his face and sigh in contentedness.

_I would die for him. _He thought with an air of finality, letting Allen take his hand and cuddle his cheek against it. It was more than lust that made his heart clench in his chest at it, and it was more than instinct that guided his lips to his lover's forehead, his fingers down the skin of his collarbone. _Letting him do what he wants would be nothing if it made him happy. Nothing._ He kissed down the side of Allen's neck to his shoulder; his lover moaned lightly and stirred a little but did not wake, his head turned away so Kanda had a clear path down the front of him. He followed it, touching as lightly as he could, feeling Allen shiver at the parting of his shirt and the caress of a curious tongue down the center of his chest. He reached up with a tired hand and dragged his fingers through Kanda's hair, not waking.

The Japanese Exorcist sank lower, kissing tenderly at the sensitive skin just below his lover's navel. _I want this._ He swallowed hard, finding himself panting against that pale flesh. _Even if I don't know what I feel, this is still right._

"Kanda?" Allen blinked his eyes open a crack and cast a blurry gaze down at his bared chest, his lover's face looking back up at him. For a moment the white haired boy thought he saw a glimmer of surprise in the man's eyes before it was gone, replaced by something warm and enduring, and welcome. "What are you doing?"

"Che. Isn't it obvious?" Kanda's tone made Allen shiver against the sheets without even touching him.

"No."

"I… don't know what's wrong with me. I just…" He sighed and pushed himself higher until a pair of small, strong arms pulled him down onto his lover's chest. With his face turned sideways against the warm skin beneath him he couldn't look at Allen, he had to stare off into the growing dimness of their room in the afternoon light. "I think I might be… I might…" His left hand found Allen's right and he squeezed it, closing his eyes to the sensation of burning behind them. If he said the words he would lose it. If he said the words he would cry until morning. "Love you, Allen Walker." He finished in a rush. "But not being sure…"

Allen dragged his fingers slowly through Kanda's hair so the satiny strands slid silkily through his creaking palm; he repeated the motion again and again in the stillness, feeling wetness on his side where Kanda's face pressed against his ribs. "Don't cry Love, please. I hate to see you cry."

Kanda made a soft sound of negation but took a moment before he tried to form words. "I would rather that you stop caring for me than I keep hurting you like this. I can't stand it. You cried when you thought I hated you and I can't even let you fuck me to get that idea out of your head. And now I'm hurting you more because I don't want to hurt you. It's not—"

"Don't worry about it, Kanda." Allen said in a voice that lacked any anger. "I can't say that I understand what you feel, but I can say that I will see you through it. You don't have to sleep with me and you don't have to hold back, I'm here to cry on because I love you." The hand that held the British boy's tightened at his words, he could feel the older boy shake against him, quivering like a brittle leaf in a gale. "And even if you don't want to hear it I _know_ that you love me. You look at me like you love me, you touch me like you love me, you hold me like you love me – none of it is any different than it was. Well, you cry more. But that's not bad." He sighed and Kanda could feel his chest rise a little higher before he exhaled, his heart drummed a little more quickly when he was finished. "It might help if you stopped beating yourself up over it and just… go with it."

"Che. You're tired, aren't you?"

"I _was_ sleeping before you decided to kiss my belly button."

"Heh."

"Which was very nice but I can't really appreciate it right now. Between talking beforehand and pinning you to the mirror and the tub and eating, I might fall asleep in the middle if we tried anything."

"What? I'm _that_ bad?"

"_Noooo,_ I'm _that_ tired."

Kanda swallowed passed the lump in his throat and used his hold on Allen's hand to help him move across the sheets to his lover's side, dabbing his sore eyes with his sleeve. When he reached a suitable place he laid his face in the crook of Allen's neck and sighed, feeling the smaller boy turn against him to get closer. "Then let me…"

"Mmhmm…" Allen agreed with his unspoken request and leaned into Kanda as surely as he could, holding his hand and closing his eyes to the soft press of an open mouth on his skin. With no bandages on his back his skin burned against the mattress through his stolen shirt. He would have responded to the touch if not for that; the soap had irritated him enough to drive the thought from his mind. Just letting Kanda move him a few inches across the cotton bedding was enough to leave him cringing.

"I… Moyashi-kun…"

Allen shook his head gently and smiled at the attempted words, knowing that soon, though not now, they would come. "I know, Love." _Better than you do._

* * *

Lenalee's fist collided with the wood of Lavi's door with enough force to leave bruises. The hollow bang that resonated through the hall seemed less than suitable in her ears so she hit it again, harder, and the back of her mind contemplated the cost of kicking the door in completely. She would give him five good knocks and then she was doing it.

At knock number two Lavi's voice called her hand to a halt. "There's no _way_ that's Yuu-chan."

"Lavi! Open the door Lavi! Right now!" Lenalee called back, fingers falling to the door knob to find it unlocked. She gave the knob a twist and started to push it inward only to have the portal smashed back where it was, a tiny exclamation of pain coming with it. "Lavi?"

"I'm naked, Lenalee. Gimme a sec."

"Oh." She shifted on her feet for a moment, leaning her ear against the wood to hear what was happening. Naked? That explained the sounds if he wasn't the only one naked. She wasn't sure if she should feel happy for him, happy for the world, or mildly annoyed at it. "Um… Bookman was talking about something and I wanted to see if you knew about it before he got to you so… can you hurry?"

She heard something hit something else and a sound like a gasp, then the shuffling of cloth. After a moment her redheaded friend yanked the door open she reeled back, slapping her shoulders with her pigtails as she went eyes wide. Lavi was corpse white and he stood in the doorway on his left foot without even a word of invitation, shirtless chest showing bruises plain in the hall's light. For a moment she gaped at him, not understanding why he was out of the hospital wing when he looked like that under his clothes.

"What about gramps?"

She shook her head and forced herself to look only at his left eye. That, at least, didn't look painful. "He knows about Ty…chan, and he sounded like he was going to tell someone. And he said something about you and a persona and willingness…" Right before her eyes Lavi's face went two shades lighter. "What?"

"He wouldn't." He said distantly. "He knows I won't let him."

"Lavi?"

The apprentice Bookman held up his hand and waved at her to wait before retreating back into his room with the door open an inch. She didn't want to be rude but Lenalee made no effort to move away and not hear what was going on.

"Ty-chan…" Something like springs creaking. "Ty-chan, wakey-wakey. C'mon… we've got confessions to make and personalities to save."

"Mm… sleep…"

"Ty-chan," Lavi sighed exasperatedly and Lenalee heard the bed squeak again followed by the smooch of lips. Somehow that didn't disturb her as much as she thought it would. "I know you only half-slept last night but I need you to get up now, otherwise we're both mightily screwed."

"That sounds lovely."

"Leggo of that and put some pants on! We have to talk to Komui."

Lenalee stifled a snicker.

"Well," Tyki's voice sounded less asleep but still terribly tired. "I guess I should let the dark have its way more often if it makes you this willing to do what I want. Why are we rushing though? And you're as pale as death dear, what happened?" At the sound of a zipper Lenalee decided that it was safe and poked her head into the room curiously, half expecting to see the naked and distressed Noah on her friend's bed. Instead he was leaning on the frame wearing nothing but his pants, one hand on Lavi's right wrist, the other on the side of his face. He wasn't even oddly colored. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Fine," Lavi offered a tiny smile and turned his right hand so he could hold the fingers that had stopped him. For a moment, seeing the two of them so close, Lenalee had to smile. "I'm just worn out from erm… stuff."

Lenalee cleared her throat before Tyki could interrupt. "Shirts. And shoes. And hurry. I don't know what's going on and I don't know what you're planning, but Bookman will be here any moment. He was headed this way when I ran."

"Shit." Lavi picked up a shirt and threw it at Tyki before reaching for his own discarded one from the day before. The Noah moved at a slightly less frantic pace but still clothed himself, sending a gentle, sleepy smile at the girl who had walked in on them.

He seemed so human. "Lenita, nice to see you again. I assume you aren't scarred beyond repair from hearing that through the door?"

"That?" _I hope he doesn't mean Miranda…_

"Just now you must have heard me say something derogatory."

Lavi gave a tiny little snort as his shirt came down around his shoulders so he could smooth it, face incredulous. He looked at Tyki and raised his eyebrows, green eye smiling despite his skepticism; the edges of his lips raised just enough to look amused. He placed a hand gently on his lovers shoulder as if to demand his attention and spoke in a mockingly serious voice. "Anything you say or do cannot corrupt Lenalee anymore than she has already been corrupted. It's a fact. You should see the porn she draws."

"It's _not_ porn."

"Right. It's porn with plot."

"Do you _want_ me to hit you."

"I do like pain."

Tyki stood and caught Lavi's chin in his hand before sweeping him into a tender kiss, curling his left arm behind the small of his lover's back. The redhead was surprised by it – as was Lenalee – and it took him a moment to respond to the soft, breathy touch of skin against his, and a moment longer to close his eyes and enjoy it. The gentle invitation of his lover's tongue against his lips cued Lavi to deepen the contact, and at the brush of fingers against his face he leaned forward, fighting a whimper of contentment.

The Noah pulled away and grinned at him, grip firm around his hips. "The only one who gets to do that is me."

Lavi blinked at him. "Of course you are. I wouldn't kiss anyone else if they paid… never mind, bad... thing to say."

"That is not what I mean." Tyki kept smiling, even though he was saying something less than pleasant. "I am the only one who gets to hurt you for your own enjoyment. That fact is what keeps me loyal. Well, the sadistic part."

Lavi chuckled at him with a same strange smile of knowingness and pinched him through the fabric of his shirt. "Sometimes I wonder which half of you that part belongs to. All dressed? Good. Shoes." He commanded. "And I can't really get mine with you hugging me so…"

"Right."

* * *

Komui sighed into his papers, and frowned, blinking his tired eyes at them in worry. The little black words didn't make sense no matter how much he looked at them, and the pictures made even _less_ sense when he studied them more closely. He had contemplated calling it quits, asking one of the other scientists to read the simple print and look at the images and tell him what they saw, but he knew it would be little or no help. None of them would know what they were potentially looking at.

A few of the slightly more curious and perhaps paranoid members of the science department had done something of a background check on their newest freeloader – the traveling magician by the name of Tiago Valente. They had searched high and low for a record of him, of anyone _like_ him, but they could find nothing on a man by his name or standing – it seemed that the first street performance the man had ever put on was in Durnshine, and that had only been to pay for medical supplies and buy train tickets to a place near the Order; aside from that the man might have fallen out of the sky.

Komui would have ignored the use of an alias and shrugged it off as a man with a troubled past if not for two things: first, there were pictures. The saved images from the man's entrance into the Order were very curious, though only half understandable thanks to a strategically placed rabbit cage and delicately carried table, but all the same he could see that something was wrong. Around his spine and heart there was something that shouldn't have been there, something not good; just looking at it made the hairs stand up on the back of the Chinese man's neck as if electrified. He could barely pick out where the same strange dark thing wound its way around the man's wrists and curved down the backs of his hands like a second skeleton. The supervisor could not even venture a guess as to what it was. What he could tell was simple: either Tiago Valente was not entirely human or the Noah family had done worse to him than they had to Lavi, but he could not decide which seemed more likely with everything that played into his appearance and personality – he didn't even seem like the lying type.

The second thing to make him unwilling to trust the man was the fact that, though he bore no resemblance to any Tiago Valente over all of Europe, he was almost eerie like a missing miner from Portugal. A man who – after much hunting for answers – turned out to be somehow related to Rhode Kamelot and the Millennium Earl.

None of it implied that he was evil. None of it made him think the man was going to hurt anyone. But the possibility of ill will was definitely there.

But what truly made no sense at all was the fact that, with all these lies, Lavi seemed very much in love with him. That was _wrong_. A Bookman apprentice did not fall for a man who lied.

Unless…

_He knows something. He knows the truth._

A soft knock drew his eyes away from the papers and he sat them slowly on the desk top, face down. After a moment a familiar face poked in the door, paler than normal, crowned with red hair and a swath of green cloth. The young man smiled at him and leaned in a little further, smiling. "Is now a good time?"

"Not at all." Komui said at once. "Come right it."

"Thank God," Lavi sighed, throwing open the door. He wobbled in, leaning heavily on the cane he had received from the medical staff, and two people followed him in quietly, neither smiling. Lavi paused long enough for Lenalee and Tiago to close the door and lock it before the three turned at once to face him, Lavi fought to hide the fact that his right leg was shaking and clenched the top of his cane in an effort to stay standing, his skin was unnaturally white, eyes sunken into purple dark circles over hollow cheekbones. This was bad.

"Lavi, you look like you're going to collapse, are you alright?"

"Just tired, it's not important." He said in voice that was far too raspy. Tiago – or not-Tiago – moved to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist to hold him, fear in his strange dark eyes. "We've got to tell you something and… it can't wait." A strange look came over his face, his fist closed more tightly on the head of the cane. _"Shit…"_

"Lavi?" Tiago gave him a little tug and the cane tumbled from his grip, his hand going at once to his chest as he fell. The magician caught him when his right leg gave out and Lenalee took two steps forward, Komui pushed himself out of his chair but did not move closer. "What's wrong? You aren't remembering are you?"

"No." The redhead shook his head and breathed a shaking breath, fingers clawing at the fabric of his shirt. He was shaking all over; sweat pouring down the sides of his face in swift lines, face going paler. With cold hands he gripped at his lover's arms, breathing ragged, and his lips parted to admit more air into his struggling lungs, his left eye blinked as if he couldn't see. After a moment he folded in on himself and vomited sticky blood down the front of his shirt and across the paper-covered floor, legs giving out completely. His fear clouded eye turned across the office to Komui and he choked, Tiago's hands guiding him slowly to the floor. "Did you… find… the… tease…?"

"My God." Tyki put a hand to his mouth as the color drained sickeningly from his face. If they hadn't found the tease…

"Move!" Komui was around his desk and taking Lavi's pulse before Tyki could think to react. The beat of his heart was frantic and irregular; something was interfering with his heart. "What's a tease? What do you mean did we find a—"

"Idiot!" Tiago hit him in the shoulder hard enough to send him flying into his desk, knocking it over and displacing a number of papers as well as the phone, the supervisor hit mostly with his right shoulder, wincing painfully. Komui shook himself and stared at the man who had thrown him away, only half comprehending what the man was saying. "There is no time for such idiotic questions; there is no time for knives. This may hurt dear, but I have no choice but to save you." The magician shot his right hand directly through the redhead's chest.

Komui froze, unblinking. The man before him moved his hand through the boy's bloodied shirt and upper abdomen as if there were nothing there at all, fingers following the lines of major blood vessels and arteries as if he could feel them. Lenalee held her clipboard over her mouth beside him, eyes round with shock.

"Wha… wha…"

A line of scars blossomed across the man's forehead just so Komui could see them. He stopped breathing.

Tyki caught the little golem in his palm and pulled it through Lavi's ribcage and shirt, crushed it before flinging it into the mess beside him. He pushed his hand back again, his other hand held tightly between the apprentice Bookman's fingers.

"_Ty-chan…"_

"Don't speak dear, I know." The Noah kissed the fingers of the Exorcist's hand without smiling. "I love you also."

"_Am I… die…"_

"No, I will not let you. I swear I will not let you. What I can find is small, if I hold it for a few more minutes it should fix itself well enough – though I doubt we should have sex again for a few days." He cracked a grin at that, a casual grin, and let the redhead bring his hand to his sweat drenched face. "You look as if you want to speak but are afraid to."

"_I don't think… sex is gonna… be a problem…"_ Lavi spoke as if his tongue were too thick for his mouth, sticking to his blood. _"An'…Komui… sees your… sc…sc…_"

"Don't speak dear. He watched me push my hand in to your chest, he must know by now that I am a Noah. I do not care. That is why we came here, is it not? If it saves you," His thumb hooked under the fabric of his lover's headband so he could pull it off, letting his fingers trail a soothing line up to Lavi's hairline. "I will sit here and let him kill me."

"_Ty…"_

The Noah shushed him, placing delicate kisses on his face, stroking his forehead. He was perfectly docile with the weak boy in his arms, soft and human, kind and loving. Komui watched the man bring the redhead to his chest and rock him, brown eyes flecked with gold with every croon of soothing and nearly gasped when Lavi closed his eye contentedly to the enemy holding him so close. It seemed like a hour until the apprentice Bookman's breathing evened out, coming in gentle pulses rather than ragged gasps, but even then they did not move and Komui leaned more heavily on his toppled desk.

Because even if Tiago Valente was a Noah it did not explain everything.

"What are… who… wh-wh-wh…?" _What questions are there?!_

Lenalee lowered her clipboard and touched the Noah's upper arm, sinking to her knees beside him. The man gave her a weak smile, the look echoed itself on Lavi's features, but it was the Noah that turned to speak to him. Having those gold-black cat-eyes looking at him was perhaps the most horrifying moment of Komui's life.

"My name is Tyki Mikk and I am the bearer of Noah's Pleasures. I am a traitor of the Millennium Earl and a failure of the family line, but I no longer care for such trivial things as someone else's desires placed on me. The reason we are here is simple: I wished to confess my true self to you that you might not route me out and kill me – I do not wish to die and this seemed the best course to self preservation. Do you understand, Supervisor?" Tyki turned back to his lover to kiss a gently falling tear from Lavi's cheek, still caressing his forehead, and slipped a blood soaked hand from his chest. "I want to stay because if I leave, I will be murdered."

Komui gaped at him. He shoved his glasses up as soon as they started sliding from his nose. "Wh-why?" His eyes went to his sister who seemed to be taking this confession in stride and struggled to speak to her. "Lenalee…"

"Truthfully," The Noah chuckled a little. "I sought out an Exorcist that I might break slowly, one that might betray the Order to save themselves if need be, but the plan backfired. I love this man. When my relative found us I had no choice but to let her take him unless I wanted to betray everything and kill us both, so I involuntarily assisted in his kidnapping, a mistake that has come back to haunt me tenfold.

"They beat him." Komui could see the anger flash behind those strange gold eyes and shivered – this was what had happened in the medical wing when they had arrived and he had not even noticed it. He had helped him walk, brought him meals, held casual conversations, and the entire time this man had been what he was. Komui felt that he could have paid the ultimate price for his willingness to save but one dying, bleeding Exorcist on his doorstep. "They questioned him and made him think I no longer loved him, they hurt him in ways that you have seen the scars of – and I do not mean on his skin. The internal bleeding was what prompted me to place a tease within him, but looking back it was somewhat stupid of me to tell a cannibal golem not to eat and instead to help, but I am rambling.

"The point of my rant, Komui-san, is that one day I found him no longer in my room and instead in the presence of two of my kin, moments away from suffering ministrations I would not condone on even the most twisted of enemies. In a fit of anger I destroyed the cell that held him. I tried to kill them both and then I ran. I took Lavi with me and escaped that place knowing exactly what I was doing by saving him and not giving a damn." His gaze fell back to the slowly recovering young man he still held in his arms, or perhaps cradled, and he smiled at the fingers that twined themselves determinedly through his. Lavi had not said a word about what had happened, yet he still managed to second the story. "I betrayed them all because they are nothing to me. Nothing because even if they love me, they could not understand that I love him more than I love myself."

The redhead gave a weak tug on the Noah's hand and Tyki smiled before pulling him up for an embrace that might have made a weaker person's bones snap. "No matter what happens now, _Amante._" He whispered in Lavi's ear. "I love you."

"_An' I… love ya too."_

Komui blinked at the three of them on the floor for a moment and tried to breathe and comprehend at the same time, a feat which his mind did not what to do now or ever. So he pushed himself up enough to lean on his desk and stare some more, struggling to decide what seemed like truth and what seemed like lies. "I think… we could all use a hot cup of coffee. And some ample chatting time." As he said it Tyki looked at him with hopeful eyes and he stiffened. "I don't trust you. But you have been with us for a while now without hurting or killing anyone… and Lavi seems…"

"_He's fine, Komui-s… wouldn't hurt a fly… if I asked 'im."_ The redhead encouraged from behind half closed eyelids.

"As much as I would love to take your word for it he _is_ a Noah, Lavi."

"_Yup… an' I really dun care."_

"Lavi!"

"_He's Ty-chan. Noah, human, ball of lint – don't matter. I love him."_

Tyki laughed lowly, the sound only half fitting the situation. "Ball of lint, dear? Surely you're exaggerating."

"Nope." Lavi cleared his throat to speak more clearly, his color returning. "I just love ya that much, you should feel special." His one green eye turned to the head of the science department imploringly, a faint smile on his lips, and closed his left hand on the fabric of his lover's shirt. "So now you know. And you aren't gonna kill him right? He hasn't done anything. And I'll hurt you if you do."

"Dear…"

"I will. After I can move."

Komui straightened his glasses with a shaking hand and made a feeble attempt to smooth his hat against his head, the effort did little for him. He realized slowly that Lenalee still had her hand firmly on the Noah's shoulder, her face lacking fear, and he blinked at the lavender eyed girl in confusion. After all that had happened it seemed that she knew this man's secret as well as Lavi did and was no more disturbed by it.

"Lenalee, why are you touching him?" He blurted without thinking. She looked up with round eyes and Tyki looked sad, distraught by the scientists continued distrust. "He might—"

"No, he won't." She shook her head and squeezed the Noah's shoulder as if the action would reassure him, as if Komui might have hurt his feelings, as if he _weren't_ evil. "I didn't trust him either but… he's… given everything to be with Lavi. He never tired to hurt us when after… after they ended up how they are, and I can honestly say that he has given nothing but excellent hugs since then. He's…"

"A damned traitor." Tyki finished. "And a man who is tired of seeing unwanted pain, unneeded tears. I want to spend whatever time I have left in this world by Lavi's side, that is all I can ever ask for. If you find it too much to give a one-time enemy I will hold no ill will against you, but I may destroy something before I succumb willingly. Like…_your headquarters…_" The words came out in a distinctly darker voice, his eyes faded to pale ebony; Lavi's had curled more tightly in his shirt. "But I refuse to _let_ myself do that as things are. Not if I can – if I can – I can…"

"Ty-chan?"

The Noah placed a shaking hand on his face and looked down at his lover with perfectly round eyes gleaming with fear, his bizarre gaze held Lavi's as he turned in on himself, just hardly remaining still. "You're… you were… _well…_"

"What is it? Ty-chan?" Komui watched as Lavi brushed Lenalee's hand away and cupped the side's of the Noah's face, forcing him to see nothing but the redhead. The scientist wondered if he might get to the phone before anything happened.

"The dark is angry. Because you are well it believes I should hurt… I should kill and… I… want…"

"That wasn't our arrangement!"

"_I WANT TO."_

Lavi could see the black tears of blood gathering at the corners of his lover's eyes and wiped them away before they could fall, smearing his fingers. Hurriedly he pulled the older man closer, uncaring that they were in front of others. He had to do this. Even if he got more blood on his new green sweater, or if he destroyed the papers on which he laid, he still had to do it. "Swear to me Tyki Mikk, Noah of Pleasure, swear to me that you won't hurt anyone. Promise me you won't kill anyone. Please, for me, swear you won't do it. Please." He could see the fear and yearning in the man's eyes and hear the hunger in the low growl he held in his throat, feel it in the touch of hands on his chest. It wasn't the same as before – it was worse. Blacker. More _alive_ than the thing that had pledged to him previously. "Promise."

Black tears dripped a near silent lament of pain and desire down Lavi's shirt, plopping raindrops on canvas. _"But I… want to…"_

"Do you love me? Both of you?"

"_Yes. Always. It has been so… long. Love. I love weakness. Want to… want… let me—"_

Lavi felt tears reflected in his own eyes and saw the tensing of the older man's muscles, the way they twitched in an effort to remain still. Tyki was losing. At any moment his will would shatter and someone would die – Lenalee or Komui at the rate things were going. Lavi could not and would not let that happen. "Then swear. For me, swear you won't hurt or kill anyone."

"_Ev…er?"_

"I can't say ever, but for now. _Please._"

"_I love you, so I promise."_ His voice was a dry wind in the barren hollow of his throat, cracked and dying in the heat of his yearning, blistered from crying. The Noah slumped forward against the apprentice Bookman and sobbed softly into his shirt with clear tears that served to clean the gore from his warm brown eyes, seeming broken. Truthfully Tyki had never been gladder for his lover's presence – the thought of what would have happened without him made his heart ache in his heaving chest. He did not want to break the first vow he had sworn, let alone make another one. "I… can't... move."

"It's ok Ty-chan," Lavi stroked the Noah's soft brown curls and kissed his forehead with cold lips. "I'm sure Komui'll get you a bed if you ask real nice."

"Really nicely."

"Don't correct my grammar _now;_ it's so not the time."

Tyki's arms curled loosely around Lavi's ribcage as his eyes fluttered closed, he pressed his face close enough to his lover's blood stained chest to feel the beat of his heart on the side it. It was all he could do to stay conscious and thinking. The voice had been different than before – completely insane with the thought that he might be removed from this young man's side – and it had wanted to kill and hurt anyone who tried. Somehow, the dark had twisted their promise to mean that he could murder once Lavi was well, just like having him, and used that false logic in an effort to make him snap.

Not doing what it wanted was getting harder.

"I'm sorry," Speaking was like running a mile. "For what I am Komui-san, but it _is_ what I am."

The Chinese man pushed himself off of his desk and knelt quietly beside the two of them, building his courage and forcing down the rising fear in his throat. With uncertain eyes he turned to his sister before placing a hand on the Noah's back, completely unsure if it was a good idea, and shivered in relief when the man felt like a person. _Human. As far as we know Noah are human. Human._ His mind chanted again and again until he breathed in and sighed, still completely unsure of what he was doing. "I believe you, Tyki Mikk. You have the word of two Exorcists behind you and you have spent a week in our headquarters without killing but… I am afraid that I cannot allow it to be that simple. I don't… I have no idea what I'm supposed to do, really, but I can't just let you wander around and—"

"Nii-san," Lenalee's interruption drew his attention away from what he was saying and stopped off his words. He followed her gaze down to the pair and found that both of their eyes had closed in sleep, still holding each other despite their loss to dreams. Lavi had been functioning on borrowed time, that was obvious, and Tyki's moment of insanity seemed to have drained him of whatever energy he had had left. And now they looked peaceful, killing hands buried in bloodstained clothes, desperate hearts beating slowly in time against each other. Watching, seeing them and knowing they were supposed to be enemies made him feel a kind of sympathy he never even knew existed.

"Help me get my desk," He said softly to his sister. "And then we can have the Head Nurse take a look at Lavi," He gathered the shattered pieces of the _tease_ and placed them on a sheet of paper before folding it up and tucking in into his jacket pocket. With that done he stood and offered Lenalee a hand that she did not take. "Then we can lay him out on the couch and wait for him to wake."

"You mean… you're not going to order him… or… imprison…"

"No, Lenalee." Seeing blatant fear in her eyes for the first time since she had walked into his office, he bent again and draped his arms around her, protecting her from her horrific imaginings. "There are too many unanswered questions. And no matter what the Church says I would rather we make an ally with many secrets than an enemy within our walls. It may take some fighting and some compromising, but I won't condemn either of them. I won't separate them either."

"Nii-san." She hugged him back, dropping her clipboard as sobs shook her shoulders and closed her hands like vices on his coat. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I was so worried… I thought it was over… and Bookman…"

"What are you thanking me for? I haven't done anything yet, Lenalee. And what about Bookman? He has nothing to do with this."

"Thank you for letting them be happy." She explained. "And I don't know what Bookman wanted, but you have to keep him away from Lavi until he's better and he can explain what's going on. He might do something to make him… angry."

"Alright Lenalee," He gave her head a little pat like he always did as they rose gradually to their feet beside the fallen pair. They both looked down at them for a moment, seeing that they had not moved and did not look to be waking. "No one will get to see him but you… Tyki, and I until he is better. I want you to stick to Tyki like glue until I know everything. Lavi can stick to him when he's walking, but until then… it's you. I don't want you in harm's way but…"

"Ty-chan won't harm me, Nii-san. He promised not to."

* * *

Kanda woke to find himself lying on his back with his arms at a surprisingly odd angle over his head, shirtless and hating himself for reasons unnumbered. He had been fully clothed when sleep had taken him, he knew, so his groggy mind determined that Allen had disrobed him while he rested; he must have been more tired than he had known not to have felt it.

With bleary eyes he surveyed the entirety of the room, curious as to where his white haired lover had run off to with his garment and then – when he found the room empty – wondering how long he had slept. He didn't think it was that long, but Allen always was hungry. He would have to find another shirt and tromp down to the kitchen, perhaps help him do the dishes to help pay for his meal, and then lumber back up the stairs and talk to him. With a sigh he made it sit and begin the search for the potentially lost younger Exorcist, but his arms yanked him back against the mattress, wrists giving a short twinge of pain with his movement.

"What the—" He glanced up at his hands to find them belted to the headboard just so he couldn't reach the fastener. A slew of vulgarities tumbled from his mouth in a colorful waterfall of annoyance and fear, disturbed only by a groan of irritation and then a growl of struggle. The belt wouldn't give. _"Moyashi! Dammit, this isn't funny! Moyashi!"_ He kept tugging but the only difference he could tell was the level of soreness in his extremities. It wasn't as if he could reach the two feet to the nightstand to get Mugen either. _"ALLEN WALKER! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!"_

"I'm right here Love, you don't have to yell." The sound of his voice came from the bathroom; Kanda looked to the door at once and found it slightly ajar, a silver eye looking at him from behind the crack. After a moment it came open just a bit wider and he saw two perfectly clear eyes on the other side, drinking him in as if the boy might die if he didn't see more of him. He felt a blush blossom across his cheeks brought on by more than just embarrassment.

"What did you do? Take off my belt and tie me up while I was sleeping?" He bit out the words as harshly as he could – what could Allen have been thinking? He had no memory of _ever_ wanting to be tied down, not _ever_. That was strictly a Lavi-type fetish; Kanda would rather die than have something to do with it.

"I was thinking… before we left we said that we would take up where we left off. We left off with you like that."

"We left off with me pinning you to the mattress."

"Oh, so you remember?"

"Che."

"What? So you don't remember being stuck to the bed but you _do_ remember pinning me to it? I guess you have a selective memory, don't you?"

"I do not. Things that have to do with you… under me… are easier to remember."

"So…" Allen took two steps closer and Kanda realized he was wearing nothing but his shirt – the very one Kanda had fallen asleep in hours ago. He took a brief moment to appreciate the color of Allen's skin and the way his clothes billowed around the his waist and covered him, the sleeves hung over his fingers and waved a little when he came to the foot of the bed and placed a knee on the edge without mounting it. The sight of his thigh made Kanda wet his lips with his tongue. "Do you remember everything about the lawn? Do you remember what I said afterward? How about that morning? We must have gone at it for three or four hours but it didn't matter, did it? You still wanted me when I offered." Leaning forward he rested his arms beside Kanda's hips and looked up at him with gently raised eyebrows. "Has that changed?"

"_Moyashi…"_ The word was little more than a whisper, completely different from how he had been before. Fear slowly filled his gem-like eyes and the muscles of his arms grew tense. "No. I do want you but—"

"But nothing. I don't want you to cry anymore. I don't want you to look at me and feel sick for wanting me. So I'm going to fix it, right now—"

"Moya—"

"I'm _not_ going to listen to you say anything but how much you like it and how much you want me to keep going. Understand?" He lowered himself enough to breathe hotly against Kanda's mouth, just barely out of reach. "I love you and I want to love you, will you help me?"

The Japanese man tried not to shudder at the lack of contact but did anyways, the brush of a knee on his thigh made him hiss out his breath in a long line before he spoke. "Please… I don't know what—" Allen kissed him deeply, right hand questing slowly over his chest, and Kanda kissed back as if it were the only thing he could do. He felt the British boy smile against his lips and wished, more than anything in that moment, that he could wrap his arms around him and do it properly. Abruptly his lover pulled back watched him fall against the pillows panting. "Allen…"

"Shush, Love." He lapped a slow line down the side of the older man's jaw, drawing a soft whimper from him. "If I do this though…" He sucked especially hard on one place and smiled when his lover rolled his head back at the sensation, "If I do this… if I don't give you a choice right now, will you hate me?"

Kanda went stiff for a moment in silence, eyes shut to Allen's slowly progressing exploration of his upper half. "Undo the belt." He said stoically, not looking.

"Why?"

"Undo the belt, Moyashi."

"I told you that I'm doing this, I'm not going to let you up unless you give me five or six excellent reasons. And one of them better be the room being on fire."

Kanda shook his head, clenched his fists in an effort to keep from screaming. "Che. I don't want you to stop Moyashi. I want to – _Allen!"_ His spine arched like a bow away from the mattress at the feel of Allen returning to his nibbling, this time lower. Tingles of yearning burned down his spine, forcing him to speak through his teeth, a hand curving around the small of his back helped enough to bring a strangled moan to his throat. "Damn it – Allen – I want to – touch—"

A small hand came up and settled between his wrists were Allen leaned on it, his face just inches from his lover's. Kanda could see the fire burning in his lover's eyes just as he could feel it in his own, see the caring and fear and doubt and love him, as well as his determination. Allen leaned down just a little more, looking at him with his working eyes without smiling. "Don't lie to me."

"Moyashi-kun." Saying the name reminded him that it would get him kissed so he tilted his head back as if expecting it before he continued. No kiss came. "Even if you _don't _let me go I won't hate you. I can't hate you. I…" His voice broke and he sank back on the mattress without struggle, the words fighting their way up his throat, clawing it. He felt fingers ripping at the leather that bound him and slipped his hands free as soon as he could, tearing the skin on the back of his left hand in his haste. At once he gripped his lover's shoulders and yanked them fervently into each other; mouth capturing Allen's the moment the option was there. Something changed.

Allen landed firmly against the mattress, Kanda's hands to either side of his head as the Japanese man bit lightly into the side of his neck, right hand sliding up the outside of his leg to his unclothed backside. His arms curled around Kanda's shoulders to guide him into a second kiss, his hips rolling up into the older boy's just as callused fingers helped to lift him. After a moment they broke for air, Kanda pulled back to look down at him with eyes so full of emotion Allen wasn't sure if he wanted to let the man speak.

"I love you." He said finally. "That was it. I love you. God, Moyashi…" He sank down again and pulled Allen to his chest, lips pecking at the skin of his throat. "If I didn't want you so bad I'd try something romantic."

"Kanda?"

"I _know_ I love you. If I didn't love you… I don't even want to think about. How could I forget that? You're my _other half_ that should have told me something." His left hand ran gently trough his lover's hair so he could place his lips once again on Allen's in a kiss he wanted to last forever. He remembered every place in the younger man's mouth that enjoyed being touched so he went about tasting him a way he hadn't done in what seemed like forever, and he knew why he wanted to, he knew why it made his heart flutter to be so close.

Allen pushed him back a little and attempted to ignore the palm that had slid gradually down between his legs. "Wait," The word was a gasp and his fingers claws on Kanda's back. The hand did not retract but the Japanese man gave him a moment without taking his breath away, staring down at him with expectant eyebrows and a smirk that spoke of impatience. "If you remember, shouldn't we talk to be sure everything's there?"

"Che. We can talk after I'm done with _this_."

Allen choked out an appreciative moan. "It's my turn."

"Like Hell it is. I remember what to do and I remember doing it, I know that I love you. You aren't getting a turn in the next twelve hours, Moyashi-kun."

"So instead…"

"Che. You won't be wearing clothes until tomorrow at the earliest. Maybe the day after, depending how long we can not sleep for. We'll have couple days to recover so I'm not worried about it." His hair came down at the touch of a hand to its tie; the ebony cascade covered them both for a moment until the boy beneath him pushed it back enough for them to see. "You'll get to eat, if you can stop me."

Allen laughed at him, caught between tears and smiling. "No, I'll be ok for a while. Can you… say it… again?"

"I love you. I love you lots." He repeated, dropping his mouth to the boy's collar bones. "Now off with the shirt before I rip it."

"Impatient, Love?"

"Che, I've spent eight days thinking there was something _wrong_ with me for caring about you and wanting you – do you expect me to wait, Moyashi-kun?"

Allen shook his head back and forth with a grin. "Not anymore."

"Good. Shirt – off – now."

"Pants?"

"Fuck pants."

Allen laughed harder this time, letting go of his lover's locks to take a firm hold of his belt loops. "Off?"

"You always were the impatient one."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Well, that's 82. Sorry that it took so long, I'm at my sister's so it's a little more difficult to write. She has this thing about reading over my shoulder and whatnot so…**

**And if you can't tell… yes, there will be a Yullen lemon next chapter. EARLIER than PLANNED. :'(**

**Thank you all for reading! I am very sorry if I did not respond to you review as it kind of came down to update or answer reviews and I picked update. Sorry.**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!! 8D**

**Also, I realized I posted the last chapter 2 mins before midnight on the 30th of May, and the 31st is my birthday, so I kind of lied XD**


	83. Commitment

**This is an author's note.**

**Disclaimer of D'VITAMIN (that's right, I did it Onee-sama): I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Komui would be less of a bastard toward Reever and his current problem.**

**WARNINGS: YAOI LEMON MAN-SEX BOYS TOUCHING EACH OTHER IN INTIMATE PLACES AND (zomg!) NEAR HET!!**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Cold stillness and the feeling that there was nothing – no one – but the dark. Existence was a small thing that meant nothing but pain, breathing an invitation for sensations like inhaling broken glass. But the worst part, aside form the cold and the ache and the knowledge that the dark was right beside him, was the feeling that once again he was _alone._

_La…vi…_  
**He's not here.**

What might have been the pit of his stomach tightened at the sound of that voice, regardless of how small and regretful it managed to sound.

_Where is… Lavi?_  
**Do you want to find him?**  
_Yes._

The tone of his own voice frightened him.

**Are you angry with me?**  
_For wanting to kill?_  
**Yes.**

The dark was sad.

_No. It's how you are._  
**I just want to kill again. These people, these filthy people, weak and sloppy and sucking up salvation – I want to kill them all.**  
_How long can you stand it?_  
**I do not know. If they provoke me perhaps less than a week. If we are left on our own I might last years.**

The light tried to smile.

_You love him that much, do you?  
_**How could I not?**  
_So now, where is Lavi?_  
**You can't wake up yet to look for him.**  
_Why not?_  
**I didn't let you sleep last night. Between that and our… disagreement you are in no position to even stand.**  
_We wouldn't have this problem if you weren't so insistent._  
**This from the man who just forgave me.**  
_Well, I didn't know at the time that I would be stuck with you in the realm of not-sleep, now did I? If I can't stand can I open my eyes? Speak? How tired did you make me and how?_  
**You might open your eyes and speak a little, but you won't find Lavi.**  
_That's fine. I can at least ask about him if nothing else._  
**It is partly your fault. You fought me just as much as I fought you.  
**_… I know._  
**So when you do wake up… even if he is mad at me… please… tell him…**_  
__**I love him.**_

Tyki didn't expect to feel his skin or see with his eyes or hear the faint shuffling of papers with his ears, but that didn't stop it from happening. His eyelids eased open on the distant dark ceiling of Komui's office and he blinked at it, brown irises contracting in the lamp light he was no longer used to. A wave of exhaustion crashed over his stationary form, a wave of chills running up his arms then down his spine, sending his teeth into chattering suddenly. Almost at once a familiar face was looking down at him, framed by lines of dark hair, capped with white, a cool palm pressed timidly against his forehead.

"La…f…"

Komui shook his head before pulling his hand back and reaching down beneath the couch for the blanket he usually saved for naps. "He's fine; he has his own room in the medical wing." He spread the blanket out over the shivering Noah, looking him straight in the eyes, searching for some hint as to what was going on in his mind. He saw relief and fear, a gentle sprinkling of unrest, and tiredness. So much tiredness he wondered if the man were distantly related to Reever in one way or another. "The golem only damaged the place that you held and from what we can tell it is healing faster than it should, I expect him to be up and about again in the next few days. He did lose blood though, which will take a bit longer to recover from."

Tyki tried to smile at the news but only managed to twitch his lips in an upward fashion, eyelids falling shut. It was an uphill battle to bring them open again, and even then he didn't have the energy to pose the questions he wanted to ask.

_When can I see him? When can I hold him? How can I prove to you that I am good?_

"Just rest for now," Komui smiled back and the expression spread much easier than he thought it would across his face. Even though he now knew that this man was one of Noah's Children he could not help but think of Tyki as the man that he had pretended to be, the traveling magician with nothing to his name but what he carried. The idea appealed to him, made him feel friendly, and helped him to ignore the obvious darkening of Tyki's eyes at his words. "Even if you are awake you can't speak, and even if you can speak he can't hear. Trust me, sleep."

Tyki suppressed a second wave of chills while he coaxed his lips into moving how he wanted them, slowly, like a child attempting words. "Why… can't… hear…" Just that was enough to send him spinning for oblivion, shuddering and struggling with the all consuming darkness that threatened to overwhelm him, eyes completely shut. _No. I don't want to sleep. I want to hear what happened to Lavi._ He thought in desperation, hearing his breath hitch. A strange sensation in his chest told him that the dark wasn't happy either, but it didn't help him to stay awake, it simply made him more frantic in his efforts. _I… can't…_

"He's sedated." Komui's voice was like a razor down Tyki's spine, a splash of purple light against the back of his eyelids, synesthetically projecting even the click of the scientist's teeth into his mind. "Now stop trying to stay awake, you'll give yourself hallucinations. I promise that you can see him when you're functioning and I swear I won't keep you apart, so long as you can live with a chaperone. Now _sleep_."

The Noah sighed softly, relaxing into the binding restraints of sleep. The supervisor shook his head at him, amazed at his will and idiocy, before turning back to his disheveled and dented desk with a yawn. Maybe, if he continued to be this trusting, he could get a nap in by lunchtime.

* * *

Short fingernails pressed almost painfully into Kanda's palm, Allen was squeezing so hard, but that didn't stop him. Nothing would stop him. Never again. Not even when those pale silver eyes lost out to the tears that had threatened, not even when he felt hands yank open his pants to feel him more closely, not even when he felt his own eyes burn and blur with his own emotion in answer did he stop. It occurred to him, as he pressed his bare skin against Allen's and the boy leaned steadily into the headboard, how long it had been since he had seen the expression of utter bliss and yearning on his lover's face, with or without tears. It made him feel sick with himself. All the time he had been trying not to hurt Allen the only thing he had managed to do was cause him pain.

With gentle fingers he pushed the fabric away from the smaller boy's shoulders, lapping at his collar bone, and felt the press of his lover's hand tighten again on his unoccupied palm, as if Allen were afraid he might lose him. Lovingly Kanda recaptured the boy's lips for a moment, dragging his free hand over his budding arousal and hummed when knees pressed into his sides, a light sound of appreciation answering his touch. He rocked forward into Allen's hips, feeling him shake.

"I love you," The white haired Exorcist mumbled through unwilling teeth when they parted, releasing his hold on his lover's hand to hold him firmly around the back of his neck. Kanda moaned softly at the touch on his nape and paused mid motion, placing his lips tenderly on the heated skin of Allen's neck.

"I love you, Moyashi-kun." He responded, stroking the skin of his lover's forehead with his hand while kissing at his throat. "Now stop crying." He nibbled lightly, soothing each press of his teeth with his tongue; it was an unexplainable need that moved him. The earth shattering force that willed him to keep going for just a moment longer before he looked into those quicksilver pools and tried to smile.

"You first."

"Che." The Japanese man shook his head and wiped the tears from his lover's eyes. "Then tell me why you're crying, Moyashi."

"Because..." He sniffed. "I'm happy you remember again, and you understand it. And I just _want_ to…"

Kanda chuckled at him and blinked his glassy eyes in an attempt to dispel the tears in them. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize Love, touch me."

The dark haired Exorcist obliged him with a press of his lips to his ear before he pulled away again to look into those metallic irises and study the emotions in them. After only a few moments the British boy raised an eyebrow and pecked him on the mouth, guiding him down until their foreheads rested delicately against each other. Kanda found his hands on Allen's face; the hands that had been on the back of his neck curved around the bottom of his jaw and behind his ears. "Allen Walker."

"Yes, Kanda Yuu?" His voice was hardly a whisper, perhaps even smaller than a breath, the sound of it made the older man's hands hold a bit more tightly.

"I want you to be with me forever and I never want to forget what we have again. If I do, swear to me that you will do exactly what you did and get me back."

"Kanda…"

"Yuu." He corrected gently, stroking the sides of his face with his thumbs. He felt Allen suck air through his lips at the word and kissed them, delicately caressing with his tongue before he pulled back again to how they had been. "Don't call me Kanda."

"But Love, you hate your name."

"Not when you say it."

Allen reached forward and wound his arms as tightly as he could around the back of Kanda's shoulders, holding him against his chest. The thump of his lover's heart was the only thing that kept him from laughing and crying at the same time, the only thing that made him want to do both. Part of him wondered if it was all too fast, Kanda's memories were recovered but he didn't understand how or why or for how long – the thought of losing him again wrenched his heart nearly to screaming. He felt the warmth in his face and fought it, focusing on _now_ and what had been said. "But Love, Yuu is so close to _you_ that I don't think I can call you that all the time. It would be like me telling you to call me _kisama_ but spelled differently… I might… giggle at it or something."

"Che. Then just use it now, Allen. If we're married you shouldn't call my by my family name, you are my family."

Kanda felt Allen smile into the side of his shoulder and leaned forward enough to remind him of what he had planned when he had started this little escapade, the motion made the smaller boy pant hotly into the flesh at his neck. "Walker Yuu?"

"Allen Kanda."

"That's terrible."

"Kanda Moyashi."

"Um, no."

Kanda laughed low in his throat, rocking forward again. "It doesn't matter, does it Moyashi?"

"Not really, Love." He lifted himself back with enough force to drive a strangled moan from his lover's throat, dragging his nails down Kanda's spine in long red lines. He whispered the name softly as he moved, aware of the press of teeth to his shoulder and a hand gliding to his stomach, neither of which frightened him, both of which he wanted. _It doesn't matter so long as I have you._

* * *

"Hito…"

"Reading…"

"Laming…"

"It wouldn't be lame if you could figure something to do besides _watch_ me."

"A girl can't stare at the man who loves her?"

He turned an unattractive shade of puce and laid his face in his book – it was too heavy to pick up and hide behind this time, so he settled for what he could get. "No. Look somewhere else."

"Hito." Sable laid her left hand in the boy's hair and began to stroke it until he attempted to bat it away, which prompted her to take a firm hold of his fingers and rub the back of his hand instead. He whined at the contact. "You know I just like to watch you read."

"It's been _hours_ though. I feel bad with you just watching me turn pages with nothing to do." He muttered into his tome, breathing in the dusty scent of the pages with a sigh. Her other hand started on his hair again and he let it this time, tired eyes falling closed. It really had been hours. The touch of her hand on his head was so soothing, so very calming, that he found himself breathing to the rhythm she had started, drifting toward sleep. Sable was saying soft things to him that he couldn't hear, her fingers dancing in warm lines across his skin, and all the while he felt perfect – safe and warm and completely free to say or do whatever he wanted. It made him want to sleep.

Sable waited until the hand in hers went limp and a soft sound of sleep escaped the boy's lips, then she moved to action. With palms that felt cold with nervousness she shook him awake, rising to kiss his cheek when his eyes blinked open, wordlessly guiding him out of his chair. He gave her a weak smile – the kind of smile he used as a means to say thank you as well as a means to say he was sorry – and allowed her to lead him slowly toward the bed.

Cool sheets, warm hands, fading light. There were few things he needed to make him sleep. There were fewer yet to make him dream.

* * *

"Yuu…" Allen gasped softly, twining his fingers through his lover's hair and letting them slip slowly to the ends, strands falling through his hands like midnight colored water. Every part of him seemed to hum with rightness, vibrating from the base of his spine to the back of his skull, a tone that resonated through his heart and into his questing fingers. It was a new sensation, and one he was not entirely adverse to. Just the touch of Kanda's open mouth to his chest, palms to his hips, made him arch away from the bed and moan the same tone that sang through him, high and piercing. "Love…"

A wet and wanton tongue slid shamelessly over the muscles of his abdomen before sinking to the inside of his thighs, caressing at skin that promptly remembered what it was to be touched. He heard his voice rise in volume when a hand left his hip only to come back in a more intimate place, fingers tracing around his erection and playing around the rest of his manhood, forcing a long line of half formed exclamations from his mouth, each one needier than the last. He clenched Kanda's shoulders, fighting the urge to lift himself into that glorious friction.

"Already?" Kanda inquired in a whisper, warm breath spreading coolly over his lover's legs. He felt Allen shiver at it and lowered his head enough to barely take the tip of his lover's phallus between his lips and flicked with the tip of his tongue, making his lover whimper and throw his head back against the headboard. He watched the white haired Exorcist clench his teeth before he attempted to form words.

"Love I… can we… you're so…" Kanda growled up at him, at last breaking Allen's will and forcing him away from the bed, hands closed on his lover's hair, mouth open to unleash a cry of pleasure. _"Love!"_

The Japanese man gave one last swirl of his tongue before he pulled away, sapphire eyes falling at once on the flushed face of the younger boy, hands reaching for his bare chest. He felt a desperate touch delicately caress the lower part of his stomach, yet too timid to reach lower, and dance along the curve of his hip then hook around his back to yank him closer. The press of lips against his only lasted long enough to make him breathe more quickly, his heart pounding erratically in his chest, limbs shaking. He stayed where he was for a moment, sharing his breath with the boy beneath him.

"Are you alright?" He didn't know why he spoke so lowly, or why the palm against his chest made him want to kiss each finger as lightly as he could manage. All he knew was the yearning in his chest did not abate when his lover nodded.

"Can we… now? It's been _days_ Love, I really want—"

"Che, weren't you the one who said we should talk?"

"_Now_, Love?"

With a soft smirk he shook his head, fingers tickling erotic lines between his lover's nipples, down to his belly button. He spoke hurriedly, trying to focus despite the sudden touch of an open mouth to his throat, his jaw, his collar bone. "I'm taking your turn, you realize that." The open kisses did not stop and the hand on his stomach circled tightly around his arousal with a confident squeeze, he closed his eyes to it, groaning with need.

"I'll just take yours tomorrow. _Now_ please…"

"Hm." He acquiesced with a half gentle bite to his lover's skin, not wanting to move. "In a minute."

"Why not now?" Allen questioned, hooking his left arm around Kanda's neck and pulling him still lower, sucking and nipping at whatever he could get closest to. "I'm impatient, remember?"

Kanda laughed softly, running his fingers through his lover's hair and down his shoulders, lifting him away from the headboard enough to crane his head of his shoulder and hug him close, the embrace tight despite the press of his hands on the boy's still sore back. "I want to hold you for a minute. And I want to tell you that I love you. Can you wait for that?" His fingers moved slowly up and down his lover's back in a soothing pattern, feeling him tense. "Let me remember all the times before, Allen. Let me… _think_…"

The British boy nodded, lifting his legs so they pressed into the older man's sides again, holding him just as close as he could physically manage, every part of him still singing. As much as he wanted Kanda he knew better than to push things any faster than they were already going – because loving did not mean Allen had free reign – so he leaned into him and closed his eyes, following the line of music in his head that Kanda played on his flesh. It was long and sweeping, composed for the hands that caressed him, the voice that said his name so softly, and he knew in his heart that he would never forget the melody. It was Kanda, in every way he understood it, and the thought only struck him as three fourths odd.

His mind had never done this before.

"Kanda…"

"_Wrong."_

"Yuu… I…"

The Japanese Exorcist pulled back enough to place his lips on the smaller boy's, delving with a thirsty tongue into the places that made Allen whimper with longing. He made a contented sound in the back his throat and ran the tips of his fingers lightly down his lover's chest, feeling him exhale his in air at the contact. "Che, alright. Your suitcase?"

"Mmhmm…" Allen inclined his head in the proper direction but didn't let go of Kanda's shoulders, instead rocking forward so his aching flesh touched his lover's. "Do we… really need…"

Kanda nodded, prying Allen's hands away. "Che. Don't be ridiculous. You want to do this the right way as much as I do. Let go." He watched Allen retract his hands as if moving them away were painful, lips parted, eyes wide, and smiled. It didn't fit to say that he was any different than he was before, any warmer or more caring or more natural, he just knew when he looked at that expression that he _loved_ it as well as the boy making it. He never knew an idea could be so fulfilling, so gratifying, but he had known it was more than like. "I really do love you," He moved back toward the edge of the bed, groping for Allen's suitcase. "And I'm going to say it despite the _shut up and do me_ face, Moyashi."

Allen giggled, not moving from his place on the pillows when his suitcase opened and every clean scrap of clothing he owned went falling to the floor. He didn't need to move, or clean, or think about either until they were finished with what they were doing. "Why don't you say it while you help get rid of the _shut up and do me_ face, Love?"

"Are you this demanding all the time?"

"Only when you're being all patient and thoughtful and _slow_."

"So yes."

"_Kaaandaaa_, now is _not_ the _time_!"

Faster than he could follow Kanda turned on him, at last having rummaged enough to find what he was looking for. Hungry hands evoked waves of searing pleasure down the back of Allen's neck; the needy kiss against his mouth made his heart beat even faster, sapping the blood from his extremities. The oddly soothing yet equally invigorating scent of oil reached in nostrils, and the smell coupled with the brush of a hand between his thighs prompted him to tilt to a more accommodating angle, legs to either side of Kanda's hips, elbows grasped around his neck. There were no words for him in that moment, but his lips sought to speak every second there was space to breathe in.

_I need you; I need you more than anything. I can't stand the thought of losing you. Don't ever forget. Never again. Forever. I want to be yours forever._

The press of a cool, wet finger and the presence of hot, salty tears made him gasp, inviting an unoccupied palm to curve against his cheek while his lover kissed him, gently. He allowed himself to be partially silenced by the contact and rocked into his lover, humming softly.

_Even if we're not together, I still want to be with you._

A second finger and Kanda began to speak to him in a hushed whisper, not that Allen remembered the kiss ending or anything of the like, not that it mattered. The brush of breath on his bare chest caused goosebumps from that point down, made him shiver, and forced him to moan. He moved forward again, this time enough to make a slight difference in angle.

The sound Allen made was so pleasant Kanda almost didn't want to move his fingers. "There, Moyashi?" He asked lowly, reaching for that same place; it made him smile when those silver eyes became near perfect circles, his spine curved in a nearly painful looking way, hands clenched, voice raised. There was a word in that lipless cry, something affirmative, and it was enough to make him move his fingers one more time.

"Love – please—"

"I know. I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't." It was obvious that the white haired boy was fighting the urge to do something Kanda would not approve of, but the Japanese Exorcist could not guess what. "Kanda…"

His lover withdrew his fingers, moving them back to the bottle to retrieve more fluid. Allen whined intermittently, kissing at Kanda's mouth without closing his lips, lifting his hips to show his willingness, still crying soundlessly. The slicked hands that pressed into his hips turned him around, dragging his arms away until he lost sight of his lover's face and he came down on his lap, leaning his shoulders on the larger man's chest. A stuttering protest broke from his mouth only until his chin was caught and tilted upward, a swift yet meaningful kiss placed firmly on his lips. His left hand curled behind Kanda's neck, drawing him closer.

"I don't remember…" Kanda began, but he shook his head at the look Allen gave him. "But it feels… right…" He moved his arms around Allen, one by his hips and the other higher so he could touch the skin of his neck, and leaned them both forward. "Will this work?"

The white haired boy nodded hurriedly. He reached out with his right hand and gripped a pillow, just to lean on something. "But… wh-why…"

"I don't want to hurt you," Kanda repeated, licking a slow line across the top of his lover's shoulder, avoiding wounds. He felt the smaller boy quaking violently and almost frowned at it. "Rubbing these against the sheets wouldn't be pleasant, right?"

Allen only nodded again in understanding, shifting his knees, and leaned into the hard press of teeth against his back, head moving forward at the almost painful nibble. Less than an instant later Kanda moved behind him, his slow entrance leaving his lover breathless and drawing a choking gasp from his throat. It was hard for Allen not to pull away or ram backward, it had been so long the sensation was strange to him, the press of fingers on his manhood that were not his own were nearly frightening, breath on the back of his neck almost foreign. He heard himself sigh and closed his shaking hand against his lover's neck, turning to accept a kiss.

It took the longer half of a minute for them to be flush against each other, both panting, Kanda's head over Allen's shoulder, pulses beating through their connected flesh, eyes closed. A wandering hand graced the skin of the British boy's hip before sinking to give him a long, powerful stroke, which made his jaw tighten in an effort not to cry out again. His lover felt his apprehension and whispered airily into his ear.

"I want to hear you. Don't hold back."

The words were the prelude to Kanda's first movement, a shaking motion first back and then forward, half gentle and half ragged with need. Allen let every sound of desperation that wanted to seep through his lips unhindered and heard the answering echo of his lover's voice in return, each responding growl increasing the force with which the older man moved. It was almost too much to be wrapped in his lover's arms sharing his breath, or so Allen was thinking when suddenly – at the time of a rather intensive thrust – thought lost all meaning.

"_My—G—Kanda!"_ Kanda mewled into the back of his lover's neck at the pressure of muscles tightening tremendously around his length, evoking a second rocking of his hips that he had not meant to enact. To his surprise Allen did complain of his speed, instead the white hair Exorcist used the mess of pillows he was leaning on to slam himself backward, startling his partner into nearly losing his mind.

"How close?" The Japanese Exorcist breathed.

"Any… time…"

With a harsh swallow and a nod that Allen could not see, Kanda renewed his hold on the boy's arousal and curled his other arm around his hips to guide him. He pulled away just enough before slamming forward again, aiming for the same place he had hit to make Allen scream so wildly. The clamping of those tight, searing hot muscles made his hand falter, driving him faster and faster toward the edge of oblivion.

Through the palm of his hand he felt Allen reach his climax and topple unceremoniously over the crest of it, back drawn like bow, voice lifted in a siren song of release. The heat that had gathered in the base of Kanda's abdomen at last tightened at the sound, and two thrusts more found him spent. It was not until he lay against his lover's sweat slicked back, ebony locks sticking to his neck and arms, that he thought of what it all meant, what it all pointed to. When he pulled away, limbs unsteady and tired, it was a contented smile that creased his lips and lifted his features.

Allen turned enough see Kanda's face beside him and wove his fingers into the nearest palm with a sigh. He looked so happy, so perfectly _gleeful,_ that he might have laughed if he didn't feel the same way himself.

"Love?"

"Hm?"

"You're so… pretty…"

The smile transformed at once to a frown, then a glare, both of which caused Allen to fight the onset of giggles.

"Che. Say it again and there will be no sex. Ever."

"Right. You may not remember it but we're terrible at being celibate."

"We'll have to see about that."

"Really. Do you remember Christmas? I gave you _me_ and you took it to mean repeatedly. I have never once been that sweaty and gross from one day of physical activity."

Kanda pursed his lips, brows furrowed. "Four times was it? I could have gone for six."

"Not with me and therefore not with anyone."

"Possessive still, I see."

"Always." The British boy squeezed his lover's hand and smiled brightly, drawing the fingers in his close enough to kiss. "So… talk, sleep, or go again?"

Kanda chuckled, smirking. "Talk Moyashi, if we go again you'll blame me for the bruises."

* * *

Hitori lay with his head smashed firmly under a pillow; eyes scrunched shut, dark hair fuzzy with static and knotting. Why did Yuu and Allen have to be so loud? Did they not realize that someone might be taking a power nap next door? Did they not _care_? As far as Hito was concerned sex was supposed to be something delicate and intimate, a secret kept between the two committing the act, not _broadcasted_ for all the inn and plaza and town and country to hear. It didn't help that Allen made that _sound_ like a woman or that Yuu _insisted_ on growling like a constipated ox. If they had managed pleasant sounds and not sounds of pleasure, he might not have minded half as much as he did.

But they didn't, so he minded twice as much as he would have.

The related-gay-poor-innocent-Allen situation didn't help. Because no matter how much he thought about it he just could not imagine his brother being seduced by a more masculine young man – so the logical explanation was that Yuu had tricked the British boy into being gay. Which meant Yuu was gay first. And that, to put it simply, was _wrong._ No Kanda – no male related to Hitori – could have born with the gay gene and realized it without prompting from a member of the same sex. It was the unwritten law of the universe. No amount of femininity could make a man-Kanda like other men, not even the impossible amount Yuu embodied. For it to happen the fabric of time and space would have to unravel and be reworked into a different, yet astoundingly similar pattern, a parallel dimension in which there could be exceptions to unbreakable properties without causing the complete destruction of all that is. A Hellish pseudo-Earth in which just _having_ the name Kanda marked an individual as destined to fall for someone they simply were not supposed to love.

It was impossible.

And, besides all of that, the thought that Yuu liked penises was just…just…_gross…_

An exclamation and a sound like a horny cat filled the room beside him, seeped through the wall and bled through his pillow to tickle at the surface of his eardrum.

_Don't think about it!_ He commanded himself. _Do _not_ envision it. DO NOT._ His mind's eye brimmed with pictures of Yuu being straddled – Allen lying on his back – Yuu on his knees at the edge of the bed – Allen in the most awkward position in which to expose himself to the world – each picture was more vivid than the last, accompanied by it's own distinctive sound as the two men rubbed and nibbled and sucked themselves toward mutual release. _I do NOT want to THINK about it!_

"This is bullshit!" He threw the pillow beside him as he sat up, startling Sable from her place at his side. He had forgotten that they were napping in the same bed again – a habit that he thought was bad but she thought was fine – so the pillow landed on her face, displacing the book that had been balancing on the bridge of her nose for reasons that had nothing to do with reading. Her green eyes burst open and she faced him, mouth forming a perfect O, bangs misplaced over her forehead in a golden spray. They blinked at each other, her small hand coming up to push away his pillow.

"Sexually frustrated?"

"Sabe—"

"Come here, you!"

"No – Sabe – I'm—" A hand gripped in his shirt and yanked him down, another slipping under his right arm to play softly against his chest despite his motions to stop it. He didn't attempt to speak or pull back; he simply let her drag him down into a tender kiss of affection. When she was finished he pulled back enough to look down at her and smile a gentle sigh on his lips. "Maybe a little."

"You're just grossed out because Kanda and Allen are being obnoxious. You seriously need to get over it." She leaned in enough to kiss him again, just teasingly. "Or we can have a competition."

"Sable…"

"Oh please Hito, we don't have to screw each other," Her smirk made him think otherwise and the press of her hand on his side made them both tense. He knew that, if she pushed it, he wouldn't say no for long. "We can fake it."

His long thin eyebrows attempted to migrate into his hairline but stopped at the middle of his forehead, gray eyes wide. The soft, fading orange light glimmered gold from his irises, danced in long sweeping shadows through his hair, made his blush of surprise less noticeable. He didn't specifically care though, he only cared that the hand on his side had moved to the hem of his shirt.

"But…" Sable continued, tugging lightly on the fabric. "We can be more naked while we fake it."

He blinked twice, rapidly, before he found his voice hiding in the back of his throat. "What if we… I mean we might… 'Kaasan will _murder_ us, no questions ask. And… I mean… I love you but… would you do that even though you haven't… and we're not… and…" He let the words dwindle off to nothing, the press of skin to his stomach warm and tempting and good. Apprehensively, fingers tingling from his suddenly low blood oxygen level, he moved the fingers of his left hand to the curve of her throat and traced downward to her collar, amazed when she did not bat him away from the buttons. As much as he had felt her, every curve and bone, it had always been through the obstruction of her clothes and his. "Sable..."

"Shut up, Hito." She slid his shirt up over his stomach, a second hand tickling along the side of his ribcage. "What your mother thinks doesn't matter, what you brother and Allen do doesn't matter – I want to think about us for a minute, not your anti-gay mindset. And I'd like to do it with just you and me and whatever thoughts come to mind. What happens happens – I won't stop you and you _can't _stop me, understand?"

He nodded slowly, tilting in enough to touch the side of her mouth with his lips, trail an uncertain line to her throat. _More than you do, Sabe. More than either of you do._

* * *

It was a beautiful river, cast in the pink and puce of sunset, metallic wavelets rippling in the light across its otherwise still surface. The low banks and distant mountains seemed not to box in the landscape but instead to keep it hidden, protected, untouched by anything but the carving hands of God, safe and pure. The air itself buzz with a sort of nostalgic melancholy, made thick with the scent of blossoming water lilies and the hum of dragonfly wings, so when the breeze rose in the rushes it seemed that the Earth moved rather than the wind, slow and deliberate, full of memories. The memories, the thoughts, the blood in the dirt and in the water – none of it belonged in this paradise of solitude but it did not make it feel corrupted.

Lavi sat with his feet dangling in the cool red water, twirling them back and forth, watching the guppies dance. _"I love dreaming,"_ He said to his reflection. _"Because when it happens, I don't have to be scared of anything. Dreams can't hurt me."_

"_I do believe it is about time you started to understand that concept."_ The voice, eerily familiar, came from beside him, a quick glance at the reflection beside his showed him the face of his lover, smiling despite the setting. He grinned back, flashing his oddly healthy smile over his shoulder.

"_Memory-Ty-chan!"_

"_Memory? I highly doubt it as I am the one dreaming."_

"_Eh?"_ Lavi tilted his head at the man, smile fading, and slowed his feet in the filthy water. _"This can't be your dream, it's mine. I've been here longer. I'm self aware. And I bet I could change the setting if I didn't kind of like it here."_

The Noah's lips turned up tenderly. Lavi watched the man pull off his shoes and socks, roll up his pant legs, then plop himself on the ground, feet intent on the water. He let the figment of his imagination place a hand on his shoulder and sink down beside him, dark hair falling over his eyes for him to push away. By the time Tyki was settled he was close enough to curl his left arm around the boy's waist and scoot him closer, Lavi followed the guiding arm without protest. _"Regardless of who is actually dreaming,"_ Tyki said softly. _"It is nice to spend time with one another alone, isn't it?"_

"_Mmhmm,"_ Lavi nodded, letting his face fall sideways onto his lover's white clad shoulder. The thumb on his left hip began to stroke steadily up and down, soothingly. _"It's not bad to cuddle with a dream version of you're lover so I guess it works."_

"_Heh."_ Tyki nuzzled into the boy's neck, his right hand curving around the side of it. Lavi was amazed that the caress was _warm_, the tongue on his Adam's apple wet, it _felt_ real, even if it was a dream. _"You taste the same, and you still make that beautiful sound… even if this is a dream, I still feel as if you are well…"_

"_How come I think this is going to be a good dream?"_

"_Because you know how long it will be before I can do this in reality."_

"_Now it's a sad dream… but I like it…"_ He leaned in to the touch, laying his hands on the material of his lover's white shirt, feeling his heat. Without thinking about it he tilted his whole body toward him, his feet coming out of the water and onto the dirt so he could capture Tyki's mouth with his own. They fell back against the hard bank, Lavi no longer caring that this could not be real, and broke apart, gazes lock. The Exorcist smiled at the Noah, pulling him close. _"If this weren't a dream I'd offer to talk about something, maybe even kiss more, but because it is can we just snuggle up and enjoy the scenery?"_

"_Certainly." _Tyki chuckled, pulling his lover tightly against his chest. Lavi turned on the oddly comfortable ground and placed his head on this dream-Tyki's shoulder so the Noah could wrap an arm around his back. The smell of the man's clothes was perfect, the feel of his rising and falling chest, the press of his lips on Lavi's forehead. He could almost believe that Tyki, if nothing else, was real.

At length, after a few long moments of playing with the too tangible fabric of Tyki's shirt he cleared his throat, electing to maybe ask his subconscious questions that he had not yet gathered the courage to pose in the waking world. His hand flattened on the plane of his lover's stomach. _"What do you think will happen now?"_

The chest beneath him heaved a hurried sigh. _"Komui-san said he will not make us part, will not punish me for crimes long since committed. For the time being, until you are well enough to do it yourself, Lenita will have to follow me wherever I go – though she may have to allow me use of certain facilities without accompaniment – and I do not mind her so much. She and I have more in common that she knows." _Lavi let his arm fall over the side of Tyki's chest, bringing him into a half hug. He was far more comfortable that way, even if it was only a dream. _"I believe that life will go on. Eventually though, when I refuse to tell the secrets that I know, he may become angry with me. But that will pass. A tight lipped friend is better than an open enemy, no?"_

Lavi nodded into him. _"I meant with us though. I mean, Komui doesn't have a problem with Kanda and Allen so I doubt he cares about us either, but Crow-chan might have an issue with it. He's straighter than bone."_

"_Bones warp."_

"_Ty-chan, you know what I'm saying."_

The Noah laughed again, looking down at Lavi's worried green eye with an expression of amusement. _"If anyone has a problem with us – whether it is because we are both male or because I am a __**little**__ older than you – they will have to deal with me. Exorcist or not."_

"_Oh, you sound so manly."_

"_Really? I thought I sounded overbearing."_

"_Nope. You sound protective in a funny sort of way."_

"_I think I like 'manly' better than 'protective in a funny way.'"_

"_Cute?"_

"_Fiendishly sexy."_

"_Either/or."_

Tyki rolled his eyes as he laid his still free arm over Lavi's, forming a circle of limbs between the two of them. His expression seemed to show that he would rather be somewhere else like this, somewhere softer, but Lavi was enjoying the dream-made sunlight on his skin too much to change it.

A comfortable silence settled between them in which Lavi counted the beats of Tyki's heartbeat against his face, eyes shut. If he weren't already he might have fallen asleep again.

"_Lavi?"_

"_Hm?"_

"_If I asked you, what would you say to the prospect of a handfasting?"_

"_What?!"_ The redhead moved his head so fast against his lover's chest he nearly removed his eye patch. _"You mean a… like a… um… but… I mean…"_

"_You're terribly flustered for thinking I am nothing more than a creation of your mind, dear."_

"_Yeah, well, I've never had a dream ask me to get married."_ He could feel the burn of a blush on his cheeks – this dream was getting ridiculous. _"I just… never thought…"_

"_So you understand the premise."_

"_Of course I do. I just… didn't think…"_

Tyki leaned in enough to kiss him, just lightly, before pulling back with a smirk. _"You have a habit of not doing that. You don't have to answer me now, this is either a dream of mine or yours, so any vows made could not mean much to one of us. Think on it."_

"_No, I don't want to think on it."_ Lavi said at once, his right hand on Tyki's left. His heart was in his throat as he pulled them up, turning to face this image of his mind's making as if it were the man he loved, _feeling_ as if it were the man he loved. _"If you want to tie the knot then we can tie the knot. You just caught me off guard."_

"_Why do you look expectant?"_

Lavi took a hold of the man's loose tie and yanked it off, turning their hands over and placing it directly on the back of his lover's palm. The pair of dark brown eyes that looked at him glossed over with unshed tears, a hopeful grin creeping across his mouth and settling there.

"_Let's do it now, in this dream, with this tie, because I don't know when I'll wake up or if you'll ask me then. And you'll laugh when I tell you what happened in my head while I was sleeping. You'll think it's adorable. And I love you and I want to."_ Lavi said in a rush, gripping with his fingers more firmly, nearly forgetting to breathe. The stunned Noah reached forward with his right hand and touched the side of the apprentice Bookman's face, his realistic fingers tracing the smooth skin beneath Lavi's left eye, cool against the younger man's sun warmed flesh. _"What?"_

"_You amaze me."_

"_Yeah, you're not so bad yourself, we gonna do this or what?"_

The Noah took one end of the necktie in his hand, tears at last escaping the corners of his eyes. For the second time Lavi found that he did not specifically care if this was a dream or not, or if he would remember it when next his eyes came open. All that mattered was the sudden pressure of a kiss against his mouth and the pounding of his heart in his chest.

_This,_ He thought as Tyki at last pulled his feet from the bloody water and embraced him, _Is the best dream I've ever had. _

"_Forever and always, dear?"_

"_Forever and always, Ty-chan."_

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**Sorry it took so long! And I think there are a few reviews I lost over the time it has taken to get this far. I'll try and find them and answer them as soon as I can. 8D**

**Thank you for reading! I hope to see you all very soon!**


	84. Hope and Trust

**It is SO HARD to try and write more than one story REALLY FAST. One of them ends up not as good as you wanted and you feel bad afterward. It's kind of sad. But… I guess that's life, right?**

**By the way, for those of you who are worried that TFL will be ending this season… it's going to be about 5 chapters longer than I thought it was. So maybe October or November? I'm really not sure. And then I'm playing with ideas for… never mind. I won't go into that.**

**Disclaimer of Dobviousness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the fact that Komui never uses an honorific for Lavi would be EXPLAINED. Lamui? Anyone?**

**WARNING: Mild and implied men loving each other in sexually explicit ways. Cheesy sap and HET.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Hope and Trust

"I'm sticky."

"Che. We can shower while we talk."

"Hmm… that sounds nice… and wet. Hmm…"

"Moyashi, why are you licking your teeth at me?"

"Eh? No reason."

"Che." Kanda pushed himself up on one arm, dragging Allen across the mattress and into his side as he went. He stopped pulling when the younger Exorcist's free hand touched his shoulder, eyes wide. "If we talk now will you listen?"

Allen nodded hurriedly. "Even if we're in the shower."

"Good." As he said the word he moved to leave the bed and Allen followed, yet unwilling to let their hands part. The Japanese man watched the British boy's eyes watch him, aware that when they were done saying what needed to be said and exploring the depth of his memories, he was going to give his lover something to stare at.

The pitter-patter of bare feet on wood brought them to the bathroom, each attempting to organize his thoughts while Kanda stared at the bathtub, realizing that there was no shower. With a sigh he started to fill the tub with water, vaguely aware that his other hand was still captured, forcing him to turn the knobs and test the temperature with the same hand. By the time it was a fourth full he turned curious eyes to Allen, who looked back without smiling.

"Yuu…" He started, licked his lips. "While we wait… can we go over what you remember?" At those words Kanda nodded, grabbing a towel from the back of the toilet and laying it on the lip of the tub before he sat on it, guiding his lover down with him. It no longer mattered to either of them that they were naked, that their warm skin pressed against each other, at least not in a way that made them blush. Allen let his lover's arms enclose him in a shell of warmth as he sat sideways across his lap, left leg nearly in the tub, right toes gracing the floor. He traced lines on the skin just above Kanda's belly button.

A short silence passed between them, the burble of the tub was the only sound in the room, hollow, until Kanda cleared his throat to speak.

"I don't remember a lot of things," He tried, eyes averted. "Your favorite color, what I got you for your birthday, how much you know about… the thing on my chest." A slow sigh accompanied the shake of his head, the shutting of his eyes, and watching him made Allen realize just how far he had to go still. As much as he knew, as much as he understood, there were still things left unknown, unexplained. He was functioning with only half of what he should have had. "There was a poem… but you didn't write it. I don't remember who did."

"Lavi did." The white haired boy chimed at once, fingers not stopping. He could see that the water was halfway up the side of the tub but did not mention it; Kanda would know when it was full.

"My head hurts trying to think back that far."

"Hurts?"

Kanda nodded, eyes at last turning to the silver gaze that watched him, he held it even when he kissed him, a peck of intimate contact he could not explain. "Things before that are fine, but between there and the boat ride is painful. When I try to think about how you forgave me, I feel like my skull is going to implode, or my face will fall off. It's not like the rest."

"What do you mean?"

"The other memories just _aren't there_, this is _blocked off._"

Allen's lower lip turned downward, his hands stilled. The British boy tilted his face to the side pensively and the front of his white hair fell over his right eye, obstructing his vision. After a moment a strange smile took his lips. "That must be when you started to care, when you started to fall for me. It's the memory that would have made it simple to understand what you feel. Without it you know what you did afterward but you don't know why you did it or when it started, you're lost." He pressed his hands to either side of Kanda's face, ideas falling out of his mouth as quickly as they filled his head. "But now it doesn't matter. If you understand you should be able to recall it without even a twinge."

"It doesn't work." Kanda said at once. "Besides, I think I was only tolerating your existence at that point."

"You fed me."

"You were starving."

"That's hardly _tolerating._"

The side of the older Exorcist's mouth lifted crookedly over his teeth in an odd expression of amusement, like a pleased cat preparing to love on him. "Even if I can't get that back, I'm still… happy," He's uncharacteristic grin spread wider. "I'll get the other details back eventually and I have you, if I never get those ten days I'm fine with it – I still win." He pulled his lover close and sighed into his neck, his grin fell to something more like a thoughtful frown or a disgruntled smirk, eyelids closing at the same rate Allen moved his hands to Kanda's shoulders. "He meant to take you away from me and he failed, so he can have those memories if it stays that way."

"You honestly mean that?"

"Che. I remember what it was like watching you bleed out in the snow behind my mother's estate. You wouldn't let me touch you. There are no words to describe what it was like. But I would rather feel that again than watch you die without feeling anything at all."

"That's horrible!"

"It's the truth."

After a quite moment Allen spoke to Kanda's neck, softer than he had before. "Love, the tub's full."

"Good. It might make us talk about nicer things."

"Or do them."

* * *

It was warm. As strange as it seemed, the weather was warm.

And the kitchen, with the oven on, was stifling.

"Oi! Are you _sure_ you don't want to help me with this?"

"You must understand Lloyd that asking me if I _want_ to and asking me if I _will_ are two entirely different things."

"Don't be philosophical. Just come suffer in this kitchen-hell with me." Lloyd ran a hand through his sweaty brown hair and flipped the fish in his skillet with his other hand, wishing there were someway to escape the heat radiating off of their food. If Uri weren't a blood relation, he would have told him to screw himself and eat it raw. "I don't mind freeloaders every so often but I don't like freeloaders who refuse to sit around and tell me their back stories. So get in here and either cook something or tell me how you've been." He glanced sidelong at the door to see his younger sibling of seven years and shook his head at the look of smug disinterest on his face.

"You know I can't cook."

"Then talk."

The blond leaned against the doorframe more surely with a sigh, his head tilted back. Lloyd watched his green eyes grow distant as they focused on the high rafters, almost as if whatever he was looking at would not allow him to think about the moment, or the moment would not allow him to think about the rafters. The innkeeper had seen a look like that on Sable's face before, but never so clearly. "You know what I am, but do you know what I do?"

"Write?"

"I meant the _other_ me."

"Oh. Kill people, I assume."

Uri's emerald gaze moved to his brother's darker ones and he smiled a strangely cold expression that raised the hairs on the back of Lloyd's neck. "Well, that's part of it. But I realized something only recently." He pushed himself up from his place and came forward almost as if he were determined. "I like people."

"Astounding." Lloyd chimed in mock amazement. "The next thing you know I'll start liking children."

"Lloyd…"

"Seriously, Uri. Saying that you like people is like the rest of us thinking chickens are cute. Well, the rest of us who eat them. It's a perfectly fine philosophy to kill what you love." He flipped the fish again, blinking at the steam, coughing at the stink of whatever was smoldering against the burner beneath it. "Sometimes I wonder how an unobservant person like you can be related to me. Or write."

Uri shook his head and sighed before turning to the kitchen table and pulling out one of the surprisingly new chairs. He turned it against the floor so he could plop himself down in it, feet on the edge of the table. "By understanding what people think and what they want to read. It's not that difficult. But that's not the point. The point is, I like people – and as such I do not want to simply kill them without reason. Like right now, I have no desire to end your life. And it's not because you're my brother."

"It's because I am the amazing me, that's why."

"Lloyd…"

"Or it's not."

Uri sighed at his elder's stupidity and leaned against his chair, brought it up on two legs with his feet. His shoes made high pitched noises on the wood that made Lloyd glare at him – a glare that he pointedly ignored. "But… Exorcists are different. Before what happened on the beach they never really bothered me – killing was killing – but now… just the thought of killing one of _them_ makes me excited." He breathed in slowly before sighing out a long, deep breath of memory. "Even Sable." His voice was not remorseful.

"You want to kill your twin? _Really_ kill?" He poked the fish one last time and watched the white flesh flake perfectly at the touch, and smiled at it before stabbing it well enough to shift it to a nearby plate. He unceremoniously hacked it into two parts and moved the latter half to his own dish, next to his salad. "Not out of duty?"

"Well, duty is part of it." Uri acknowledged with a gentle nod. "But it's more than that… I mean, I love her because she's my sister but I'd still smile if I crushed her skull in my hands. She's an Exorcist – good and God chosen and in desperate need of being destroyed."

"Wow. Your point of view has changed drastically." Lloyd's voice still lacked seriousness as he lifted the plates and carried them to the table, sunken eyes on his brother's feet. When he was close enough he lifted his right foot and placed it firmly on the wood beneath Uri's thigh then pushed, forcing a slight wince from the blond as the legs of his seat came smashing down on the floor. "Be nice to my table and don't break my chairs. Evil prick." He offered Uri his food before he placed his shoe back on the tile.

"I like having my feet up."

"I like having furniture worth using."

"I'm not a prick."

"Right. But you're evil." Lloyd pulled out a chair and sank into it, laying his food down between the preplaced silverware. He watched Uri roll his gem like eyes and sighed before going for his fork.

"Sure I am, but so is the world."

"Relatively speaking, you're not helping it."

"You'll see when the war's over." He pulled his left leg over his right so his heel was on his chair with him. "And if you don't… maybe I can make you understand."

* * *

"How is he?"

It was the same question, no matter how long the man woke for, no matter how many times Komui told him that he needed to rest for just a few hours longer before he could see anyone. The more the Chinese man heard him say the words the more he didn't want to tell him the truth – that Tyki was well passed the point of collapse even after a half night of sleep, that the moments he did spend awake were short and he seemed weak. The Noah needed undisturbed rest for the time being – as did Lavi – but neither of them seemed as if they would get it.

Every minute Tyki was awake he would ask the same question. _Where is Lavi?_

And now, an hour after midnight, their breaks in sleep were becoming more common.

"How… is he?" The redhead questioned from his hospital bed again, the lid of his left eye sagging, skin like paper, willowy fingers gripping the blanket over him loosely. Komui felt impossibly bad for him, even more so when Lavi's lips tried to repeat his inquiry for a third time and released nothing but air until he breathed again, gathering his strength.

"'Ow… iz… Eeki…"

He couldn't stand it.

"Matron." Komui closed his eyes to the weak Exorcist and spoke quietly; aware that whatever he said would be heard, remembered. He didn't want it to be remembered. He didn't want Lavi to listen to the words coming out of his mouth. But he knew, if he kept them apart, even for their own good, the two of them would be worse because of it. "Will you get Tiago for me?"

"They really shouldn't—"

"Please." He opened his eyes to the floor without focusing them and ignored her startled protest. "This isn't an option any longer. If they keep this up, they'll both be dead in three days." He didn't hear her soft soled shoes but he did hear the door open and shut again, and used that as an excuse to glance in that direction without looking at Lavi.

But the Exorcist called to him. It didn't sound like the redhead's voice but it still brought him to a halt even before his slippers could leave the floor. "What's… 'ong wi'… me?" Almost at once the scientist found himself at the boy's side, looking down at his dull complexion, feeling his slow pulse with two fingers. It was the same as it had been, though slightly less regular from his lack of sleep. "I feel…"

"You lost quite a bit of blood, Lavi." Komui replied at once. "You shouldn't be awake yet. But Ty-chan will be here soon, if you wait." At the words he saw the redhead try to smile and placed his hand on his still bare forehead, smoothing away his hair. "My God, you're freezing. I'll bring in another blanket for you in a few moments."

"Thanks…" His fingers twitched closed on his blanket as if gripping it would make him more inclined to stay wakeful. Komui's mouth flopped open in amazement as Lavi drew his eye wider, the green of it gathering light until it paused, unfocused in the direction of the ceiling. "Is there water? Or coffee? Or… something…" The scientist nodded at him and reached for the bedside stand, groping for the pitcher and cup he knew to be there, not looking away. He wondered as he poured the room temperature water into the glass if – maybe – he was too worried.

_They aren't just Exorcists or people. He isn't just someone I work with. They are all family. That's why seeing him like this makes me… feel things I shouldn't._ He held the half empty glass out to the apprentice Bookman and raised an eyebrow. "Can you hold it?"

"Don't think so."

"Alright." Komui placed his hand under the curve of the younger man's neck and lifted, working his hand down the redhead's spine until he reached the place between the boy's shoulder blades. He was surprised how easy it was to lift Lavi into a half sitting position; head propped against his upper arm, and looked only at the clear cup as he brought it to the boy's lips. He had seen him hurt too much recently – far too much – to stay stoic much longer.

Lavi gulped water like he was dying of thirst then gasped when it was gone, cheeks lightly flushed from lack of breath, pulse elevated. The scientist laid the Exorcist's head back on the pillow and met his eyes at last, no longer hiding the severe frown that had threatened to mar his usually enthusiastic face. Lavi smiled up at him, eye a little brighter than it had been only a moment before.

"What?" His voice was quiet but clear – he didn't seem as tired after that little bit of water.

"How do you feel, really?"

"Komui—"

"I'm not asking about your health, Lavi." He said lowly, shaking his head rapidly to delay the apprentice's answer. "I'm asking about Tyki Mikk. _Don't_ look at me like that – I just want to be sure that you know what you're doing. That you know what you're asking from me as well as everyone else here. This isn't like Kanda and Allen – it's worse." He sighed hurriedly before he continued. "He's a _Noah,_ Lavi. Do you love him so much that you will risk everyone who lives here to keep him near you? It's not safe. Even if he swore to you I do not think I can trust the word of—"

"Shut up." Lavi cut him off by lifting a hand just far enough to catch the end of his shirt and pull. Komui didn't even move with the redhead's efforts. "You don't have a fucking clue what you're saying, Komui-san."

"And you do?"

"You weren't there you don't know what happened."

"Then tell me."

Lavi shivered but spoke regardless. "He let me cry on his chest because I loved him, because I knew I shouldn't. You don't know what he did for me one night when I wanted to be with him – he made me dinner and fed me strawberries because he wanted us to be _normal_ people, not Godforsaken warriors. And you don't understand, even though we tried to explain, that he doesn't have anything else. His family will _kill_ him, Komui-san. I bet his friends are dead."

Komui shook his head again, pushing Lavi's hand off of his clothes. "How do you _know_? If he's lying—"

"He can't lie about something I remember."

"Did you _meet_ his friends, Lavi? You couldn't remember it if you did, not bleeding out like you were. And you cannot tell me that you know they're going to kill him if they find him – you were dying when he took you away, so what could you have heard? For all you know leaving was a farce to make yo—"

"_Stop. Before I do something stupid, Komui_-san." Lavi hands clenched into fists against the mattress, bright eye narrowed. He was doing _much_ better than just a few moments before, mostly from anger. "I remember because I have inherited his will. It's not just _him_ that loves me; it's the _other_ he carries around with him too. _You_ don't know what that means – _you_ can't – but _I_ do."

"Lavi what—"

"No. Let me tell you. There are two separate people in his head Komui, and he can't control one of them. But even if he can't… even if he can't he still _loves_ me. _Both_ of them. That _evil_ you think is going to kill everyone _wants_ to be with me, will _die_ for me, has _sworn_ not to hurt anyone _for me_. And you want to know if I am willing to send him to his death because you don't trust him? My God, Komui. I trust him more than I trust you.

"But that's not it. You don't know what I remember. What he remembers. I remember him lying in bed the night he came to see me – beforehand – staring at the ceiling and thinking about me. Thinking about having to make me hate him or betray everything he was. Or another time, when I accused him of betraying me, he was so sad and hurt and frightened he would have done anything to convince me otherwise, make me take him back. After that, in – your office, with his – hand – in – my – his – my – ch—" The words came to a sudden halt and his right hand moved to his face, smashing into his forehead, mouth open wordlessly. Komui quickly pushed this new information aside and touched the skin of the boy's neck in an effort to ascertain the situation – thoughts at once on what – if anything – was wrong.

"Are you alright? Say something?"

Lavi's eye shut and came open again, only Komui could tell that it was blind to the room and to the light, his pupil flared unnaturally wide. He couldn't count the beats of the boy's heart against his fingers yet he knew it was far too fast – like a train gone off its tracks without slowing.

It was too soon for it to do that.

"Tell me what's wrong! Can you hear me?" Komui touched the back of his hand and Lavi's fingers curled against his own skin, scratching his forehead. The scientist gasped as the apprentice Bookman arched away from the mattress. "Lavi!"

"I – my… I – have to…"

"What Lavi? What do you have to do?"

"Who...?" He blinked once, agonizingly slow; and sank against the pillows, breath coming in harsh gasps. "Who…"

"Let me." Komui knew the voice was not his own and turned toward the door expectantly. The Noah of Pleasure – the very cause of all these troubles – stood weakly in the doorway, one hand on the jam the other limp at his side, Lenalee not two feet behind him. Komui watched the man take an uneven step forward and teeter for a moment before taking another, then a third, slowly crossing the space between them. After a short eternity Tyki stood beside him, bare feet on the cold floor, red rimmed eyes only for the Exorcist on the bed. Without asking for permission he pulled Lavi's hand away from his forehead and held it tightly, using it as a means to help himself move his lover to sitting. "You can stay, Komui-san, but I need silence."

If he wanted to argue the Chinese man made no sign of it.

Lavi did not do much more than mumble when the Noah pulled him into a lose embrace. "Lavi?" He whispered softly, hands gliding up the Exorcist's spine. "I can't come get you this time. I won't be able to stop what happens afterward. But I need you to think for me, alright Lavi? Will you think for me?" The redhead's right hand hooked into the fabric of his lover's shirt but his face remained perfectly void of emotion, eye sightlessly blinking at nothing.

"Ty…chan…"

"Yes, Lavi, it's me." Tyki mumbled softly, rocking them back and forth, back and forth, gaining momentum.

"Ty…"

"Sh… yes. So you know who I am right now, in this moment. That is good dear. Now, who are you? Who am I holding? I know who you are darling, but I need you to remember also, and to _be here_ with me." The words made Lavi's eye close entirely and his hand clench until his knuckles turned white. Komui watched without speaking, not understanding. The situation was one thing – the tenderness in their enemy was another. And neither of them made sense.

"Lavi." The redhead sighed. "Lavi." He hummed lightly and his arms moved enough to draw the Noah into a proper embrace, or as much of one as they could manage with Tyki's feet hanging down to the floor. "That was bad… it hasn't been that bad since I got out of here the first time. Thanks."

"Have you not remembered anything in your sleep of late?" Tyki questioned his shoulder without attempting to pull away, just allowing his lover to hold him and the siblings to watch. "If not they will bleed into reality sometimes."

"I don't know. I had a crazy dream, but it wasn't a memory I don't think. I mean… it's never happened to us, so it couldn't have been one." His face snuggled more closely to Tyki's neck, breath easing, and he yawned at the same moment a hand began to run through the back of his hair, stroking soothingly. "I'm so tired…"

Tyki chuckled at him in a timbre that was hardly fitting of the circumstance but did not attempt to make the sound quieter. He turned his head enough to place a kiss on the side of Lavi's temple and sighed back, a small lopsided smile on his lips. He seemed far too human when he did things like that, far too simple. Watching made one wonder if perhaps the man had forgotten what he was, not decided against it. "Me also, dear. I haven't been able to sleep long or well without you. Not since I dreamed."

"Hm…" Lavi was already drifting off because of this man's presence. "Can we… lay down?"

"Lie."

"Ty-chan…"

"Sorry." The Noah did not even glance at Komui to see if his actions were accepted or anticipated – he simply lowered his lover down and turned onto the unoccupied sheet beside him, working his left arm over the top of the Exorcist's chest and placing his head in the space between shoulder and neck. Lavi made a small sound of contentedness without looking up, and laid his left hand across Tyki's right, a smile playing at the edges of his lips.

"Can… you…st-st…st…"

"Don't speak, darling." Komui saw the Noah's gold eyes fall shut and realized that even if he wanted the man to move, Tyki would not be able to lift himself from the bed and onto the floor. The both of them – neither of whom could sleep without the other – were so at ease in each other's presence that he regretted saying those things, showing his worry. Because the two of them were obviously better together. The dim light from the ceiling cast the two in shades of pure white, contrasting their tired eyes and pale complexions, showing the Noah's almost gleeful smirk. "I will stay as long as they will… let…me…" The words did not linger.

"Love you… Ty-chan."

"Mmm…" The Noah curled in even closer, stopped only when his face was pressed against his lover's throat. "Love you, Lavi."

"G'night."

"Pleasant dreams… Dear One."

Komui stiffened at the touch of a hand on his elbow, turned to see his sister looking up at him with expectant eyes and give a tug. He raised a curious eyebrow.

"Leave them." She said softly. "You've seen what happens to him when Tyki isn't here to fix it. You've heard the terrors. What else do you need to see to know that he doesn't want to hurt anyone? Or did you lie to me?" She kept her voice low, gripping his arm almost painfully tight. _"Don't_ lie to me. If you aren't going to separate them why would you ask—"

"I am worried, Lena." His free hand came down on hers. "I had to know that… there is no chance any of it is a lie. Because if it is a lie, if Lavi has done exactly what the Earl wanted him to do, we are all traitors waiting to be executed by our enemies." He pried her fingers away from his arm and attempted to draw her into an embrace – she fought it for only a moment before giving in, understanding that it was more for him than her. He needed to know that after spending hours at Tyki's side she – like Lavi – was alive. "It is against my instincts to trust him. But between my office and just now… I am inclined to believe that he won't hurt anyone. But I don't understand…"

"Understand what?"

"They're enemies. Tyki should want to kill every Exorcist he lays eyes on."

"He does." Lenalee explained. "But he won't because he doesn't want to hurt Lavi."

Komui tilted his head at her and a curious expression crossed his face, not accusing but not particularly assuming of innocence. "You seem to know a lot about the two of them."

"I know everything. There's no use hiding it anymore now that you know, too." She tugged a little on him, turning her face against his shoulder. She never wanted to be this close to him, never. "So I won't lie anymore."

"Lenalee…"

"Really, Nii-san. I want to tell you everything, starting with the memories."

Slowly, not knowing if this were a good way to spend the predawn hours of the morning, he nodded.

* * *

Kanda would have liked it if the bath was uneventful but that was not the word to describe it. Not only did they spend well over an hour just sitting in the cooling water naked, they also managed to do very little verbal speaking. Of course he had known what hands on the inside of his thighs meant and he had understood the meaning of warm lips on the curve of his neck, but he was not given the slightest opportunity to ask his lover what had made him change his mind. Before he had fallen asleep Allen had been against letting him do this but afterward – with the belt…

Following that train of thought had left him remembering and feeling. It made him want to do it again, repeatedly, if only to see Allen's face and feel him more closely.

That had been his way of thinking in the tub, at least. Now, hours later, overheated and covered with nothing but a bed sheet, he was relatively sure he would not be moving for the next two days but to eat and use the bathroom. As much as he loved Allen and liked touching him, too much give and take left him too dazed to do more than blink at the noon light crashing into their room through the window.

_Noon…_ Kanda thought with a slow blink. _He hasn't eaten in hours._

Allen – despite it all – was still trying to coax him into more entertainment, mostly by kissing and licking at the skin of his neck, touching the sides of his hips. The samurai never thought he would see the day the British boy out did him in stamina, but it seemed the day had finally come.

"Moyashi…" It was the fifth time in the last ten minutes Kanda had said the word, but this was the first time Allen reacted to it. He looked up with hooded eyes and panted through bruised, chapping lips, expression questioning, hands stilled. He seemed to notice Kanda's lack of response for the first time and quirked a tiny smile at him, lazily let himself fall onto the older boy's chest.

"Worn out, Love?" Allen's voice was ragged, sandpapery, the sound of it in his own ears made him frown. "I sound terrible. Maybe we should call it quits for a while, eh?" But even as he said it he laid his lips on Kanda's and sighed, feeling the slow, loving reaction the other man gave him. It wasn't a long kiss but it was not dispassionate, it only ended because they were both already breathless. "Maybe just cuddle…"

"And eat." Kanda growled voicelessly. It made Allen smile to know he wasn't the only one suffering from the effects of screaming. "You must be starving."

"I've had a lot of you today…"

"Che. I am not a meal. Or six like you normally eat."

"Really? I think you count for a least a main dish…"

"Don't mock me, Moyashi."

"Oh, not mocking. Calculating."

"Che." Kanda wasn't going to argue. Instead he pushed his stiff body from the bed and rolled unceremoniously to the side, displacing Allen and a fair amount of bedclothes with his turning. When he sat up entirely his spine cracked disapprovingly at him, his stomach rumbled as if to remind him that he hadn't eaten either, and Allen, who didn't want him to leave, laced his waist in a hug.

"You're not going to make me wait while you go, are you?" He tried to sound light but it didn't work, not with his voice like something from beyond the grave. "The note was nice, but I'd much rather go with you."

"Aren't you sore?" Kanda glanced down to see a white framed face by his hip, looking up at him. Allen had to lie on his back just to get his head at that angle, let alone hold onto his lover's waist, and the realization made Kanda once again wonder what had changed. He had seemed so tired and hurt, yet now he was fine. "If _I_ am sore and you are not I might have to change that."

The corner of Allen's mouth turned up in a sheepish grin. "After we eat something? I'm… hungry now that you've said something about it…"

"_Maybe_." Kanda placed his left hand to the side of his lover's face and stroked with his thumb, following the side of his face until he came to his mouth. He unthinkingly let his finger play over it. It took only an instant for Allen to reach out and take the digit between his teeth just lightly, grinning at him. "You have some explaining to do before then."

"Eshaining?" Allen attempted around Kanda's thumb.

Kanda snorted. "One moment you think sex is the worst idea in the world and the next you're ready to rape me if I'm willing or not."

"You ca't rabe sa villin', Loge."

"Don't call me Loge."

Allen laughed but didn't release Kanda's finger.

"The point is, Moyashi," He curved the free part of his hand around the side of his lover's face, letting him keep the thumb if he wanted. "That that's a big jump. What changed your mind?" The question prompted Allen to frown at him and let go of his hand with a tiny flick of his tongue.

"I didn't want to lose you." Allen stated plainly, turning his face into Kanda's palm. The warmth of the appendage across his skin made him sigh, and he curled his arms more tightly, which dragged him closer to Kanda's still naked hips. His stomach complained suddenly but he ignored it. "And I wanted you so much it wasn't really an option to just let you _think_ anymore. But it was more than that…" He sighed and closed his eyes, his stomach growling again. "I just… couldn't watch you fight with yourself anymore. So I figured taking the choice out of it would let you accept physical contact easier. I mean… you wanted to so…" Allen stopped long enough for Kanda to lean down and kissed his sore lips, dragging his tongue across the British boy's bottom one the way he did when they first started kissing, and Allen responded in the way that he remembered.

The smaller Exorcist made a humming sound of affection and smiled, leaving the intimate contact with a listless grin on his face. Kanda smirked at it without moving away, his left hand still on the side of Allen's face. "I am very glad that you changed your mind. And mine."

"Me too."

"But… as much as I _want_ to keep you in bed for the next day and a half… the beast needs fed."

"Hey, you need to eat too."

"Che. Hardly."

"So… what will we have? Do they have dango here? I haven't had dango in so long…"

"Hm…" Kanda was almost close enough for Allen to tilt his head up and kiss him, just inches from doing something that he wouldn't regret until the next day. And he could see from the twinkle in his lover's eyes that if he tried, the Japanese man would not discard him or tell him no – even if he claimed he would. "We might get something nice… for you at least."

Allen quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Maybe find candles…"

"Kanda?"

"Eat and meditate and spend some time… with you. Really _with_ you."

"Love?"

"Because I haven't spent time with you at all since what happened. I stayed near you because I had to; I let you touch me because I liked it but now is different." His voice became suddenly quieter, his knotted hair slid down his shoulder and hung like a curtain around them, blocking out the light. "You might not get it because it didn't happen to you but…"

"It's ok." Allen said equally quiet; moving his right hand to touch Kanda's forehead and brush aside his bangs. "You can spend as much time with me as you like." A low growl sounded from below his ribcage. "After we eat."

Kanda pecked his mouth lightly before sitting up again, flipping his hair as he went. "So much for loving me more than food, Moyashi."

* * *

Hitori looked up at the ceiling and swallowed, still shaken from what had taken place. It wasn't as if he felt bad about it, or regretful, or even annoyed – he felt _guilty_, but that wasn't all of it. He loved Sable, that he knew, and he would have done anything she asked of him short of what he had just done – and knowing he had done it made him _hate_ himself.

_I'm an idiot. An idiot. A true stupid asshole_.

And it didn't help how she sighed into his chest and nearly snored.

_I wanted to but… she never said… I don't know…_

"Hito." Sable mumbled into his naked ribcage. He knew she could hear his heartbeat with her ear there, most likely sense his anxiety. He didn't want that, so it naturally got worse.

"Hm?"

"It's my fault too."

His gray eyes fell shut and he pulled her closer, choking down his worry and his fear. "It's no one's fault. We just… weren't thinking… or something. I don't regret it."

She laughed.

"I don't. I love you."

"And it's still nice." She grumbled, but he didn't complain about it. He knew, somehow, what she meant. "I'm sorry that I can't say something else. I'm too careful for my own good."

"Well, if you won't _say_ it… how about you marry me?"

"Hitori, you're sixteen."

"If we were married you wouldn't be a rapist."

"Shut up."

"Grandma Sable touched me in my no-no spot…"

"I am _not_ that much older."

"You will be, unless we murder my mother's dreams."

"Pfft. That's not what I'm worried about. If we got married the Order would never let you work there. All that connected family make akuma crap. Because people don't have self control."

"Honestly, I'm not that stupid. Now that I know what akuma are, what they do, I would never make one. Not because I would die but because I wouldn't want to rip someone out of heaven and make them suffer because I miss them. It's unfair. And gross." Talking, he realized after a moment, made him feel less guilty.

"Right. Say that when Yuu dies."

"Pessimist."

"Girl."

"What the fuck? If anyone _can't _use that insult on me, it's you."

"I love teasing you."

"Look! A baby step!"

"You annoy me."

"And we're back to square one."

"Where we will remain until after I sleep on your bare naked chest for a good two hours and then eat myself into a coma. Good… afternoon." As if to prove her point, Sable snuggled closer, pressing her unclothed arms against his skin. He was calm now, accepting of what they had done even if he didn't think it was wise. Sable knew it wasn't wise but didn't care. Even if they conceived she wouldn't want to undo it, yet she couldn't explain why. It wasn't something she completely understood.

"Sable."

"Hitori."

"If I weren't sixteen… and I weren't determined to work at the Order… would you?" He heard the fear in his voice and felt the blush on his cheeks. As if he could blush after _that_. "I don't want to press but…"

"I want to sleep on you every single night for the rest of my life. Does that cover it?" She turned to look at him, green eyes on his gray ones, and could not help but smile at his expression. He was so very easy to please. "Now nap, Girly McLoveboy, before I make you."

"Alright Madam Demanding."

"Mistress."

"Ma'am."

"Say it again and die of girl hair ingestion."

"_Nap."_

"Right."

* * *

_I don't want to go back._ Two sips of sake and the sensation that his face was going to burn off. _I hate that place. They'll give me a desk job and tell me I can't leave until I give them every single detail of the last four years – and even then I'll have to leave as soon as I'm done telling._ He snickered into his tiny little cup before he quaffed the liquid inside, smiling at the customary burn. _I don't want to go back._

Cross put his sake down and turned away from it, aware that he had finally drank himself passed the point of sobriety. He didn't feel all that splendid when he pushed himself away from the desk and turned toward the bed expectantly, unsure if he were quite prepared to risk the woman who lay in it on her side, gray eyes closed to the sun streaming in the window. Hiroko was too much to try and take advantage of in this state. Especially at noon with those boys just two doors away, sodomizing in the name of something he had never felt.

There was one thing Allen got from him – if anything – and that was his ability to get what he wanted when he wanted it, even if the other parties involved didn't think they were willing.

And they had similar tastes in… some fields.

_I don't want to go back. Going back isn't something I want to do._ He didn't go for the little cup this time, instead he picked up the bottle and chugged. _They'll tie me down and make me stay for months before they kick me out and tell me to get on with it. And I won't touch a woman while I'm there. Unless Cloud is around… but Hiro will be, too. Hmm… that might be fun…_

"If you drink anymore you'll have a hangover before dinner." Hiroko mumbled, rolling over to look at him from her place. He smiled at how her eyes caught the light, how her hair fell over her thin looking shoulder when she pushed herself up to a sitting position, like a rippling wave of black stained water on her frame. At once he knew that he had to be wasted, completely, otherwise the tiny hint of bare skin on her ankle wouldn't have left him drooling.

"Are you the liver police or somethin'?" He tilted the bottle toward his mouth again but found it empty, completely dry, not even a drop. He sighed at it and placed it none too gently on the desk again, blinking at her with sagging eyes. "It's not like you have room t'talk. You got blasted on the boat you know."

"I had a reason."

"So do I."

"Horny?"

He laughed at her, a sound that was obviously made easier by the alcohol clearing his bloodstream. "I hate that Tower. I would rather go _anywhere_ but there." He waved his arm as if to encompass the world, teetering on his chair. "All they ever do is paperwork. And I won't get anything but cheap wine. No women. Nothin' but teenagers and a chick with a whip – if I'm lucky."

"Mari-chan, don't lie about it. If you were upset about not getting any you would have found a whore a week ago." Hiroko tilted her head at him, raising her eyebrows and looking through her long dark eyelashes. "What is it really?" Her voice was not actually sensual but it might have been for how it made Cross's heart thump on the inside of his chest, like a thundering bass drum. For some reason that timbre, coupled with the sake, made him want to tell her everything.

"I really don't like it. And I'll just have to leave again, after I tell them how close I am."

"Close to what?"

"Doing what I was told."

She laughed at that until she leaned against the wall the bed was against, pulling her hair sideways over his shoulder so it hung down to her waist, out of the way. "Don't be a pussy, Marian. Go back and leave when you have to. Isn't that your _job_?" She emphasized the last word in a way that made him shake his head; it was more than that – it was supposed to be his calling.

"I don't want to." He grumbled. "Maybe… when I get back from when I go again…"

"What?"

"You'll be gone to somewhere else. Moved where he can't find you."

She frowned at him, elegant features bent without creasing. "Are you… worried about that?"

"Are you kidding? Took me long enough to find you the first time. If they move you where I can't find ya, what do I do then?"

"Suck it up."

"You don't get it."

"No I don't. And neither do you."

"Nope…" He sighed again, deeper, and leaned against his chair more surely, fishing for a cigarette in his jacket. "I guess it can't be that important or one of us would know why I wanna get shitfaced, eh?" He smiled at that, sideways, before he found something to smoke. He started looking for matches, which oddly were not in the same pocket.

"Yes, Mari-chan…" _It's less important than you'll ever know._

* * *

Tyki stirred around midmorning, feeling better than he had but decidedly hungrier. Someone had been nice enough to dim the lights for them and leave breakfast cooling on the bedside stand, two trays of toast and fruit with tall glasses of cranberry juice – each with forks but no knives. He smiled at it, feeling somewhat welcome with the fact that they had been left alone with metal objects after the previous day's fiasco.

There was no natural light in the room, nothing to tell him how long he had slept, but he felt as if it had been near six hours. He yawned quietly, attempting to prepare himself for a day that would not be fun at all.

"No…" Lavi's voice made his neck turn at once toward the sleeping boy's face, which he had not looked at during his examination of the plates. He found the apprentice Bookman curled against his arm, fingers looped between his, eyes tightly shut, mumbling as if dreaming. "Peanut butter doesn't go on garlic bread, Moyashi…" He moaned, drawing Tyki's sleeve to his face. "Mmm… Ty-chan… glad… the knot…"

The Noah felt his face go pale but he couldn't explain why. Those words, spoken in sleep, suddenly made his heart pound against his ribcage, forced his arms to stiffen. That slight change made Lavi's eye come open but he didn't see it, the feeling that something important had slipped his mind occupied his thoughts far too much to not the tiny change. _Was it… the knot?_

"Tyki?" His name brought his eyes back into focus again just as his lover blinked at him, bewilderedly taking in the room. The Noah cracked a grin at him and leaned in for a soft kiss on the side of his mouth. Lavi sighed at the contact, not yet ready to rise to meet the day. "G'morning to you, too."

Tyki chuckled before he pulled away; letting himself return the one-armed embrace with twice the force the redhead managed. "Indeed, dear. I was not sure I would wake at all this morning."

"It's not morning yet. We're going back to sleep."

"Oh?"

"Mmhmm. Talking makes me feel like I'll faint."

"You should eat something then."

"Don't call for food; they'll make me stay awake."

"There's fruit and toast here already. Eat that."

"Hmm… just a little."

Tyki attempted to unwind his fingers from Lavi's and use that hand – his left hand – to reach for the nearby sustenance, but his lover's hand moved with him, held in place by something neither of them had noticed. His necktie, the one he had left in Durnshire, was tied securely around their hands in a way that a single person might have had trouble fastening it, the knot on the back of Lavi's palm. The apprentice Bookman made a short sound of surprise and jerked his limb back, the feeble movement serving only to move Tyki's hand an inch. They looked at each other with bright round eyes, fingers closing desperately together.

"You didn't…"

"No." Lavi shook his head. "But I dreamed…"

"By a river…"

"Red with blood…"

"You held my hand…"

"And cried when I said I loved you."

"Forever and always."

"Forever and always."

The Noah ignored the sudden surge of fear in his gut and simply pulled Lavi to him, burying his face in the boy's neck. He knew that Lavi did not have the strength to return the gesture but it did not matter, nothing mattered but the near silent sound of sobs in his shirt, and the knowledge that they were tied to each other even when apart.

"I thought… I thought it was a dream, Ty-chan. I thought I was being stupid."

"No Lavi, it must have been more than that. Surely this proves it."

"Well, it can't be a coincidence. It's too… freaky."

"To say the very least."

"But I don't care if it's freaky. I'm happy with you and I'm not going to leave you even if it kills me, so I'm glad that whatever made it happen… made it happen." His free arm, which had been attempting to hug Tyki, fell unceremoniously to the bed, his strength waning at last. He sighed at it and let his hand sit there, unattended, while his lover cradled his torso just slightly off of the mattress, holding his head aloft.

"Me too, dear. A thousand times, me too." He withdrew enough to let the redhead sink against his pillow, looking a bit more worn out than he had been, and smiled at him as widely as a perfectly human expression would allow. "But let's not get too carried away, hm? A man cannot live on love alone."

Lavi rolled his eye.

"Come now, you'll feel better with food in you. All you have to do is chew. And swallow. And hopefully not regurgitate on yourself or others. It's not that difficult."

"You're too nice to me."

"Oh please," The Noah let his hand slip through the necktie so he could grab the nearest plate, from which he plucked a wedge of something orange and popped it into his mouth. Slightly fruity cheese, it seemed. "We both know I am doing this so I can tie you to the bed when you are better."

"Right. There you go again. King of Deviance."

"Now say 'ah' before I bite you."

"Doesn't 'oh—'" The entrance of a corner of bread into his mouth cut Lavi off. He bit it with a glare and Tyki pulled the rest away, watching his lover chew as if the bread were a sin against his taste buds. "Coulda warned me."

"I would rather not."

"Jerk-fa—"

"Have a grape."

"Yer lucky I lobe fu."

"I'm lucky you can't hit me. Chew."

Lavi did as he was told and swallowed before he spoke between narrowed teeth. "When I get better, you're gonna get it."

"When you get better you are going to get it and you are going to like it. _Aaah…_"

Lavi sighed and opened his mouth. When this was over – if it was ever over – there would be cuddling. Otherwise this was going to be the longest morning of his life.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -Omake! Miranda!special-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

The young German woman stood outside of the Black Order Headquarters looking down at her hands, studying them. As she watched tears began to fall into her palms, each falling delicately, almost silent.

_It's not enough._ She sniffed. _No matter how much I do, it's not enough._ She thumped her shoulders against the stone, thinking of what the others had told her. Allen was always nice about her ineptitudes, as was Lenalee, Lavi seemed to silently mock her with his smile, Kanda was blatant with his thoughts on her shortcomings. And Sable – who she barely knew – seemed not to care about Innocence and only take into account the German woman's thoughts on her reading material – sex books as they were.

She felt like she needed to break down and have a good cry.

Behind her and on the other side of the wall, undistinguished by his half silent mutterings, Tyki Mikk searched in vain for a shirt worth wearing in Lavi's closet. He hadn't really noticed the size difference in their shoulders until he had tried seen the redhead in one of his own shirts, the seams of which hung down his arms to a few inches above his elbows.

_I should have bought more to wear… but then again, who has ever heard of doing laundry only once a week?_

With a sigh he closed his eyes and thought of one thing – touching something that wasn't too small for him. He felt his hand pass through everything in the closet and then through the back wall and panic, forgetting to keep his hand entirely untouchable until it came back into the room with him. He hit something. Someone screamed.

Miranda leapt from the side of the building as hurriedly as he tiny feet would carry her, screaming as she went. _"I'm SOOOOORRYYYYYYY!!"_ Before she knew what had happened she reached the end of the cliff and lost her footing, slipping over the side.

Tyki peered through the wall just in time to see her tumble over the edge.

"Lavi!" The Noah turned back to the room and grabbed the reading redhead by the arm, jerking him out of his chair. "I may have killed someone."

"What!" The Exorcist followed him at once, dropping his book on the floor. The two passed through the closet wall without a second thought about it, coming out into the open not a two seconds after Miranda had fallen.

Distantly, growing quieter, he could hear the echo of an exclamation. _"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"_

Lavi ignored it and listened as Tyki explained that she had gone over the edge, seeming worried.

"But…" Tyki offered at Lavi's look of horror. "She does have the power to rewind time, doesn't she? It _is_ a long way down."

"True." The Bookman apprentice shrugged. "Maybe she'll remember before she—"

_THUMP_. Far below them something collided with the rocks just loudly enough for them to hear.

"Or not."

The Noah sighed and rubbed at his forehead in an attempt to soothe away the headache that was taking him. It did not work. "Oh well. I guess Komui-san really will have my head now…"

"Don't be a pessimist…"

"I'm being a realist…"

Lavi sighed and banged his head on the stone behind him, closing his eyes. "Poor unlucky Mir—"

"Sh."

"What?"

"Listen."

Over the edge of the cliff a tiny, pained voice could be found, just on the edge of human hearing. _"…i'm ok…!"_

"Oh, good!" Lavi smiled and turned to his lover, taking his hand. "Wanna grab lunch?"

"Absolutely." So the two walked back through the wall, satisfied that the Noah would live at least another day in the halls of the Black Order.

Poor, unlucky Miranda looked up at the cliff and sniffled, eyeliner pouring down her cheeks with her tears. "Guys?"

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Thanks for reading! Sorry it's taking so long. I have another fic I need to write before July first, so this kind of takes the back seat a little. It will be back in full force when the other is finished. **

**Thanks again! Seeya!**

**Also – the omake was inspired by SailorLight22. She and I have some CRAZY IM convos some times… and we like to be mean to Miranda. XD (Ok, **_**I**_** like to be mean to Miranda, but still…)**


	85. Thirteen

**I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AMAZINGLY SORRY THAT I WAS GONE SO LONG! AH!!**

**I finished the con fic, so now it's back to just TFL for the time being, so updates will start to come regularly again. Sadly, I may be starting a new job soon which has hours that eat into my usual writing time – but I don't expect it to be that bad. I will have days off and I won't spend 8 hours a day cleaning, no matter how much my sis wants me too.**

**Also, for the record, I despise Elizabeth Haydon. Rhapsody is a Sue!**

**Disclaimer of Decimals: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… only sexually ambiguous men could cosplay Kanda. Because girls should not be that kind of attractive.**

**WARNING: Implied and near man on man. Violence.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Thirteen.

It was supposed to be an unlucky number. He didn't know why it was unlucky, why it was supposed to be innately unfortunate, but that was its meaning, its purpose, its brand. Thirteen was the bad number, the integer of _not good _but _not evil_, the poor accident between seven and six hundred sixty-six that no one liked. It seemed sad. It was unfair – no one asked the number thirteen if it wanted to be terrible, it just happened to it one day, when no one was looking. The poor thing fell by the way, lost and marked, cursed, lonely, forgotten. Beaten by its family and left without love or companionship forever.

He had always thought that they had a lot in common, the two of them.

But now, thirteen days after being thrown into a wall of candles and six after recovering his lover, he felt a little disconnected from it. Less like thirteen and more like a thousand more.

His back, however, was another story. After five days of walking, sleeping on the ground, and eating only what he could swindle enough to pay for, his spine was hurting again. His eye and arm had started to protest, but that wasn't from walking. That was from something different. Allen kept his mouth shut about it, even if he knew he shouldn't have. The last thing he needed was Kanda to remember what happened last time – while Allen was sleeping.

But the thirteenth night seemed set against him. The perfectly round moon kept him awake until the ache became too much to ignore. Lying on his back in the firelight not ten inches from Kanda, his eye cried tears of blood despite his hand against it, he shook, pain wrapping from the side of his face to the back of his neck. He wished it would stop but he knew that it would last until morning – it always stayed when he felt like sleeping more than anything else – so he closed his right eye and looked through his fingers into the night, disconcerted by the black and white shapes in the distance.

It was then that the samurai beside him rolled over and pulled him close, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of Allen's neck, breathing slowly and steadily. Allen let him but pushed back when his face came within a few inches of the man's jacket.

"I'll bleed on you." The words hardly broke the stillness but they brought the Japanese man's eyes open all the same, round with worry. Allen's fingers pressed harder on his face in an attempt keep Kanda from seeing the blood seeping down his face and through his ivory fingers. It was more than before, darker, almost black from what he could see on his hands.

"Che. I don't care. The jacket is black anyways." Kanda patted his clothed shoulder invitingly. "Come here."

Allen complied slowly; letting his hands come down as the left side of his face met fabric. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to keep you awake…" His words were muffled by the fabric so he had to speak with a bit of his voice to be heard. The result was a strange cracking, almost as if he had been moved to tears.

"It's fine, Moyashi."

"No it's not. You should sleep."

"So should you. It's your damned eye's fault, not yours."

Allen snuggled into him, his arms coming up to hook around his lover's middle and give him a squeeze. He felt the samurai sigh again and wished he couldn't see through the other side of him and into the woods, straight on well past where human sight should have ended. Darkness would have been welcome. "I know. But it's still _my_ eye."

"Hmm." The sound wasn't at all thoughtful. "Just rest, at least."

"Ok… I'll try."

In the gloom Kanda stroked his lover's shoulders, measuring his breath until the two worked in conjunction, each one slower than the last. Through slated eyes he surveyed their little campsite, sapphire irises dyed crimson in the orange light, and studied the four people that shared the light with them. Cross was leaning on the only tree in their grassy little clearing, hat tucked down over his eyes, pretending to sleep. He was bad at it; the smoke from his cigarette gave him away even if it was slow. Hiroko was curled into a ball at his feet, smooth face perfectly calm in the night, sleeping soundly. The last two were slightly removed from the rest, a tangle of limbs and hair at the edge of the circle of light, Hitori wearing Sable like a blanket across his chest, the two slept silently regardless of their gaping mouths, tilted heads, the only disturbance between them the delicate hum of Hitori's voice when she moved.

_They slept together,_ Kanda thought with a glare. _I can feel it._

"Kanda?"

"Try again, Moyashi."

"Yuu?"

"Hm?" He didn't look down at Allen, knowing that the blood would have spread to most of his face by now, made him look terrible. He would want to clean him up and make him better even if it was impossible. That was how he worked. Now.

"Will you talk to me?"

"Why?"

Fingers curled against Kanda's skin and he felt that they were wet, smearing on his chest. It was bad. "Distract me. Please."

"That terrible?"

Allen just nodded into him. Kanda wondered if it was the pain that bothered him or being unable to close his eye, unable to stop looking. Closing his eyes heightened Kanda's other senses and sometimes made him feel safer than he did when he couldn't trust his sight, safer when he didn't _want_ to trust his sight. He figured that that was a bad place to start though, so he thought about other things, searching for a topic that he and Allen would have an equal appreciation for.

A thin smile cracked his lips. "Did I ever tell you about the first time I had soba?"

Allen made a negative sound in the back of his throat without opening his mouth, leaning yet farther forward.

"Che. It was summer, I must have been five. Okaasan had it on a _zaru_ – a kind of strainer – and it was cold." Kanda tilted so his lips were just next to Allen's ear and he could speak softly to it, so Cross couldn't hear his words. The last thing he needed was the general to get any idea what he was like as a child. "Yumeko thought it would be funny to tell me it was worms."

"Yumeko?"

"My sister."

"You never told me you had a sister."

"You never asked."

Allen would have rolled his eyes if the right weren't closed and the left weren't being stubborn. "Just so we're clear, how many siblings do you have?"

Kanda smiled. "Two. Yumeko and Hitori."

"She's oldest?"

"Yes. Two years older than me."

"So she was seven."

"About."

"What happened?"

Kanda's smile faded. "Che. I cried. Why would Okaasan give us worms for dinner? But Yumeko ate it and Okaasan ate it and… so I tried it. After that, I was addicted." He grinned at how Allen giggled into him, glad that he was distracted enough to allow himself that bit of release. "Okaasan didn't even tell me otherwise. She thought it was funny watching me cry."

"She's so mean…"

"It's how she is."

Allen nodded again, tight lipped. Kanda could feel that he wasn't improving at all – the tremors in his shoulders had spread to his fingers, his hand was losing its grip on the fabric of his jacket. The Japanese man kept stroking at his hair, knowing that it didn't help at all.

"Che. More, Moyashi?"

"Mm-hmm."

Kanda brought his other hand up as well, running his fingers down the side of the smaller boy's neck. "It's not getting better, is it?"

"Nuh uh."

"I don't… I mean… there _are_ things to talk about but I don't want to bore you. Any other ideas?" Kanda could feel how tight the boy's jaw was and it worried him. If Allen didn't grind his teeth or break them he would be sore in the morning, and tired, maybe even sick. He didn't want that to happen, not again. The thought made him nervous. "Allen?"

"You – could…" The white haired Exorcist swallowed hard, pitched forward until his lover thought he might burrow into his chest. _"Sing."_

"That is a horrible idea."

Allen made a soft sound of disagreement and finally sobbed, real tears coming from his right eye. Kanda blinked at him in surprise for a short minute, still petting him, before he realized how little a choice he had. It was speaking or singing or being no help at all, that was it. It wasn't as if he couldn't hold a tune or he was frightened by the idea, he just didn't know anything Allen would understand. Every love song he knew, every traditional spring tune, would be foreign babble – and completely unfitting. Not to mention if Cross heard…

He cleared his throat and his mind, searching for anything he knew – maybe with a tune the boy would know if he knew any Japanese songs. But there was nothing. He couldn't think of anything. All the songs he had heard as a child, every bit of music, was gone. He couldn't recall anything. Not even the tune to _Sakura, Sakura._

"Shit Moyashi, I don't even know any songs."

The smaller boy didn't answer; he shook as if holding in a scream.

"I know a poem though, if that works for you. I might get some parts wrong, but… it's in English, so you might like it more." He kissed the sweat slicked skin of his lover's forehead without looking at his face and closed his eyes, trying to remember the words Lavi had repeated over and over and over not too long ago. The redhead and liked the poem – too much in Kanda's opinion – and dedicated it as something to be remembered, something important that spoke of the times. It was long, Kanda knew, but that hadn't stopped him from absorbing it after so many times. He cleared his throat again, evening his voice in a low whisper that still had voice in it, enough to hardly be heard over Allen's growing loudness.

When he made to speak nothing came, no sound. Instead another idea struck him, a question that he should have asked the moment Allen's eye began to act up. "There are no akuma?"

"Not here." The British boy ground out. "South."

Kanda hummed his understanding. "Alright. Poem…

_Death—"_

"Creepy…" Allen interrupted. Kanda laughed at him softly, bring his lips next to Allen's ear.

"You heard one word! But fine. You want me to go on, or pick something else?"

"Else."

"Hmm…" Kanda sighed, thinking again. After a moment an idea came to mind and he smiled at it, the sound was evident when he started speaking.

"_Moyashi day and Moyashi night—"_

"Kanda."

"Che. I had to."

"I can't… listen…"

The black haired man pulled back, his hands sliding to his lover's shoulders in an effort to push him away and look at his face. With an effort he pried Allen's hands from his face and stared at the rolling, bleeding thing that his eye had become, feel the violent movement of his arm. It hadn't been like this since before his arm had crumbled. The gore was nearly to Allen's neck, glimmering like liquid rubies in the firelight. He spoke a low curse and pulled the white haired boy against him, an especially hard burst of tears shook a strangled moan from Allen's lips and he clenched Kanda's coat in his right hand, unable to withstand it any longer.

"If it hurts, scream. Holding it in won't help."

_No._ Allen shook his head at the thought. _I don't want to wake them._

"Cross has been up this whole time, Hitori and Sable could sleep through Armageddon, and my mother will hit you with a blunt katana at worst. It's fine, let it out." Kanda laid his lips on Allen's neck for a moment, just long enough to catch the scent of his fear. "Please, Moyashi. Don't try to deal with this alone."

The British boy breathed in a shaking breath and opened his mouth, a ragged moan sounding from the bottom of his chest upward. When it died out he gasped and cried more loudly, losing out to urge. Kanda kept his breathing calm and his hand steady, aware that if he let his anxiety be known the smaller boy would withdrawn into himself again and not let him be there when it was finished.

Cross spared them a half a glance before deciding it was better leaving them alone.

Kanda spoke soothingly to Allen's ear, mostly words of endearment. Hiroko heard his whispers more than Allen's stifled groans but didn't react to them, that boy didn't need anything but Yuu to keep him safe, no matter what was wrong with him. She had watched Yuu take care of the boy through too much to think of helping, too much to even wonder if he needed it. Listening to those strangled groans and choked off sobs made her wonder if, when it came down to it, her son understood how much of a rock he was for his lover, how far he had come with nothing but his hands to keep him smiling.

Before, he wouldn't have touched a crying person. No matter how much they loved him.

It took maybe a half an hour for Allen to wear himself out with crying, his eye still rolling in its socket even when the other closed in exhaustion. His hands let go of Kanda's jacket and his arms slipped unhindered to the ground, half in their shared sleeping bag and half on the grassy ground, lips gently parted. Kanda maneuvered his lover so his arms were covered then turned him sideways, just so he could wipe a bit of the blood from Allen's face before drawing him closer, curling his body against the curve of his lover's side. Like that he could press himself into his lover's left arm and hold it still.

"We won't be moving tomorrow," He heard his mother say into the dark.

"Why not?" Cross answered a little less quietly. Kanda closed his eyes, not willing to hear the argument. He didn't need it. They didn't need it. All they needed was sleep.

"Yuu won't be happy if we do. Whore-chan will pass out before sundown. Fucking Hito will want to cut his hair if he gets anymore leaves in it. They need a break."

"Not you, Hiro?"

She must have shaken her head; Kanda did not hear her say no. "The sign back there said we're four miles from a town. We could just move there. Then _stay_ for a day."

"I thought it said something about string beans."

"Shows you how much you know about Chinese – the numbers are the same as Japanese." The woman might have rolled over from the sound her bedroll made in the stillness. Kanda ignored it, knowing that her eyes were on him and Allen, and elected to pretend he was sleeping just to see what came of it. "Look at them. Bleeding and crying and forgetting who they are – they need a day, Mari-chan."

"They need akuma. At least Allen does."

There was a sigh. "It hasn't been long since he fought that Noah, it should count for something."

"He didn't kill him. It counts for nothing but scars and bruises."

"Listen, you fucking douche bag," Kanda glanced at his mother in an attempt to see the cause of her sudden cursing. He was unsurprised to find the two of them two feet away from each other, standing, Cross' face turned away from the fire. She was angry. He could see it in the way she held her shoulders that at any moment she would lunge at Cross with all of her tiny body and maim him with her wakizashi, or knee him in his groin. There was something more to this fight – Kanda could tell. "You might be used to traversing the world to avoid your fucking moneylenders but they aren't. I'm not. I don't give a shit if you hate the Order or want to get there so you can leave or if you have a Goddamn terminal illness that is going to kill you or leave you impotent if you don't get back to base in time to stop it – we are walking four miles tomorrow, finding a bed, and resting. The end. Understand?"

Cross blinked at her, left hand pulling his hat from his head. "One bed for the two of us?"

"You perverted bastard!" The words were no louder than the rest but they carried with them the weight of her fist. He didn't dodge, though he had time to. General Cross Marian stood there and let himself be hit by a woman, his head snapped back from the blow and he stumbled back into the tree he had been leaning on. Hiroko didn't hit him again, she stayed still, blinking up at his turned face for a long time in silence.

"Feel better?" He questioned, turning back to her with a smile.

"You let me… hit your face."

"Really? I thought a bug flew into me. Odd."

"Shut up Mari-chan." He turned away from him and crouched on her bedroll, hands smoothing it even though it was not in need. "And go to sleep."

* * *

The sixth morning was perhaps the strangest morning of Lavi's life. He dreamed the things that had not happened though less vividly than usual, and woke to find himself jerking fretfully in his lover's arms, mumbling negatives. An uproarious argument sounded outside the door, the most likely cause of his nightmares. He knew the voices at once and blinked at them, unsure why Komui and Bookman would both have their voices raised in anger – annoyance evident even if words were lost in the wall.

"Good morning, dear." Tyki's voice pulled him back from his thoughts and made him look up across the mattress, blinking slowly. "Bad night?"

"Not really just… the dreams aren't gone yet." He sighed, rolling enough to bring his face into contact with the Noah's white clad chest, right by his shoulder. He always felt safer like that, even if the people outside were screaming. "They're better though. They still suck and I can't end them but they don't last as long. I don't _feel_ like I'm there." Lavi hugged the Noah against him and felt the man return the embrace with a yawn, both made him tired. "It's almost another memory."

"That's good. Maybe by the end of the week you will be talking about the past and not the future."

"Hm?"

Tyki shrugged a little at the curious green eye that looked up at him, shining in the still dimmed lights. That single emerald iris seemed so bright to him that he could not help but smile at it, the color of it burned like a torch, happy despite what it had seen while sleeping. It amazed him how far the apprentice Bookman had come in so short a time. "Nothing important. I was up before you, so I had some time to think about the last two weeks."

"I'm sorry if you're bored. I'm not usually in the medical wing this much, I swear."

The Noah chuckled. "No, not what I meant. I was wondering how it is that you can know so much about me and yet I know almost nothing about you. After all this time I still do not understand why your mentor and the Supervisor are standing in the hall waking up the patients because the old man can't see you." He reached out with his right hand and stroked the side of the boy's face, watching his expression fall. He wished that wouldn't happen. "Care to tell me?"

"Before breakfast?"

"Is there a better time?"

Lavi sighed and scooted himself up higher on the bed, closing his eye. "It's complicated."

"Maybe you should tell me after you've thought about it."

"No, that's not what I mean. I'm not sure what he wants to do, but I have an idea." He didn't look up when the Noah started brushing his fingers through his hair, gently. "Basically all the stuff that's happened to me – falling in love with you, being emotionally impaired, having a fear of loud noises – all that stuff makes me less than adequate in his eyes. Because of what I remember in the past, I might miss something that will happen now." He continued when he heard the Noah grunt his acknowledgement, following every word. Lavi hadn't thought it would be this easy. "You know that as much as I'm Lavi, I wasn't always _Lavi,_ right?"

"Not really."

The apprentice Bookman made a short sound of amusement, leaning into his lover. "For every war I've seen I've been a different person, _Lavi_ is me for this one – the forty-ninth war. I like being Lavi. I'm _different_ than I was before. But… only _Lavi_ remembers what happened in the Noah Mansion like a victim. So, theoretically, if Gramps got rid of Lavi early…"

"You would log away the memories and be a perfect, functioning apprentice once again."

"Exactly."

Tyki's hold tightened on the boy's shoulders as if the strength of his arms could stop what the boy was predicting. He knew that if it came down to it they would both fight tooth and nail to stop it from happening. "If that is what the old man wants and he succeeds, who will you become?"

Lavi groaned into his chest, rolling his eye beneath the lid. "A bastard with no sense of compassion or caring. My default me, until he puts some other person on top of it. He's mean and arrogant and stupid and he won't get along with anyone. A sociopath, basically. From that perspective I am too involved with people – you and Yuu-chan and Lenalee and Allen and Komui especially – to just say what happened without showing any sort of emotional connection. I think that perspective is too isolated to get the whole picture."

"Oh?"

The redhead nodded. "If I record this war and say who died and who lived, who lost limbs and who gained power, that's one thing, but finding out _why_ people died or _why_ they lived or _why_ the people do what they do, based on emotion…that's not my job. I still want to do it." He hooked his fingers in Tyki's shirt and breathed in his scent, rubbing the side of his face on the material like a cat complimenting his owner. The movements prompted his lover to pet the top of his head, furthering the illusion. "And I'm sure as hell not supposed to be this attached to you. Fuck it though, I'd rather end up a historian than give up _me_ and _you_, you know?"

"So many sacrifices, just for that."

"They aren't sacrifices when you don't really miss them."

Tyki laid his lips on the warm skin of Lavi's brow before he spoke. "But still…I gave up who I was; you are willing to do the same – where does it stop?"

"It doesn't stop, Ty-chan. We just keep going until we can be together. Heh, Allen would hug me if he heard me say that."

"Really, now? I might have to stop him from trying." The Noah joked with an ill mannered laugh. Lavi cracked his eye at him and smiled, understanding that the protective words were less than half true but still worth hearing. He thumped his left hand on the man's ribcage, but Tyki did not seem to mind.

"You think I'm that easy?"

"Well, you _did_ let me do all sorts of terrible things to you on that boat when we first met on such a close basis…"

"That makes _you_ easy, being I wasn't exactly in a position to argue."

"But you didn't exactly scream to high heaven…"

"You would have killed me!"

"Never!"

Lavi rolled his eye, obviously disbelieving, obviously happy. "Raped me, then. _Don't_ say that's not possible, at the time it could have been. If I were dumber, and less… um… yeah… it could have been."

Tyki laughed at him rather loudly, the kind of laugh that Lavi hadn't heard from the man in far too long. Genuine humor – it was hard to come by when everyone looked at them like creatures of the dark. The apprentice Bookman thumped on Tyki's chest as if that would stop him, but the older man just kept laughing, tickled nearly to the point of tears. After a few moments the Noah reigned in his amusement and smiled, barking tiny laughs between phrases. "You are great fun to tease, dear. Physically and verbally."

"Well I'm anemic and weak and tired and about ready to throw something at the door if those two don't shut up, so you can wait on the teasing."

"Not what I meant but…" Tyki grinned as he rolled slightly to the side, bringing a bit of his weight onto his lover's hips with his leg, and a tad more with his arm across the boy's shoulders. Like that he could yank Lavi flush against him and keep him from moving, his arms between them. "We've got an hour before breakfast yet. If we're done talking about you we might spend it other ways…"

"If you bite me, I'll tell the nurse you need your own bed."

Tyki scoffed, nuzzling the boy's neck. "I wasn't going to do it very hard."

"Hm… you must be dark today."

"Only a little."

Lavi sighed and tilted his head away, exposing his neck for the Noah. "Fine. Bite me. But if someone comes in or one of us gets over excited, it's over. And… only little bruises. The nurse asked questions last time." He breathed in at the caress of his lover's mouth just below his ear, heating his skin, soothing his blood. Though he pretended not to like this pastime they both knew he was lying, both knew that a little nibbling always did him good, always made him more social. The pain, it seemed, was something that didn't lose its luster when blood did.

"I'm sorry, Lavi." The Noah mumbled into his skin. "If you want you can bite me back."

"Ha. That's ok, I'll just—_ah…_ That's my earlobe… if you break my earring, I hope you choke on it." He said it because he knew Tyki would snort into him and move to his face, leaving soft kisses up to his mouth. That change, for some reason, made him feel warm.

Tyki framed his lover's face with his hands before the contact broke, leaving Lavi breathless and blushing against the white pillow case, his hair almost coppery in the light. "If he does try to take you away – the old panda, I mean – can you stop him?"

Lavi blinked up at the Noah in all seriousness, his palms pressing into the backs of Tyki's hands. He shivered. "I can try, but not realistically." He tilted his head a little, eye brightening, and pushed himself up with his elbows, dragging his lover's fingers from his cheeks. "I love you though. If I'm lucky, and he doesn't _leave_ me as an antisocial prick, that feeling might bleed through. You might have to remind me, but… if I love you as much as I think I love you, and I think I do, he might get rid of me only to find out that there _is_ no other me. That I'm all that's left. Whatever my new name is won't matter. _That_ me will love you."

"I'm a little lost. Remind you?" Tyki blinked at him, frowning. The redhead squeezed his hands, a grin on his lips.

"You know, do something I'll remember. Stop smirking," He smiled too wide. "I'll explain better later, they stopped arguing."

"Joy."

"Feign sleep?"

"My thoughts exactly."

* * *

Komui watched Bookman stalk away from the door to Lavi's room with a sigh, his tired features drawn into a scowl. That old man said he wouldn't interfere, claimed to be neutral, pretended to record history – and yet he _demanded_ entrance into an Exorcist's hospital room, spouting jargon pertaining to the Bookmen clan.

Koumi Lee didn't particularly care if the whole of the Bookman clan died out and failed because the geezer didn't get to see Lavi – he had nothing to do with them. He managed Exorcists, Finders, and scientists, he signed papers and built machines, he watched for potential harm, he ensured the relative peace and tranquility that made Home a home. He did not, however, care that Bookman was mad. He also did not care that his fellow recorders were mad. They wouldn't do anything but curse him and put a frowny face next to his name in the history books; and he gained equally little by being in their favor. He could not have cared less about it..

If Lavi did not want to see him, even if he would not share the reasons, Bookman would not get in.

The Supervisor turned to the door – three hundred nine this time – and turned the knob, shuffling through the portal on his slippers just as Tyki tucked the blanket more surely around Lavi's body and smoothed his hair away from his forehead, murmuring under his breath. Komui couldn't hear the words but he could guess at them, just by the way Lavi sighed at them.

Somehow, despite everything, he worried when the Noah laid his hand over the redhead's heart.

And then Lavi smiled, a real smile, just as bright as it had been before any of this had happened, and he spoke loudly enough for Komui to hear.

"I'll be fine, trust me. Eventually, when we don't have to fight anymore, we can go anywhere we want, be anyone, and have our own lives. You didn't choose to be what you are anymore than I did, but we will then." Komui pressed his back against the door soundlessly as Lavi opened his eye and touched the Noah's face, his expression filled with worry. "Don't cry, Ty-chan, please. I know you're worried, no don't… I'd rather you bite me than cry…"

Tyki laughed at the apprentice Bookman and tilted his head enough to touch their foreheads together. "I know, I am sorry." He whispered. "I love you, Lavi. I wish I could take you outside and spend the day in the sun, leave and buy you flowers, anything. But the most I can do is stay with you and pretend to sleep so no will ask me questions that I cannot answer, no one will take me away." There were tears on his face, just where Lavi had tried to wipe them away. Komui wet his lower lip with his tongue. "Will you please, allow me this moment of weakness, dear?"

"Of course, Ty-chan. I cry on you all the time, it's nice to have you return the favor."

"I will try to keep your shoulder as clean as I can."

"Just don't get snot on me. Sponge baths don't get everything you know?"

"We'll have to remedy that when you're well enough."

"I thought you wanted to tie me to the bed and tease me?"

"A clean you, preferably. What a delicious thought."

"Gah, so Noah today."

Komui's eyes flared wide.

"I'm not going to kill anyone, I just _want_ things. Like to buy you flowers."

Lavi laughed this time, softly. "That's a perfectly human thing to want." That green eye closed again and his hand touched the older man's back, caressing gently, lovingly, while the Noah hugged him as if afraid letting him go would let him sink through the bed and disappear. Komui felt as if he did not belong, as if he were intruding. "And I wouldn't particularly mind if you did. Though I doubt I'd feel better if you got me something to sneeze at."

Tyki laughed again, dragging his tearstained face across Lavi's shirt with a sigh. "Then can I want to be good?"

"What do you mean?"

The Noah flopped himself on the mattress and sighed, his features lost to Komui. "The dark… it wants to do good things. Help. Trust. It wants… not to betray, but instead to change."

"You mean… tell secrets?"

"God, no! But it wants to run errands, wash you, make coffee for others. To put it simply the thing is bored. And rather annoyed that I'm calling it a thing." He explained. "Without death to pass the time I find myself rather useless, and I doubt Komui-san will allow me to go out and find you things to make both of us feel better, where I might accidentally put my hand through someone's chest. He looks at me and has no trust in his eyes. So…" He sighed and Lavi patted the top of his head, still somewhat sad looking, somewhat amused. "I want to be good, if only to do those things for us. And I do not want to wait for it."

"Ty-chan, you're being scatterbrained."

"I'm sorry. I cannot think right now."

"Then don't." Lavi was hugging him, amusement abandoned for worry. It was unclear if the Noah had this strange inability to think all the time or just every so often, but it was obvious it was not normal enough to be ignored. It was perhaps most odd though, that even with tears in his eyes, seeping down his face, he did not sound as if he were crying, or even sob as Lavi soothed him. "Just be with me. And maybe, someday, you won't have to make me cookies or buy me flowers because I'm hurt. You can just do it when you get the urge to, what with romance and all."

"I think romance died when you were kidnapped."

"So not true. A candlelight dinner and table sex still sound _fine_ to me."

"_You_ will take any kind of sex you can get – and could not care less about the candlelight."

"Not true!"

"Really? So if I said we were going to have a dinner, a real dinner, and not even kiss each other afterward, you would be perfectly comfortable with that?"

Lavi looked away, suddenly interested in the lights above them. "If I have to look at you the whole time…" He mumbled. "I'd most likely leave right after dinner..."

Tyki Mikk shook his head and sighed, folding his arms around the smaller man. "I'll just keep that in mind next time." He worked his head against the pillow and Lavi turned away, guiding the man's arms around his chest so the two formed the same shape, sagging against the mattress. The Noah placed his tearstained face in the crook of his lover's neck and breathed in before he spoke, more quietly than before. "Thank you for understanding me when neither side knows what it wants exactly, only that it does."

"Don't worry about it," Lavi mumbled. "Just be a good blanky and keep me warm while I _feign_ sleep until breakfast. You'll sort you out before too long if I keep letting you bite me."

Komui did not even move at the sound of a kiss on skin, nor did he blink when the Noah laughed again, this time sounding as if the boy's exhaustion where wearing off on him. _"__Eu amo você, querido. Durma bem."_ His voice barely reached Lavi's ears, let alone Komui's. The scientist didn't know what the words meant but he recognized the language – Portuguese, Bookman and Reever and a few other random scientists spoke it, but not Lavi.

"_Não falam Português."_ The redhead responded at once, causing Komui's mouth to fall open. _"Ou talvez eu."_

That answer was fluent, the accent identical. It had to be what Lenalee had told him about, the memories that weren't Lavi's, the proof that the Noah wasn't lying. The prospect made him shiver. A near silent gasp parted his lips as a thought struck him, rocking his shoulders against the door. It was so simple. It was so easy. _Lavi_ knew so many things that Tyki did, understood his mind, had recorded things besides the horror of his confinement, and come to absorb all kinds of facts that they had always wondered at. It was too much to ask the details of the Millennium Earl's plan from the Noah of Pleasure – but it was not too much to ask the Bookman who knew his thoughts.

He turned away from them, amazed at his own stupidity, and placed his hand on the door, careful to keep his steps silent.

"_Boa, Amante."_ The Noah said behind him, taking Lavi's knowledge in stride.

"_Bom dia, _Ty-chan."

* * *

Allen dreamed. It wasn't unusual for him to dream, but it was strange to remember it, even odder to _feel_ like he still was when he woke. He was pressed to Kanda's chest, both eyes closed, the distant twitter of birds all that told him it was day. There was no light. Nothing but the steady beat of Kanda's heart and the thrum of wings above them. Wordlessly he pushed himself away, turning his face into the sun. They were still in the same thicket they had been in, the fire smoldered down to ash, everyone but Cross accounted for. His silver eyes passed over his sleeping companions one by one then fell to the brown and yellow grass, finding nothing out of the ordinary. It proved to him that they were tired – all of them – and that they really did need a day's rest. He didn't remember plans to sleep in, in fact, he didn't remember much about the night before, a story, sad poem attempts, pain…

The dream.

He wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't try. He would gaze in silence at the gleam of orange light in the distance and cuddle with Kanda, protesting back, sore eye, and annoyed arm winning out over hunger. He turned away from everyone and drew his lover into a gentle embrace, humming in the back of his throat to get closer. Kanda accommodated him without word, his left hand curved around Allen's back while his eyes remained shut to the morning. Usually the samurai was up before Allen – before this trip had began it would have been rare for him not to rise before dawn – but now he was different, and far more willing to pretend he was still dreaming.

"Love?"

The Japanese man rolled Allen enough that he could press his face next to his lover's neck. "Che. Go back to sleep, Moyashi." His voice was hardly a whisper, the touch of his breath like a feather on Allen's skin. The smaller boy sighed.

"If we want to make it back to headquarters shouldn't we get up? I don't see Cr—" Kanda placed his fingers on the British boy's lips, stilling them.

"You need to. You didn't exactly sleep too well last night." He moved his fingers just to the side of Allen's lips, tickling the edge of his chin. Allen noted dark circles under his lover's gemlike eyes and reached out to him, touching the side of his lover's face with the palm of his hand. He was surprised at how cold the flesh was, or how steadily Kanda leaned into him, and bit his lip at the slow sigh that lifted Kanda's shoulders.

Allen frowned. "I think you slept worse than I did, Love."

"Che."

"Really. I haven't seen you like this in a long time. What happened?"

Kanda sighed again, perhaps fighting a yawn, and let Allen guide him into a more comfortable position, most of his weight on the smaller boy's torso. "Last night, after you finally slept, I thought I would try remembering again." By now he had his head on Allen's chest, just below his shoulder where he could feel the rise and fall of his lover's lungs, and time their rhythm if he wanted. "I've never felt anything like that, Moyashi. Never. I hardly slept after that."

"You've gone without sleep before though." Allen offered with a touch of his right hand on Kanda's face.

"Those days I lost, the ones after you forgave me, I found them. I remember everything. My hands on your skin when I thought you were feverish, giving you my stew, hating myself for feeling guilty when I cut you, sleeping in your bed and smelling you and being angry for wanting to…" His voice took on a slightly different timbre as he went on, losing a bit of his wakefulness. "It's all there. Packed into one night."

"Are you alright, Love? I mean… will you be?"

"Yes. Just sleep. So I can."

"I'm hungry."

"I'm tired."

"Kanda, are you _sure_ you're ok?"

"Fine." His fingers moved to Allen's hip and curled around it possessively, his thumb and forefinger smoothed the skin in slow circles, sending a ripple of shivers up his lover's spine. There was a near silent moment then, a minute in which Kanda closed his eyes and breathed deeply, passing his air out in a wave. He might have wanted to speak again but no words past his lips.

Allen stroked Kanda's hair as he talked on. "If you're really alright Love, then sleep without me. I won't move, but I'm not really sleepy either." He yawned as if to prove himself wrong. "Well, maybe a little."

Kanda's breathing had evened out, his fingers no longer moved, he lay half on his lover's chest with his mind full of unrealized thoughts, unresponsive. Allen frowned at his lack of response for a moment before he recognized what had happened; the Japanese man had fallen asleep despite his desire to remain awake, and now Allen wore him like a breathing blanket. His backed didn't hurt so much knowing with his lover there, nor did his headache pain him as much as it had a moment before.

Indeed, the day seemed potentially like a good one.

"We need a room." Kanda's voice made him jump, his fingers digging into his lover's hair and pulling harshly. The older Exorcist laughed at him, aware that he must have appeared to be sleeping from Allen's angle.

"You're too good at that. What do we need a room for?"

Kanda's hand slipped under the fabric of the smaller boy's shirt. "Things." He said vaguely. "We have a month before we get back, give or take two days. That puts us somewhere in eastern Europe on the twenty-ninth." His hand made its way to Allen's ribcage, tickling along the edge of it until the boy giggled at the sensation, a harsh sound in his ear. It made him smile. "We won't get to Headquarters until after the sixth of June."

Allen gasped at him and Kanda wished he could see the look on his face, undoubtedly disappointed. "You'll miss your birthday! That's terrible! You won't get a party."

"Good. I hate parties. And cake. And getting things I don't need."

"Kanda, that's horrible."

"Is it? Fine, next time you have one we can do something you hate. Like fasting."

"It's not _that_ bad."

"Chocolate and booze for everyone. How does that sound?"

"Yuu…"

"Che." The older Exorcist looked up at his lover with a serious expression, amusement less than obvious beneath his stoic eyes. Even if he was saying something unpleasant, he was still happy, regardless. The morning light on his deep blue irises showed the smile beneath his features. "If I could spend that one day out of the year anyway I wanted, I'd most likely spend it alone. Or with you."

"Aw, the sappy pair is awake already. Damn." A distinctly female voice grumbled from across the grass before Allen could respond to Kanda's adorable confession. Sable pushed herself up with a grimace and wobbled toward the fire, seeming intent on breakfast. "I guess I'm cooking for seven."

"Seven?" Allen questioned without moving. Kanda didn't seem willing to get off of his chest just yet and he wasn't about to make him. "Even when Master comes back there will only be six of us." He watched the girl tighten her lips at him and start sifting through their edible supplies, a tiny frown taking her face. She poured water in a pot and hung it over the dead fire before looking at him.

"I must have miscounted." With that she lumped wood onto the pile of ash and spoke it to light, more out of laziness than a lack of matches. Allen disapproved of her doing that but she didn't let it stop her – it was the same thing as practice in her mind, at least. "Whatever though, if you're eating it's more like breakfast for forty anyway."

"Hey, you eat a lot too."

"You eat more."

"But you still eat a lot."

"I eat two or three times the normal person. You eat twelve." She rolled her eyes and Allen's face fell into an indignant frown. Usually he laughed this sort of thing off, but not this time it seemed. "I'm right, unless you wanna cook breakfast."

He gave up with a sigh. "What are you making?"

"You'll eat it. That's all that matters."

Kanda placed a hand on Allen's mouth before he could respond and heaved himself up on one arm, his dark eyes holding his lover's light ones away from the blonde and her bag of rice. He leaned down enough that when he moved his hand the smaller boy was staring up at him wide eyed not understanding. "I forgot to ask you how you feel. All of this walking, no time to ourselves, and Cross _looking_ at us every time I go to kiss you…"

"He's just annoyed that I get more than him."

"Che. That's not an answer."

Allen lifted the side of his mouth, forgetting the food. "I'm better than you are, Love. A lot better. You really should take your own advice and sleep." He brushed Kanda's bangs back, exposing his face to the kiss Allen planted on his forehead, softly. "There was a sign we passed yesterday, so maybe we're not too far from a real bed. And real food. And—"

"Hey!"

"Sorry! I meant… food we don't have to cook." Allen corrected, not looking away from his lover. Kanda laughed at him and lowered himself enough to return the press of his lips. It was a short touch, just enough to make Allen smile, before they pulled back, Kanda rolling smoothly so he was directly above his lover, dark hair falling around them both. "We do need a room." Allen conceded more softly, aware that anyone who looked at them would see Kanda's hand was up his shirt, teasing him. He didn't really care though, not as long as Cross was missing and Hiroko was sleeping.

Kanda hummed in return, turning his attention to the skin of Allen's neck. "And maybe some other things… like a chair… or a shower… or rope…"

"Kanda?"

His tongue paused for a moment against the skin of Allen's jaw and he paused, sinking down on him until his shoulders nearly disappeared into their shared sleeping bag. "You asked me, on the boat, if there was anything I would like to do with you. I told you I wanted to have you where I could smell you. That was half true. I wouldn't mind… other things…" Kanda smiled at how Allen's eyes flared wide, "That aren't so innocent."

"Love… Sa-Sable is—"

"Cooking. If you're quiet, no one else will wake up. It's been a while hasn't it Moyashi?" His left hand, the one that had been on Allen's hip, slid between them where neither could see, and pressed firmly at the smaller boy's inner thigh. The white haired Exorcist's mouth fell open and his hands moved to his lover's shoulders, unconsciously pressing him lower. "You want it?" His fingers wandered to the right and paused, he lowered his face to the fabric of Allen's shirt. "You're blushing."

"Kanda… she'll notice… and if you – _don't_ – your hand…" His protests fell silent at the touch of skin against his own, cool, sure. It made him shake. "You should _sleep_, Kanda…"

"But this feels much better."

"We're almost to town, we can then."

"Or we can now."

"But our stuff…"

"Che. Do you think I'm stupid? I won't need anything but you for this." He raised an eyebrow and tightened his fingers, aware that Allen's expression was half wanting and half rejecting him, slowly losing it. He had never manipulated his lover like this – he had never wanted to – but now it seemed like he was helping them both by breaking Allen's will. Now, thinking back to every night on that boat on the Northern Sea when Allen would whisper half prayed thanks into their cabin, he felt that doing this was logical. It made sense to him now that he remembered burying his face in the pillow that smelled like Allen.

"What if Cross…"

"Sh… if I stay like this," He gave a long stroke with his hand and Allen's fingers tightened, digging with his nails. "And only use my hand, no one will see. No one will know. You just need to stay _quiet_ for once in your life." Allen's mouth opened, breathing rapid. Kanda did exactly what he would have if he wanted the boy to moan. "Understood?"

"You shouldn't do this… if Master—"

"He can't do anything about it if you want it. And you shouldn't call him that."

"But, Love, I—" Gunfire interrupted him. His lover threw himself forward instinctually, covering Allen's face with his shoulders, arms curled around as much of the smaller boy as he could cover. Sable made a loud sound of shock that Allen couldn't understand the meaning of, not with his face pressed into Kanda's shirt, clinging to him as if to protect him from below. He felt Kanda twitch against him and heard the thump of bullets around them; caught sight of dancing leaves burned black as coal. It took the greater part of a minute for the barrage to end, and even then Kanda didn't let go of him, didn't move. Allen heard a gun of a different tone fire less closely followed by an explosion – General Cross was undoubtedly in the thick of it.

_Akuma?_

"Whore-chan? You under Yuu?" Hiroko. She was finally up.

Allen pushed at his lover's chest and was amazed when he lifted rather easily, arms unwinding with nothing but the force of gravity. Curiously he looked at Kanda's face as the Japanese man came to rest beside him, and turned his right hand around the samurai's shoulder in an effort to lay him flat and show his face in the light.

His fingers hit something warm and sticky.

Kanda coughed, spewing blood from his mouth, dying the gray fabric by his face deep red. He lifted a hand as if to hold in the next mouthful but Allen stopped him, taking it in his own.

"Why did you do that?!" Allen demanded, squeezing the fingers in his. "You know they don't hurt me anymore than normal bullets! You knew I would be fine!" He was yelling, even though that was a bad idea with akuma around to find them. "Why did you do that? We talked about it… you promised…"

"Che. _Baka._" Kanda spoke despite the sickly wheezing in his lungs. His hand closed on Allen's far more tightly than the British boy would have expected. "This won't kill me. I _can't_ die yet." He hacked again, only this time nothing came up – he seemed to fight it down with his breathing.

"I don't care if you don't think you can! You shouldn't have thrown yourself over me! You idiot!" He squeezed his lover's hand, suddenly aware of tears searing down his cheeks as he leaned closer to Kanda, anger and fear willing him to press his hands on Kanda's paling face, hold him close. _"Why?"_

His lover coughed but did not manage to withhold the blood this time. Allen watched his eyes go out of focus before they drew him in again, seeming tied with fear alone. "How many of us can still fight?" Kanda growled at him. Allen swallowed hard before he looked away.

"Sable's ok. Hito defended himself with a pot. Cross is out there already. That must be why he skipped breakfast. Okaasan is staring at you." He looked down at Kanda and let a tiny smirk crease his lips. "The only one hurt is you."

The Japanese Exorcist nodded. "Go."

"Go?"

"Hide my family. I will catch up." As if to prove that it was possible Kanda shoved himself up onto his hands and knees and grimaced, but didn't cough. He blinked repeatedly at the ground before shifting his right leg up as if to use it to stand. Allen shook his head.

"No, Love. You can't. If I'm going hide them, I'm hiding you with them." He tugged at his lover's arm, trying to jerk him up. "Don't be a martyr."

"Che. Look who's talking."

Allen rolled his eyes and placed Kanda's arm on his shoulder then stepped, forcing the taller man onto his feet. It became obvious to Allen the moment he stepped forward that his lover was wrong; tromping through the thick underbrush would be too difficult on his unsteady legs. Leaving him behind, even with Mugen, was leaving him to die.

Kanda would have protested if he had had air to. He was lying again. Truthfully he would not be fine for at least a few days, unless he sped the healing process with a fraction of his life, which was not something he wanted to do with Allen standing there. If he miss measured, if he left himself numb and panting and slipping away, he wouldn't want Allen to see it, to watch him die. He wouldn't want Allen to know. But with the boy next to him, holding most of his weight while his mother and would-be-sister-in-law packing the camp, making even the smallest sacrifice would be obvious. Even the tiniest trade would be felt.

_Fucking Moyashi… if you left me we could walk faster…_

"Oi, Allen." It was Sable's voice that drew him back from the edge of the camp. It occurred to him only when he was on the side closest to the distant explosions that his eye had not activated, nor seen a thing not even the night before.

But for the dream.

"Yes?"

"Yuu-chan's gonna pass out any second if you don't do something about his back."

"I will… not…"

"Shut up. You patch him while we get the camp." She lugged a bag of medical supplies at his feet and started on the bloodied bedroll they had shared, working hurriedly. "Any idea where we're headed? Or do we just _go_ until we can't hear them anymore and then come back? Will Cross be able to find us? Or want to?"

Allen sank slowly down on the dry, pentacle ridden grass and Kanda slumped against him, breathing slow and ragged. The younger Exorcist tried to ignore the blood that smeared across his hands when he pulled off Kanda's jacket and peered at the wounds left by akuma bullets. The projectiles themselves were attempting to dissolve Kanda's flesh, but only managed to slowly deplete themselves. They did, however, keep the skin from knitting together like it wanted.

"Kanda?"

The Japanese Exorcist didn't respond. He wobbled for a moment before his neck let his head fall against his chest, unhindered.

"Love?"

Nothing. He didn't even breathe more rapidly.

"Yuu?" That got him a tiny response; a bob of Kanda's shoulders. Allen was glad of it. "This might hurt a little, so I'm sorry in advance." He saw the attempted turning of Kanda's head but ignored it, already set on his task. With a slow breath in and a touch of his lips on his lover's neck, he flexed the fingers of his left hand before sinking them into his lover's flesh and closing them firmly on the first bullet lodged in his shoulder. "_I'm sorry."_ He gripped Kanda's lost right hand in his own, seeing that his lover knew what was to come. _I'm sorry._

_I'm sorry._

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**If you're wondering what poem Kanda was going to say… you can guess. :)**

**Sorry this took so long, I swear I will update sooner next time!! :D**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!! (loves)**


	86. 21

**I will answer reviews. I will. When my comp isn't rebelling against its drivers. Grr…**

**Disclaimer of Dreams: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda would be smarter. It's hard to keep him relatively dumb, you know? Lavi makes a much better dummy.**

**WARNING!: Men loving men, violence, bloodshed, emoing, and general plot movement.**

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21

He had been running.

There had been pain in his side, shooting from the left of his ribcage to the right, impeding his breathing, slowing him. The light had flicked wildly over head – now blocked, now bright, now blocked, now bright – until he felt dizzy with it, his head pounding in time with the changes. The had ground reached up to stop him, but he moved on, stumbling. It had been behind him, just out of reach, waiting for him to fall.

It was nearly the same.

Branches caught on Allen's face and in his clothes as he moved, dragging Kanda through the woods, tripping on rocks and fallen tree limbs. He was taking up the rear, Hiroko and the others fading from sight ahead, Kanda bogging him down. That was the one difference; in the dream, Kanda had been in front of him. And he had been shot. Now, the pain was only his lungs fighting for air.

A loud blast alerted him to just how near the akuma were and a sharp pain bit into his side, forcing him to his knees. Kanda sank down beside him, his right arm just capable of keeping him from the ground, eyes at once on Allen. The British boy glanced at his side and gulped, blood oozing from an inch deep graze in his flesh, dying his white shirt crimson. His jacket was packed away, holey and filthy, but it would have helped now.

Had he been wearing it in the dream? He couldn't remember.

"Get up." Kanda hissed at him, trying to force himself to his feet. Every part of his body was shaking, and seeing the stain on Allen's side was no help at all. Looking at it, watching blood pool around his lover's bent knee, he felt sick to his stomach, worried in his heart, like he was going to faint. "Now." His left hand reached out and touched Allen's right sleeve, pulling his eyes up. _"Get up."_

Allen swallowed as if his throat were unwilling, his left hand clamped to his side. "If I do… you'll…" He blinked repeatedly and Kanda pinched his arm with bruising force, not willing to let the boy lose consciousness. "I dreamed this, Love. Last night. If we go on you'll end up in front of me. And die." He finished in a rush.

"Bullshit. Get _up_."

"We need to _hide_, Love. We can't keep up like this. If we go, we're dead. That's it." Saying it made Kanda's eyes flash with anger but Allen went on, ignoring him. "Trust me. We cannot keep going. Please." His right hand gripped his lover's jacket, marring it with blood, smudging the white with red. He didn't pay attention to that either. "Do you see anything we can use?"

Kanda shook his head, but the anger didn't fade, it simply took the backseat for survival. "The forest is denser to the north, but the plants themselves are thinner. We don't blend. We smell like blood. We have to run." He clenched at the hand on his jacket, feeling it shake, and leaned down enough to kiss the skin of Allen's forehead, cool lips soft and worried. That single action nearly snuffed out his ire entirely, but he could feel it underneath, just where he didn't want it, where it might make him snap. "I love you. If running means you live and I die, then we run. If sitting means I die and you die, we run. Understand?"

"No, Kanda we can't—"

"Don't argue with me. It was just a dream, wasn't it? Now _get up_."

"Love, even if it was a dream, I don't want to risk—"

"You don't want to risk it, but I don't care. I won't let you kill us both because you think—"

"You don't _know_ that we'll die here. You don't know they won't—"

"Che. Listen to yourself, Moyashi. You want to sit here like a wounded animal and wait for death because of a _stupid dream_ you had last night? Not while I'm breathing."

Allen's eyes narrowed dangerously, his jaw set. "If we go that's what will happen. You will sto—" Kanda launched himself at the younger Exorcist, his left hand closing around the boy's mouth to stifle his exclamation of surprise. The Japanese man breathed raggedly as he shoved his lover against the nearest tree, shoulders hating him, gazes locked. Allen's hands clutched his upper arms, eyes shocked wide.

Kanda leaned enough so he could whisper, his words little more than a brush of air in Allen's ears. "If you talk – if you _think_ about talking – it's over." His palm slid away from his lover's mouth but he let his fingers linger, sealing them with nothing more than a subtle touch. "There are twelve. Here. Now. Close your eyes."

The smaller boy opened his mouth but Kanda shook his head and delicately reached for the wound on Allen's side, his fingers sticking in the still flowing blood. He could see that his lover didn't understand. It didn't matter. If Allen didn't understand, it would be easier.

"Close them."

Allen did as he was told.

A strange warmth filled the wound in Allen's side, a heat that radiated throughout him, searing him to his core. He opened his eyes at it and immediately wished he hadn't – unpleasant fire boring into his skull; his hands shot down the back of Kanda's back and pulled them together, the desire to escape that sudden heat the only thing that drove him. To his horror Kanda's flesh was hotter than his own, his breathing still.

The feeling faded in a moment, leaving him panting against Kanda's shoulder, feeling weak. His lover silently hissed into his skin, trembling violently, and Allen pushed him back enough to look at his face, pale in the leaf shaded sunlight.

_What did you do?_ He mouthed the words, remembering that he wasn't supposed to speak. Kanda opened his mouth and breathed for a moment, but no sound came. The fingers on Allen's side drew into a fist and pulled away, pushing at the mark over Kanda's heart, lines of sweat pouring down the samurai's face. Allen laid his palms on either Kanda's cheeks and met his eyes, speaking with his voice as lowly as he was able. "What… did you do?" Even when he brought his forehead against his lover's the older man didn't answer, he simply gasped softly at him, tired eyes hazy with pain.

"Hurt." The Japanese Exorcist managed, but his voice broke with the word, and he took a few more seconds until he tried again. "Are you… hurt?" Getting it out seemed to improve him a little; his hands both moved to Allen's side, parting the bloodstained fabric until he could see the perfect, smooth flesh beneath. "Good."

"Kanda, did you—"

"Che. It was all I could do."

"Love, you only have—"

"I _know_." He rose slowly to his feet, dragging Allen up with him. "Yell at me for it later, we need to be quiet. Can you see them?" He waited for Allen to shake his head before casting his eyes into the shadows, searching the shapes. Despite their voices he did not sense eyes on them, only the eerie feeling that they were surrounded by things unseen, things that were hungry and searching for them. It was a familiar feeling. "Twelve of them. Half circle this way," He made an arch with his left hand, back toward camp, "Of four, two on each side, two above, the last between us and the others."

"How do you know that?"

"I can hear them."

Allen blinked, not understanding, then nodded.

"Where's your coat?" The question surprised Allen; it was obvious by how his head moved.

"In my suitcase. Hitori grabbed it."

"Che." Kanda pulled off his own coat and began turning it inside out, his arms working normally despite the bloodied bandages that still clung to his back, despite his slightly pale features. Allen understood what he was doing at once and crouched down again, attempting to bend in the nearby underbrush like a shell around him, leaving space for his lover beside him. "You understand that we can't fight that many alone, right?" Kanda inquired softly as he blanketed his garment over Allen's head and his own, tucking it against the bushes. "Not with all of them as strong as they are and you without your coat."

"We might. If you weren't… how you are."

"Shut up, Moyashi."

"And you… I can't believe you—"

"_Later._"

"I want to talk about it _now._" Allen insisted as he leaned back on the same tree as his lover, the jacket making them appear as nothing but a dark spot of soil in the shadows, their features lost in the dimness. The silver haired Exorcist had his knees drawn up next to his chin and he could feel the other directly beside him, when a sudden thought hit him. "Where's… Mugen?"

"Che. You're blind, did you know that?"

"Love."

"You _left_ it there. My mother hooked it in her belt."

"You really need to stop losing your Innocence."

"Fuck you."

Allen's eyes narrowed, glinting oddly, and he spoke in a slightly more vocalized tone, lips drawn back from his teeth in anger. "That better be an offer, not an insult."

Kanda didn't meet his gaze. The Japanese Exorcist breathed in and out again, his hands made into fists in the fabric of his pants. The British boy didn't care that Kanda was fighting with his infamous temper, nor did he care that his eyes were brimming with tears; the only thing he cared about were those words, directed in anger, and the mounting fear in his gut. He didn't know if he should hit Kanda or hug him.

"Kanda if you—" He stopped, feeling breath on his face and then the press of a mouth against his, a tongue taking from him all that it wanted before he felt it slip between his lips. He tried to pull away but Kanda pinned him, holding firmly to his hair and the front of his shirt until Allen gave up to it, his fingers falling to his lover's bare chest and the mark on it, following the curve of his ribcage until Kanda pulled away, slumping against him. "Kanda—" His tone was rife with anger, louder than it should have been, but his hands didn't push his lover away, they simply curved into him, betraying.

"I'm sorry." Kanda whispered, drawing his palm down the side of the boy's face. "I love you. I'm sorry." He nuzzled gently, closing his eyes. "I didn't mean it. I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at me." His voice fell in volume and his hands tried to wipe the tears from his lover's eyes for a moment before drifting away when the touch was not returned. Allen heard him swallow. "You can… be mad at me if you want. I'm sorry."

Allen's voice almost didn't break through the stillness. "How long?"

"How long what?"

"Until you die, Love?"

"Allen it doesn't—"

"If you use it. If you get hurt again, at the same rate you have been, and you keep using your Innocence – how long will you live?"

For a moment Kanda was silent, weighing the price of honesty and deceit and deciding which to use. He wet his lips and pulled Allen against him without explanation, the jacket above them rumpled a little with the motion but he didn't care. "Maybe three years. Maybe more, maybe less. We can't tell. Komui thought I would be dead by the time I was your age, but I'm still breathing."

The white haired boy leaned into the older man, hugging him as tightly as he could. "Three years, Love? You should quit. For me and for yourself, you should quit."

"Shush, it's fine Moyashi. I told you, I have a gauge. I won't misjudge it if I can help it." He kissed the top of Allen's head, running his hands through that too long silver hair. "And if I _don't_ get hurt, I could live a lot longer."

"How much longer?"

Kanda shrugged, turning Allen's face up with a soft expression of affection. "I'm not sure. If it works how I think it does, maybe sixty years." Somehow that number made Allen laugh, though Kanda could not imagine why it was funny, or why it made him sad. He bent his neck so his face was pressed to his lover's hair, letting him breathe in his scent. He wanted to stay that way, quietly, for as long as the British boy would let him. "It's the same for you, isn't it?"

"Hm?"

"Your Innocence. It will make you die young. Parasitic types are like that."

"It does a lot more saving me than it does killing me."

"Che. That's not what I meant."

Allen smirked into Kanda's shirt. "But then again, you wouldn't know about Innocence _saving_ you being you never take it with you."

"Allen…"

"Sorry."

Kanda draped his arms down his lover's back and closed his eyes with a sigh, aware that the hand on his chest had begun to trace the lines of the mark without seeing it. Somehow, it soothed him. "Just be careful. Even if it hasn't done anything to hurt you, you're still under strain when you use it. I'd hate to have you die before me."

"That's horrible!"

"No it's not. You're younger than me and you deal better with death."

"Unfair reasons."

"There are more, if you want to hear them."

"You're making me cry."

Kanda chuckled and Allen felt the vibration of it on his face, in his hands. "We should be quiet anyways. They're still out there."

Allen nodded. "Are you comfortable, Love?"

"Very."

Allen closed his eyes and let himself relax, his fingers slipped until they were on his lover's hips, just above his belt. Kanda didn't protest. "Then can we stay this way? Until it's safe? Maybe until the others come back?" He wasn't really whispering anymore, just speaking with his breath. It was a sound that might have been broken if Kanda did not know him better. "So I can feel you… even if you're gone?" Kanda shifted enough so his weight was mostly on his lover's shoulders, pinning him and protecting him at once, before he answered.

"Yes. I won't die today, Moyashi. Or tomorrow. I promise. Now shu—" He stopped short, his arms ridged across Allen's spine, lungs stilled. The white haired Exorcist looked up at his lover's motionlessness, searching for his features in the blackness, his eyes showed him nothing. After a moment he reached out with his right hand until he found Kanda's cheek, his fingers questing for his slightly parted lips.

Air. Just the tiniest, weakest stream of air.

_No._

His left eye twirled to life as the jacket came off of their hideout, casting light on his lover. Kanda's sapphire eyes were perfectly round with shock, his throat constricted, the sparkle in his gaze oddly dark. He lurched forward, falling fully onto Allen so the smaller boy could see what caused his fall.

A silver claw buried in the skin of his neck.

"I missed_._" The words snapped his eyes up to the pair of blue ones that smiled down at him. They were set in an elegant face, though still masculine, and shaded by a round hat, accented by a half-concerned smile. The man had to have been in his early forties. Anger and fear and worry immobilized Allen for a simple reason: the soul. The soul that hovered behind the man was corrupted black; it made him sick with its crying and it's weeping, with the way it pulled at it's hair and smiled even as it suffered.

He had seen that soul before.

The spell over Allen broke. His left hand closed on the blade of the akuma and he jerked it from Kanda's neck, twisting it to break the suction. He launched himself at the not-man, the fingers of his left hand extended to kill even before he was entirely on his feet. The akuma laughed at him, stepped around the assault before bringing its weapon into the right side of Allen's chest. The Exorcist's eyes widened at the small stab wound but it didn't stop him long, it wasn't enough blood loss and it wasn't deep enough to hit anything important, it was just enough to surprise him. He rocked back on his right foot and drove his left hand at the akuma's face, roaring deep in his throat.

Kanda blinked up with bleary eyes the moment blood splashed across his mouth, where he could taste it. He couldn't think properly, couldn't move. Breathing sent a terrible pain from his left side to his right, attempting to move his arms made his neck feel as if it would snap. Looking up at Allen he realized that he still might be the better off of them. The claw that had only gone deep enough to draw him to a halt now protruded from the boy's back, stringing gore. Though the battle cry on his lover's lips died away, the British boy still hacked through the side of the akuma's head, the act seeming to be his last.

The explosion seemed to have no sound to it when Allen fell to his knees then onto his back, just out of reach. Kanda watched him wrap his left hand, strange thin fingers and all, around the curve of his side, and whisper into the sky.

His eyes lost focus. A strange white something blocked his lover's blood from sight that he couldn't guess the purpose or origin of. There were little yellow stars dancing in front of his eyes, twinkling against the growing dark. He saw an unfamiliar shape on the edge of his sight, fuzzy and growing more so, small and dark. It moved forward franticly, bobbing as if its legs were too short to move it more quickly.

_And here I had hoped the last thing I saw would be him._

* * *

"_Yuu!_" The name tore its way from Lavi's lips as he sat up, heart pounding, icy sweat seeping down his face. He panted for a moment, watching the room spin around him like a hurricane until it became too much for him and he dropped his head into his hands, covering his eye, shivering. He had _felt_ it. He had _known_. And he couldn't shake the words or the image from his mind.

"Lavi?" Tyki's voice called back from the mattress, worried and curious. The Noah pushed himself up beside the redhead and touched the boy's sopping back, wakefulness taking him at the way the younger man trembled. "Dear, what is it?"

Lavi shook his head and leaned into the caress, but his heart did not slow. The fear had rocked him. "If I tell you, I'll sound crazy."

"Right. You're talking to a man with two selves. Try me." Tyki drew him slowly closer until Lavi's head leaned sideways so he could guide them gently back to lying down, his hands warm on his lover's chilled skin. The redhead sighed at it, collecting his thoughts and himself and settling as close to his lover as he could get, still startled. Even willing himself calm did not work, his breathing stayed somewhat rushed.

"I told you a little about Yuu-chan right?"

Tyki nodded into the dark, stroking at Lavi's neck as he spoke. "Japanese, smaller than you, rude streak, internal teddy bear—"

"Not my words but close enough. I dreamed… that he… he… he looked _right_ at me, bleeding out his life in the dirt, and told me he thought Allen was the last person he would see before he died. God, I can't get it out of my head." He shook again, this time more violently. "It was so real, too. I've never dreamed something that detailed and had it not be a memory."

"Maybe you're afraid of losing him." Tyki offered. "Or something along those lines."

"I seriously doubt that's it."

"If you think about it, it will make sense to you eventually."

Lavi rolled his eye and turned onto his side, wrapped his left arm around his lover's chest, calmed. He breathed in the man's scent and buried his face in his neck, breathing on his skin. Tyki's throat answered with a line of goosebumps that Lavi had not meant to incite. "Tomorrow. Sorry for waking you."

"It's fine. I was thinking."

"About?"

"Honestly?"

"No. Lie to me."

"Baking."

"Now be honest."

"If I could molest you in the medical wing without being caught."

Lavi cracked a wolfish grin and laid his teeth on his lover's throat with a tiny growl. The Noah cackled as quietly as he could until the Exorcist pulled away, the ill omen of his dream forgotten, his mouth questing up the older man's jaw line. Before long Lavi was half over his lover, hands on the man's shoulders, chewing his lower lip while his hands worked at the buttons of the Noah's shirt. "I dunno if you can but I'm up for trying."

"What time is it?"

"Does it matter?"

Tyki sighed, hooking his hands under his lover's shirt. There was a thin, drying layer of sweat there, sticking to his fingers. "Will someone be coming in to feed you anytime soon?"

Lavi shook his head before sinking down enough to nibble on his lover's mouth again, teasingly. "Hell no, there are no meals between dinner and breakfast." His hands had finished with the buttons and he pushed the garment away, dancing quick lines down Tyki's chest to his waistband, where they waited. "Well, except for dessert." He smiled at the slight raise of the older man's eyebrows. "Mmm…" He licked hurriedly at Tyki's throat. "Yummy."

Tyki shook his head while he pushed Lavi's skin, fingers gliding in slow, tantalizing waves over muscle, pausing at his shoulders. "Are you not supposed to be tired and anemic and fainting at the thought of arousal?"

"That was this morning."

"Rather speedy recovery."

"Yay for me. You gonna keep playing with my shirt, or take it off?"

"Well, that depends on many things, Lavi. How well you are, how dark I am, what we have available. I would hate to start something in the early morning and not finish it until noon because of such simple questions." The fingers of his left hand stopped on his lover's chest and his right hooked in the loose waist of his pants, ignoring his words. A rush of air played across his face, warm and heady, and he caught the mouth that hovered over his, a tiny hum of appreciation sounding in the back of his throat. The touch of a palm on his neck lifted him closer and drove him to tug at the material in his right hand until the smaller man was flush against him, hips aligned.

Lavi pulled back with a lecherous grin, leering at the dark eyed man beneath him. "I'm supposed to be released tomorrow, I don't care if you want to hold me down or something, and the only thing we lack is probably in one of the drawers in Komui's office. Down the hall."

"That's a curious thing for a man to keep in his place of work."

"He confiscated it, I'm sure. Or he uses it on his hands or… something. Any more questions?"

Tyki chuckled lowly. "Just one, dear."

"What's that?"

"How come you are not this easy to seduce all the time?"

"Maybe I am. Maybe you're just not always this good at it."

"Ouch. My ego is cringing."

Lavi laughed from his perch while his left hand traced formless patterns on Tyki's throat, and leaned down for a wordless plea, gaze flicking from his lover lips to his eyes and back again. He looked at them everyday, but he never looked at them quite like that, not for no reason. It was a serious expression made playful by his smile, made sad by the glimmer of his eye in the less than adequate light. "I love you." The words fell out unbidden. Half in an effort to solidify them and half to unsay them, he lowered himself closer, not quite touching, and drove his hips forward. "Crushed ego and all."

"The feeling is mutual. Lavi, can I…" Tyki's voice was far quieter than it had been before, his hands tighter. He closed his eyes to the redhead and shook his head again, seeming as if the action might clear his head of something. "This request will sound very odd, but I must make it. If I ignore it, it will continue to bother me, I am sure. But you cannot laugh or think me insane. If you say yes, that is fine. If you say no, that is fine as well. Understand?"

His lover tilted his head to the side, his eyebrows drawn together curiously. "'Kay."

"Will you… let _me_…" He opened his eyes and even in the lightlessness of their room Lavi could see that they were black, sprinkled with sporadic hints of gold. The apprentice Bookman thought he understood but let his lover ask all the same, watching him closely. _"Have you? It is not the same this way, for either of us, but I want to. The things that I no longer do, the entertainment I no longer have, the chores I am not allowed to fill my time with – I am near you without them, but I do not touch you. I do not hear my name on your lips nor feel you unless it is through my skin."_ The hand that had been up Lavi's shirt slipped out so his palm might press on the boy's cheek. "_Αγάπη μου…"_

"You're an idiot." Lavi sighed, abandoning his lover's flesh to stroke his hair. "I don't see any difference between _you_ and _you_. Your eyes change color and you get wordier, that's it."

"_That is _not_ it. _I_ want to hurt you. _I_ want to tie you down. _I_ want…_" He trailed off, eyes falling shut, and shivered for a moment until they came open again, this time the soft, warm brown they used to be. Tyki blinked before he spoke. "Things that I cannot have."

"Ty-chan?"

"I am sorry. I should have stopped myself from asking."

"No, it's fine." Lavi rolled away enough to sit rather awkwardly back on his knees and face his lover, leaving the hand that still rested on his waistband to stay if it wanted. "The sides of you… it's like… I don't know, you're more separate than you were before. If both agree that you want that though, I'd be fine with it. I'm yours, all of yours."

Tyki's expression changed into a sad smile, his thumb tracing down to Lavi's throat, slow and warm. "You were supposed to say no."

"I was?"

The Noah nodded, sitting up, pulling the apprentice Bookman closer. His lips were like velvet on the smaller boy's cheek, loving, gentle, the hand that had remained on his clothes slipping into his pants. "If you had said no, I might have been able to make love to you tonight. But now… now I want more…"

"Ty-chan?" Lavi let the older man capture his wrist and turn him, pressing him against the mattress possessively, eyes gold and black and brown depending on the moment. Lavi didn't care. When the man touched him he gasped and the touch moved away, changing so Tyki's weight was on his arms, a knee between his legs, his aggressive teeth on the column of Lavi's neck – he shivered, want searing through his veins, his voice silenced with his lack of air.

"Shush," Tyki's fingers closed more tightly, almost bruising. "I should not do this now, here, after you have had a nightmare. I should comfort you. We should be quiet. But I want so much right now. I do not even know what I want, only that I do." His mouth was hot and open, his forehead pressed against his lover's gently. "I wonder if… I just want so badly to kill that I do not know what to do with myself anymore."

"No. That's not it." Lavi said the words a bit more tersely than he meant them. "Both of you look at me, right now. Look at me!" The words were loud enough to draw the Noah's eyes to his so he could hold that shifting gaze, make it see. He would have lifted his hands and framed his lover's face. He would have cradled him gently and cooed softly, explaining. He would have told him that it was alright, that Lavi wanted to be hurt. But none of those words wanted to be said. "If you can't kill – if you cannot do that _one_ thing – what do you want instead? Both of you."

"I want…" Tyki started, but stopped as if unsure. His hands loosened and tightened repeatedly, fighting. "To… to hurt… _y…y… _no…" The Noah's eyes filled with tears slowly causing Lavi to push on his hands in an effort to embrace him, but the older man shoved him down, holding him against the bed. "I _love_ you, why would I… I don't… but… I just – with all the life in me – I won't do it. No matter how I want to I – I want to _hurt_ you – won't do it." He rocked forward, his hands like vices, his eyes fading from black to gold and back again without pause. Lavi felt the tears fall on his shirt and tried to speak, only to find himself cut off once more. "I want… to stop wanting."

Those words made the Noah still, his expression blank. "To stop… wanting?" He turned his face to the side and looked down at his lover. "If I _hurt_ what I _love_, I will not stop wanting. I will… want something else. But I will have—"

"Temporary release." Lavi finished for him. He lifted his left leg and hooked it around the man's waist in a feeble attempt to get him closer. "If you're going crazy then do it. _Hurt me_, Ty-chan. It's been a long time since you did anything but bite me anyways."

"Do _not_ encourage me."

"Please. If it makes you happy, then hurt me. Jus—"

"No!" Tyki pushed himself away, shaking. Lavi sat up with him enough to yank the Noah back into an embrace, refusing to let him go.

"I _like_ it, Tyki! I want you to!" He realized too late that he was yelling, his voice loud enough to bring someone running, Lenalee or Komui or a nurse. He didn't care. They would get here and he would send them away. Or just sneak to his room without being released. He kept his voice the same volume; it seemed to work on his lover. "I told you that you are different than the others and I meant it – I like it when you hurt me, I like it when you make me do things I don't want to, I like it when you make me feel like I can't stop you. I like it _because_ I love you! You want to for the same reason, don't you?" He took the Noah by his shoulders and shook him, his voice increased in loudness suddenly, though he could not explain why. "We're the same, damn it! We do it because it used to be the only way we'd feel anything!"

The Noah pulled away enough to look at the round, horror filled eye of his lover, and touch the side of his face with his palm. Lavi breathed slowly, seeing that the man's eyes were brown rimmed in gold circled by black. Those eyes, when he looked at them, were far from soulless but they were equally far from human. He felt rather than heard the words Tyki meant to say to him, felt them in the way he touched the underside of his chin.

"_Not anymore, my love. Not anymore."_

When the door opened neither moved. Lavi had an eye only for the man who touched his face so gently.

"_Nada pode fazer alguma vez poderá jamais mudar meu amor por você."_

"Bible verses, Ty-chan?" Lavi questioned, pressing his face into the man's hand. "Or should I say Noah?"

The man at the door dropped his coffee cup so it shattered on the floor, blue and pink ceramic scattering across the white tiles. The spell that had settled over the two broke with the mug, and the scientist dashed forward, slippers wet with caffeinated drink, until he was close enough to turn Lavi's face to him.

Tyki blinked brown eyes at them, as if he did not understand what had happened, while Lavi frowned at the hand pressed to his forehead. He felt the scientist's hand clamp painfully on his arm and tried to jerk away, questions falling out of his mouth when Komui did not let go.

"Komui, what are you—"

"Where are they?!" The Chinese man demanded with a harsh tug on his arm. Lavi made a short sound of pain and tried again to free himself, but the motion did nothing.

"Where are what—"

"Don't pretend you don't know! I saw them! I _know_ I saw them!" His hand pushed Lavi's hair away from his forehead and fisted it, forcing he boy's head back so he could see his face better in the light from the hall. "I _saw _them!" The confused, half-angry look faded from Lavi's eyes at once, his mouth falling open into a perfect circle. Komui did not understand why the light faded from his eye, only that something was wrong. "Lavi?"

The redhead tried to speak but his mouth did not form words. Komui thought he might have been fighting for his sanity.

"_I don't… I don't know…"_ He started, losing it. _"Know. No. No. I don't want…"_

Tyki pushed Komui none too gently out of the way before Lavi lashed out and tried to hit him, an animalistic growl in his throat. The boy's nails caught Tyki's face but he didn't stop, he thrashed more wildly, pushing himself from the far side of the bed and onto the floor. Komui watched the apprentice Bookman scamper into the farthest corner of the room like a frightened animal and turn toward them, mouth forming words that only half had meaning.

Komui hesitated, not understanding. _What did I…?_

The scientist rocked forward on his feet to step but Tyki placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. He looked at the Noah's eyes and saw a level of severity that made him shiver. "Do not even try." Tyki said lowly. "You have done enough."

He watched the Noah moved to the Exorcist and kneel in front of him, catching his hands when they clawed at him again. Lavi cried out a sound of negation but his lover ignored it, yanking him away from the wall and into his chest.

"You are fine, Lavi. We are in the Order, it is alright. I am here." The Tyki rocked into the boy the way he used to, finding a slow rhythm that would encourage them both to breathe more softly. When a leg tried to kick him away he pinned it with his own, using his greater strength to his advantage. Lavi became louder, crying, shrieking, but Tyki ignored it, speaking into his ear with gentleness Komui might have thought impossible for the Noah.

The scientist stared on in silent fear that _he_ had made this happen, not the villain cradling his Exorcist on the floor.

After nearly a quarter of an hour the redhead fell silent, his hands going from fighting to clinging. There were soft words of encouragement then, mumbled words of devotion, and the sinking feeling that here, in the dark, Komui had seen something that wasn't there. His moment of panic that had brought this all on might have been nothing more than a sleepless delusion, a moment of confusion, his mind superimposing one person's trait on another's face. The idea horrified him. If they had not been there, if his eyes had lied to him, and he was still making assumptions he shouldn't have been…

Lavi did not speak, only sobbed until there were not tears left in him. He looked up at his lover then, swollen eyes half lidded, and attempted to smile. It was a travesty of the true expression. "Do you think… we might just sleep tonight?"

Tyki kissed the skin of Lavi's forehead and guided him to his feet, brushing away his hair. "Yes. We might just forget this night ever happened, what with so many unpleasant things to recall." He watched Lavi look up at the man who had made him remember and waited for a reaction – when one came it made him sick inside.

"Hey, Komui." Lavi's eyebrows went together. "When did you get here?"

* * *

"Look, I'm telling you that we came from _that_ way."

"And I'm telling you we came from _that_ way."

"_You_ have never walked this far in your life. Trust my experience."

"Well _you…_ are _blonde_."

"Let's just go this way and come back if I'm wrong."

"Or go _this_ way and not come back at all."

"Hitori."

"Sable."

"Would you two _both_ shut the fuck up and walk?"

Sable sighed, turning what she knew to be the way they had come. "Hiroko, who's right?"

The Japanese woman sighed. "Neither." She pointed at the foot prints they had left behind and turned her head sideways at them. "We went in a circle. If we cut through this way, it should take us about a half mile from camp."

Hitori smirked at Sable, his braid swinging when he tilted his head. "We were both right then."

She nodded. "Should have thought of that."

* * *

Kanda knew at once that something was wrong.

He remembered passing out under the shade of a bamboo tree, and seeing Allen impaled with an akuma claw. He did not, however, remember having his wounds dressed. Or being tied up. Or having a gag shoved between his teeth and tongue. His left eye opened slowly, feeling heavy for a reason he could not name.

The flower. Allen's side. Ah yes, he had tried to help. Now he would have to deal with the consequences.

It wasn't their camp he was in, nor was it a den of akuma like he thought it would be. There were people, perhaps three of them – it was hard to tell with his range of vision – crouched around a pile of cloth by the fire while one of them, a dark skinned man in his thirties, worked feverishly with hands slick with blood.

Kanda realized that his head hurt.

"Raph." The small voice was right by Kanda's ear, loud enough to make him twitch. It was a hatchet through his skull, the light of the sun molten steel someone had decided to pour into his eye sockets. Apparently he was the only one it hurt though; the man with bloodied hands glanced for a moment before going back to his work. "The rapist is awake."

"I told you not to call him that." The man's accent was heavy, strange; his vowels flatted with his tongue and rounded with his lips, his blends oddly tinged with different sounds. His dark eyes turned to the Japanese Exorcist, cold in a way Kanda was not expecting. "_Est-ce que vous parlez français, Monsieur le violeur?_"

_Hypocrite._

Kanda tried to nod without being misleading. No, he did not speak that much French, but he could get by.

"_Parlez-vous anglais ainsi?"_

He nodded again, more surely.

"Well, he's either a well traveled rapist or he's not a rapist at all, take off the gag, Juliana." Raph, or at least Kanda figured that was his name, stayed where he was, eyes back on the pile in front of him. Kanda wished he could see it. He wanted to know what it was. Small hands, lighter than the man's, guided the fabric from his mouth and a small, round face looked down at him from a strange angle, wide dark eyes focused on his.

He wet his lips, finding the bottom one split. "Hello."

The girl's eyes grew suddenly huge and she leaned closer to his face, as if he were a strange bug she was observing at her leisure. "He spoke."

The dark man said a few hurried words to his fellows by the fire – another man and a person he could not see – and stood, crossing the space between them. Kanda caught a glimpse of white hair and lurched forward, turning his shoulder against the ground with a soft explanation. He did not pay attention to the clothes the man was wearing, nor the way the movement frightened the girl, he only twisted his left wrist in an effort to push himself up.

"What are you—"

"How is he?" Kanda bit out when he found his efforts to move useless.

Raph looked down at him, took a blood-stained towel from his shoulder and wiped his hands on it, smearing the gore more than anything. "Who?" He asked with a slight tilt of his head. Kanda glared at him without thinking, twisting his hands.

"Moyashi – Allen. Allen Walker. He's there, isn't he?" He pointed with his chin, being his hands were not an option at the moment. The man frowned down at him, a disbelieving look on his face, and Kanda almost growled in irritation. His temper was at its end. Between Allen and Mugen and now this idiot, he was going to kill someone. "Tell me how he is!"

"Raph…" The girl, now that Kanda saw her at her father's side he thought she might be four or five, held tightly to the man's pant leg, tugging on it with one hand while the other mussed her hair, knotting one of the two large buns that stuck out like ears. "Be nice."

"Who are you?"

"Kanda Yuu. An Exorcist from the Black Order. We were on our way back to headquarters when we were attacked. You should have found my coat. Now _how_ is _he?"_ He did not mean to produce the words through clenched teeth, did not mean to say them like curses, but it was his way. He was losing it. Swiftly.

"He'll be fine." The man said coolly. "He lost some blood but all he really needed was stitches." Relief washed over the Japanese man's features and he sighed, letting his head thump against the ground. He had not noticed until then how worried he was, how his heart was constricted as if by some creature living in his chest. His neck hurt suddenly, a shooting pain danced down his spine and up again before it vanished, leaving him cold. Something, a little something on the inside, had yet to heal properly. His body was being slow.

"Good."

The bloody rag went back on Raph's shoulder as he sank down to a crouch, looking at Kanda's closed eyes. After a moment he sighed, a sound that made the Exorcist glance at him with tired, hooded eyes. "Raphael Delacroix. This is my cousin Juliana, the two by the fire are my brother Marcus and my wife Rina. I believe that the group of us may have made a terrible mistake with you." He bent lower, carefully touching Kanda's neck until his hair was out of the way, the fading marks on the back of his neck bared before him. "Rina thought you might heal quickly; I thought you might have done something to that poor young man with the white hair, so we bound you."

"Che." Kanda did not pull away, no matter how badly he wanted to. "I wouldn't hurt Moyashi."

"Moyashi? That doesn't mean master."

"Bean sprout. Because he's small."

Raphael chuckled as he stood, no longer interested in Kanda's neck. He moved behind the Exorcist – which disconcerted him more than a little – and began to pull at the ropes on Kanda's wrists, talking as he worked. "Coworkers then?"

"You could say that."

"Friends?"

"More along those lines."

The hands paused for a moment, and then started again. "Grecian?"

The corner of Kanda's mouth lifted as his hands came free and he pushed himself up, teetering on arms still too sore to work properly. "That's a nice way of putting it." He admitted dryly. He pulled up his feet and made quick work of the ties around his ankles, not really caring that there were still knots in it when he pulled it off of his feet. He paused only long enough to be sure that Raphael wanted nothing else before he stood on unsure feet, intent on seeing Allen for himself. The man didn't try to stop him, but the child – Juliana – caught him by the fabric of his pants.

"What does Greeshun mean?" She asked seriously, eyebrows pressed together, hand still tugging at her hair. Kanda knelt at her level, catching her little hand and guiding it away from his clothes.

"In this case it means the opposite of platonic."

"What's palonkic?"

"Ask your uncle."

She frowned at him, her dark fingers closing on his palm, a deep frown marring her tiny features. "Please? I just want it in leg-man's turns."

Raphael watched the Japanese man crack a lopsided, creepy, heartwarming smile. "The most important thing in the world to me," Kanda explained, bringing his hand to his chest. "Doesn't mean a thing compared to him. Money, power, treasure – I want none of it. Not unless I have him."

"Ooooh." She nodded knowledgably, letting go of her hair to take a firm hold of his, pulling him closer. He secretly wished she would let go so he could see Allen, but this was a child. He would not turn her away until he had to for that reason. She spoke softly, though he didn't know how she knew to. "So you love him?"

He nodded.

"Are you gonna get married?"

Kanda laughed as he pulled away, patting her on the head, and turned his eyes to Raphael, curious how much he had heard. The man only smiled oddly at him, perhaps not hearing the words, only seeing his expressions. "Let's talk later, Juliana. Right now, I want to see him." He felt her hand squeeze on his and let her keep it, watching her round, pudgy face brighten with a secretive smile. Inwardly he wondered if he had always been this good with children, or if she was simply an exception to a rule he had yet to hear of.

"Ok." She smiled. "Let's go see Nojazi!"

"Moyashi."

"Moshaji!"

"Moyashi."

"Mesaji?"

"Allen."

"Allen." She repeated brightly. "Let's see Allen."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**-sigh-**

**Yes. They will get to the Order eventually, just… not this instant. XD**

**Thank you lots for reading! And reviewing! I hope you like it. And yes, Juliana makes me giggle. But then again, so does Hitori. Maybe I just giggle a lot.**

**Also, I expect the next few chapters to be written rather speedily, though I doubt I will post them faster than I did this one. Why? Because I expect to have a rather time consuming job in retail by Monday, which means no writing during that time of the day, sucks doesn't it?**

**Anyhoo! Thanks for reading! Seeya next chappy! 8D**

**If you get the title… I will give you virtual cookies. :)**


	87. Broken and Breaking

**ZOMG, soooo called the newest manga chapter. To an extent.**

**NOTE: When I wrote this there was another scene on the end that made it hella longer. It also made some stuff happen I was not planning. So I hacked it. Thus, the next chapter may include it, or I might save it for later, or it will just disappear. If it is on the next chapter, it will take a while to repair. Just as a warning. 8D**

**Disclaimer of Dexterity: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… # #&) !(# (&(# . And stuff.**

**Warning: Biting? Between males. Yeah. You know that.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Broken and Breaking

Komui steepled his fingers in front of his face, not seeing the man sitting across from him, focused on nothing at all. He had beat a hasty retreat to his office after the fiasco in Lavi's room, but the Noah had come with him with a simple, logical request.

That something be done.

Not that anything was that simple.

Komui's dark eyes wandered to the coffee pot for a moment, the one that was never used, and lingered on the thin layer of dust before sweeping down across the floor. Papers. Lots and lots of papers. And, if he looked closely, there were pens too. And folders. Quills. His eyes stopped when the Noah in front of him sighed, letting his head sink into his hands.

"What you think you saw," Tyki began softly. "Was not there."

The scientist looked down at his desk and shuffled through a small stack of papers, at the bottom of which was that picture of Tyki, with a rabbit and a table, and Lavi in his arms. "Is it even possible?" He didn't look up. He didn't want to. He knew that the eyes that looked back at him, no matter their color, would be pained in way that made him feel sick with self loathing. And guilt.

"It is."

Komui's eyes fell closed.

"The only way I know of for that to happen – with him – is if I die. Because of how I feel collectively for him… the half of me that is not mortal would want to remain with him even if… it was no longer me. Do you follow?"

Komui shook his head. "I thought only direct descendants of Noah could inherit it."

Tyki chuckled, and the sound was just enough to make Komui look up at him. "Anyone can be the bearer of Noah's will." The Portuguese man held Komui's gaze unwaveringly, though his expression was calm, even kind. His brown eyes, which had remained that color since he had called Lavi back to the moment, where hooded from sleepiness, yet bright as if more aware of the situation than Komui thought the man should have been. It made him worry. "The truth of the matter is that he will not have my stigmata or powers, not so long as I breathe."

The scientist nodded, eyes wanting nothing more than to look away, yet unable to. He bit his lip, trying not to look at the man's hairline and see if it were true. He did not want to know if it wasn't. "Then… what is it that you would have me do? If what is wrong with him has nothing to do with you being who you are… then… what causes it?" The words were harder to say than they should have been and it showed on his features. He cared too much.

"You should know that by now. I did not spell it out, I came entirely too close for you to miss it."

Komui raised an eyebrow.

"They tried to rape him. They would have, if not for me. He dreams about it sometimes, but I have never seen it happen while he was awake – until you pulled his head back like they must have. Please, do not blame yourself, you were concerned. There was no way for you to know that yanking his head back would lead to something like that." The Noah looked away so Komui wouldn't have to stare at him, hiding the flare of black in his eyes with a hurried downward glance. The dark was silent, frightened, worried, sad, all of the things that were unpleasant, and he needed to make it better, do something _fun_. If he did not, and it rose from it's depression with any ideas, he might lose it. "You were not there."

"I wish I had been." Komui said at once. "I'm sorry. Please, continue. What should we do then?"

Tyki sighed, leaning heavily back on his chair. "Make him forget."

"What?"

"Make him forget. He told me that Bookman, that's what the old man goes by I believe, wishes to wipe his memory and sense of self from him, so he might know it happened as an observer, not a participant." He paused, suddenly seeming unsure, and Komui saw his eyes turn the color of burnt mahogany, something he had never seen before, or thought of. It made him frown before the pair closed all together, Tyki's jaw set. "We are not sure if that means he will forget feeling anything for me, but I am willing to take the chance if it improves him. Though I will be better off leaving if he does."

"Leaving? I'm afraid that that isn't really something we can just allow you to do."

"You will. Or you will die."

"Tyki—"

"I do not believe you understand the relationship that he and I have, Komui Lee." The Noah interrupted. "It is my oath to him that keeps everyone in this establishment breathing – it would be just the thing to push me over the edge if he _forgot_ I made it, or forgot why. I will have anywhere between an hour and a day to get out of here if that happens." He sighed, rubbed at his temples again, and drew his right leg up into the chair with him, bare foot on his left knee. "I know that he does not want me to hurt people but… I want to. It would be best for me not to be near here when I lose myself to that desire. If I am alive when it happens, I will kill anyone near me."

Komui's hands came down on his desk with a thump. "You mean to say that you do not wish to kill the people of the Order?"

Tyki smiled a little, and ran a hand through his hair indifferently. The seven dark scars were there for Komui to see in the electric lights. "He cares for these people, you, Lena, a boy named Yuu – hurting the Order hurts Lavi. No part of me wants to hurt him like that, no matter how dark." He sighed at the expression that got him, the way Komui frowned. "Killing any human at all hurts him, currently, but if he is no longer himself… you know what I am saying, I need not explain it. I can only hope that my brethren find me and end it all before I find a person to kill."

"But… why can't you keep the vow if he forgets it?"

"Without the rainbow would God still have a promise to Noah?"

"Yes…"

"But humanity would forget it, would they not? And eventually, the God that promised to never again destroy the world with a flood would do it again, because no soul knew the difference."

"That's not—"

"Isn't it?" Tyki tilted his head to the side and his right foot came down on the floor again. He leaned forward, dangerously, and his hands came to rest on the corner of the Supervisor's desk. Tyki watched the fear grow in the man's eyes but ignored it. He needed to know the fear in order to understand what could happen. "It may not make sense to you, you with your perfect God, with his perfect love, and his all knowing plan, but it makes sense to _me_. I never asked for what I received. Faith like a child leads to nothing but an eternity of servitude, and this world, this foul thing was supposed to be—" He stopped, realizing how insane he must have sounded. His eyes fell at once to the floor and his hands pulled back from the wood of the desk, settling into his lap for a moment. He sagged in on himself for a moment, shaking, before he could draw his head up and look at the man across from him with tears in his eyes.

"I cannot lose him."

"What is wrong with you, Tyki Mikk?" The question was so quiet, so concerned, the Noah shook his head at it, a tear falling from his left eye and onto his shirt. "There _is_ something wrong with you. I can see it."

"I am losing my mind, Komui." He said honestly, not caring about the tears. "Because I… with how he is… I can't hurt him."

The Supervisor did not understand that, and made it known with a lift of his eyebrows.

Tyki continued even more softly, his tan hands clasped against each other on his knees. "I have hurt him before because he likes to be hurt, to be forced – at least that is how it has turned out in the end. But… with his memories… I do not want to make him relive those moments. But if I do not make him… things will not be pleasant for me." Reluctantly, like a man leaning into what he knew to be his deathbed, Tyki tilted back in his seat. He was tired. Not from lack of sleep, either. "Things are already unpleasant."

The door squeaked open and the two glanced at once at it, curious who would want something at this time of night. Lavi smiled sheepishly in through the space between door and frame, hospital clothes hanging to his knees, loose pants billowing around his legs, and waved with his left hand as if in mock greeting. Komui sighed at him, and the young man let himself in, looking rather like he expected to be scolded.

"Did you sneak out?" Tyki asked softly, head tilted oddly behind him so he could see the redhead. Lavi's eye went from left to right before coming back to him, curious.

"There's something wrong with me."

"That's not an answer."

"It wasn't meant to be one." Lavi admitted. On unsure feet he moved to the Noah's side, standing behind the sofa as if he were afraid of sitting on it. The white of his shirt and the red of the couch made him look paler than he should have been, though less pale than the last time he had been in Komui's office. He reached out with his right hand and laid it on Tyki's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Trying to talk him into letting Gramps do what he wants to me?"

Tyki touched the hand on his shoulder as if the act might make Lavi stop looking at him with an expression half like loathing and half like regret. It didn't work. "I had yet to get that far, but yes. That was my intention."

"Jerk." Lavi smirked at him, but there was no anger in the word. "I told you that it's fine. I'll get over it before I forget."

"You said that—"

"I know what I said. I take it back. The risk doesn't seem worth it."

Tyki pulled on the redhead's hand until he was leaning awkwardly over the furniture, and buried his face in the curve of Lavi's neck. Komui blinked at the sudden sign of affection, unsure what to make of it. He saw the apprentice Bookman flush for a moment before the blood drained from his face, one eye wide, hand clamped into a fist. The Noah had bit him, and now held his arm so he could not pull away, tight enough to trap the blood in his fingers.

"Ty-chan…" He tried to recoil, but the Noah wouldn't let him, instead he found himself yanked farther, his right hand forced onto the back of the couch to keep him from falling. His breathing was erratic at best, a distant fear in his eye, and there, something else. "Let go… please…"

Tyki's fingers would most likely leave bruises.

"Ty-chan… my pants are gonna fall off… and Komui is…" His breath caught in his throat when the Noah pulled his head up by his hair, which prevented him from tucking his chin down to avoid the teeth on his neck. His facial expression changed, fighting two conflicting feelings. Terror and enjoyment. Komui had never seen either look on the redhead's face in quite that depth, and observing it now made him frown. It took the greater part of a minute for the fear to leave Lavi's gaze and another for his eye to go from dull to willing, his fist uncurling against the cushions. He leaned into Tyki, and shut his eye.

"_He's Ty-chan."_ Lavi did not know he said the words out loud. _"He can… I want…"_ He sighed softly, letting himself hum longinly at the caress of pain on his skin. A smile broke across his face Komui had never seen, an expression like hunger. "Keep it up and 'Mui's gonna get a show…"

The Noah pulled back suddenly, red lips turned down in a frown. He jerked on Lavi's hair, but the apprentice Bookman only smiled. "You should be screaming."

Lavi laughed, the sound soft and ringing in the stillness that his grin had incited. "We should be alone."

"But when Komui—"

"Yeah you told me. He yanked my head up and I flipped right? From the sound of it, I was confused to begin with – I didn't know what he wanted, or really who he was yet. I couldn't _think_." He slipped his hand easily from his lover's and brought it to the side of his face, drawing him close enough to kiss for a moment. He did not care that Komui could see him do it, either. "If he did it now I would be fine, because I know who he is and what he wants. I'm… not fixed, but I'm better than I was."

Komui sighed and stood, which lead the other two to look at him, his beret crooked, glasses half down his nose. He openly yawned at them. "I believe it would be best for you to speak to someone about what happened to you Lavi – I won't tell Bookman, what bothers him and why has nothing to do with making you function as an Exorcist. Everything will be off the record, but for yours. The woman I am thinking of was a professional at this in America with her husband until she joined the Order, so I doubt anything you say will scare her."

"And now you're going to tell us to go back to sleep." Lavi observed with a furrowing on his eyebrows. "You can't do that! I don't want to talk to anyone. I'll be—" He stopped when Tyki's fingers pulled on his arm again, only this time with gentleness they had previously lacked. He let the Noah guide him around the sofa until he was standing in front of it, and his lover pulled him down, making him sit so close he felt the fabric of his pants catch on Tyki's knee. "Ty-chan, what—"

"You'll see her." He stated baldly, the fingers of his right hand toying with the string behind Lavi's neck that held his clothes on. His other hand paused at the redhead's knee, a touch that had him flushed again in a matter of heartbeats. "Or I won't do what you want me to, no matter how much you want it."

"Do what I want?"

"He means hurt you." Komui dragged his attention away from the fact that the back of his shirt was now open, the fingers trailing lower. "We have a few hours until sunrise, so I indeed suggest that you go to sleep. I will send her to your room in the morning, Lavi. You're real room, being I doubt you will be in the medical wing longer than is needed to yell at you for leaving in the first place." He heaved a great sigh, the kind of sigh that seemed to deflate him, make him tired. Lavi wondered how long he had been awake for. "Lock the door when you leave."

"Why would we stay?" Lavi questioned hurriedly.

"Goodnight."

* * *

White hair, when flecked with the gold of sunlight, no longer made Kanda think of an old man. The star over Allen's left eye no longer made him think of a curse. Instead, as he stroked the strands from the younger man's forehead and traced the lines of the mark without even looking at the others by the fire, he thought of them as things that made Allen who he was, things that had no meaning aside from something to love. He expected his lover to be out of it for at least two hours if not the rest of the day if Raphael had been sewing on him, but his touch brought his metallic eyes open halfway, as if he were looking out from behind the clouds of a dream.

"Kan…da?" He blinked slowly, turning his head so he could see directly into the Japanese man's eyes and search them. The hand on his forehead did not stop its slow pattern, nor did Kanda pull away to show his lingering anger. Instead Allen felt a hand in his, warm and reassuring, and curled his fingers loosely around the back of it. "I'm not… dead, am I?"

Kanda chuckled at the question and resisted the urge to kiss those slightly parted lips. "No, Moyashi. You're not dead."

"You're _Moshimi!!_" The shriek of a tiny voice and the thump of small balled fists on Allen's chest made him let out a short, strangled scream, his hand clamping on Kanda's, eyes wide. The sound made his attacker retreat behind Kanda's shoulder, large brown eyes staring over that protective barrier. The white haired Exorcist cringed for a long moment but eventually grew calm again, choking convulsions settled into slightly gasping breaths. Juliana leaned forward, pressing Kanda so she could look at Allen more closely as she spoke. "Sorry, Momiji."

"Moyashi. You shouldn't even use it you're so… puny." Kanda growled over his shoulder at the girl. He turned back to Allen, expression losing a bit of its irritation at the soft smile on his lover's face. He could have sworn he heard Allen's thoughts at that moment, and he didn't like them. "Are you in pain?"

Allen made a soft negative, a lie, and blinked at him as quickly as his eyes might have allowed. "My eyelids are… heavy. Who's… the gargoyle?" He closed his eyeids but they did not open for a long moment, and even then the gaze beneath them were hardly focused. Drugged, it seemed, and low on blood.

"Juliana!" The girl cheered from her place behind Kanda. "Nice to meet you, Moseme."

"_Mo-ya-shi."_

"Mo-na-gi."

"Che."

"Tch."

Allen giggled at them, and the sound of it was loud enough for Raph to hear by his place away from the fire, still working at the ropes. Not a rapist – that was very clear now.

"I'm mad at you." Allen said suddenly, interrupting the attempted Japanese lesson. Kanda and Juliana looked at him, as did Raph, all of them at different level's of surprised. He narrowed his gaze at his lover, mouth creasing into a tired frown. "You shouldn't have… not when… three…" He stopped, obviously dragging himself back to awareness by force. That drug was a good one, but it wasn't more powerful than his will. "Killed yourself for me… bad. Me, angry."

"I heard a story about his once. Called Tanan."

"Tarzan."

"Mmhmm. Tanzania."

"That's a country."

"Maybe that's where I heard it."

"Love I…_Kanda_, I…" Allen broke in again, but Kanda laid two fingers of his left hand over the boy's lips, leaning down enough speak directly into the shell of his ear. He whispered so lowly, he did not think Juliana heard him or anyone else in the camp. They didn't need to know. And if they did, they might change their minds about keeping Allen.

"Be mad if you want, Allen. Even if I only spend three years with you, or three days, I won't regret it. You are worth more than me." He squeezed the hand in his, and leaned in, his forehead pressed softly against the turn of Allen's cheek, gemlike eyes fluttered closed. "If it was your curse that saved me at the cost of your life, would you regret it?"

The Japanese man stiffened at the press of Allen's hand against his nape, pulling him flush. He could hear that the young man was crying, bitter tears burning down his cheeks and into Kanda's hair. He had not expect that. Anger meant killing, not hugging. Allen could not speak through the onslaught of tears, indeed he could hardly breathe, but Kanda knew what he meant, what he wanted.

"If I get close, Moyashi – which I will not – I will tell Komui to fix me, and Mugen. I won't let myself die. I can't let myself die. The only reason I would even think about it is if—"

"No. Say it. No touching." Allen ground out. The threat made Kanda smile. "We'll… find him and… and… my head…" Kanda shushed him lightly, laying his lips on the warm skin by his lover's ear, just solidly enough for him to feel them. He did not want to imagine Allen's thoughts at that moment but he still did, imagined them and held them in his mind, wanting nothing more than to stop them from being thought.

"Sleep, Allen."

"Kanda…"

"I'll be here. Sleep."

"Will you…"

"Che. Stop talking for once in your life, damn it."

Allen couldn't finish his request but Kanda filled it anyway, by drawing him to a gentle embrace, tangled hair falling where the British boy could just barely turn his face and smell it. Kanda held on to him without speaking, wavering back and forth without feeling it, while Juliana silently reached out and touched Allen's back, rubbing it with her small dark hands in an effort to soothe him. She did not understand the intricacies of their relationship, nor did she understand why the hurt man would worry about the healthy one, but it didn't matter – she was supposed to tell people that cried that it would be ok.

"I love you," She heard softly, just loud enough to be words. "I don't want to lose you."

"I know, Moyashi." The pretty man with the girl name answered, "You won't."

Juliana skipped away when the pretty man laid the white haired boy on his back, wiping away the little diamond tears that glittered in his strange metal eyes. They were both odd, but then so was she, and seeing them close did not make her wonder about their sanity or their souls or their cleanliness – she just smiled at the way the pale ones hand caught in the pretty one's hair.

"I'm still… mad… but…" Allen fell silent, his grip on Kanda's hand loosening drastically. "But I won't be… if you… you… _Yuu…_" He trained off and sleep took him, whatever drug that polluted his system dragging him down into oblivion, regardless of the hold he still had on Kanda. The older Exorcist shook him a little, driving a started sound from his lips for a moment.

"You won't if I what, Moyashi?"

"Find a… a…." The second shake did not keep him conscious. Instead his eyes rolled back before they closed, and a sigh shook his frame, as if death and come instead of sleep. Kanda gave his arms one last squeeze before turning his attention to the wound on Allen's chest, curious how bad it might have been. The blanket that rested on him was thick, but not as thick as the bandage under it, composed of heavy wool. The wound itself seemed to take up a quarter of Allen's torso, but under close inspection he decided it was smaller than that – much smaller and very deep.

"He's lucky not to have punctured a lung." Raphael spoke from behind Kanda, prompting him to cover his lover once more. He was being terribly obvious about their relationship, and he had yet to ascertain the man's thoughts on it. Not that he cared. Without Mugen, and with Allen wounded though, he would much rather make acquaintances than enemies.

Kanda nodded, standing up on wobbly legs. "He's too stubborn to die even if he did."

"From the look of things you would know that from experience."

"Che. You don't have to be his lover to know he doesn't know when to quit."

Raphael raised an eyebrow, an expression that made him half amused and half mocking, as if he were unsure how far he needed to read into that sentence. Before he could speak, however, Juliana threw herself into one of Kanda's knees, distracting them both. He scowled at it. After all of the lecturing on the safety – or lack there of – of strangers, she still trusted blindly.

"Can Pretty stay?" She pouted up at Raph.

Kanda glared down at her, eyes lacking amusement, and tried to move his leg back, but she held it in place. "Who are you calling _pretty_?"

"_Pleeease,_ Raph? Then Pretty can help Mochishi—"

"Moyashi—"

"Moshipi get better. And everything will end happily ever after like it does in the boring stories." She tugged on Kanda's pant leg with her fingers, picking at the dirty fabric, and her bottom lip began to quiver. Kanda – to Raphael's surprise – bent enough to pull the girl's face up to look at him.

"First, I am _Kanda_, not Pretty. Second, you shouldn't hang on to me; I could kill you with my left pinky if I wanted. Third, if I leave, Allen is coming with me. No questions asked." He touched her bottom lip with his thumb, holding it still, and glared a look at her that might have frightened Raph if he were the one receiving it. "Don't cry so you can get what you want, it makes you look weak." The words made the tears in her eyes suddenly real for some reason, and seeing them made the Japanese man's expression soften. "Hey, I'm not being mean to you, _Gaki_."

"What's gawky_?_" She sniveled, trying to stop in her tears by scrunching up her face. Kanda had to fight not to laugh.

"It means little annoying brat, because that's what you are." He said at once, giving her head a pat. "Suck it up, _Gaki_."

"I'm trying, my eyes won't breathe in."

He couldn't fight it, Kanda smiled. Split lip, hair in bloody, muddy tangles, gaunt from exhaustion, weaponless, shirtless, and hungry, yet this girl had still looked at him and decided that his nickname should be _Pretty_. Even now, after he had insulted her, she hung on his leg and tried to make her eyes un-cry the moisture he had made them produce. He was a mean, horrible person, and he had to smile at her willingness to trust him. It was not as if he hated children, he simply disliked many of them for their annoying habits – Juliana's seemed to make up for themselves.

"Che. Why do you want to call me _pretty_ anyways?"

Her face brightened and she rocked up on her toes, bouncing on the balls of her feet. A smile that made her round cheeks look rounder cracked her face – whatever her reasons, he was in for it. "It's better than your girl name!" She enthused. "And it _fits_."

"I do _not_ have a girl's name."

"Yes you do! Julia_na_, Rin_a_, Kad_na_—_"_

"Kanda."

"It's a girl's name! The A says so. So I'll call you Pretty."

He sighed, hating the idea of explaining to her that Kanda was is _family_ name, not his given name, because _Yuu_ wouldn't get him much farther. If she asked the definition they would be back at square one – his name could still be feminine. He would live with it. He would let this tiny little girl with her pouting mouth and her annoying habits and her shrill voice call him Pretty. This would not be another Yuu-chan. Not if he could help it. Not if he could change it. She would call him Pretty, he would answer to it, and it would never, ever, ever, become a game of name-and-maim, as Lavi once called it.

"Che. Fine. Call me Pretty." He conceded. Juliana bounced higher on her feet this time, reaching up at him, and made a gleeful sound of delight when he took her hands like she wanted.

"Raph! Raph! Now we _have_ to keep him! I named him and everything!"

"I am not a stray dog."

Raphael chuckled to himself and shrugged, resting a hand on the top of his head as if it helped him to think about the situation. After a moment he sighed and his hand came down, a small smile turning up the edge of his lips. "You can stay as long as you like. We'll take care of your friend as best we can." He gave a short nod, but the light in his eyes was warning. "I just want to be clear on one thing."

Kanda raised an eyebrow, but did not speak.

"The two of you… are… romantically affiliated then?"

"Che."

"You share a bed?"

"Yes."

Raphael nodded, looking at the family's supplies thoughtfully. "It won't be awkward to share then. And I was wondering… if that be the case then…"

Kanda could hear it coming, knew the question, and for once he would be the only one to answer. No confusion, nor worry, just a straight, understandable response.

"Who's the _seme?_"

"What's a _seme?_" Juliana echoed.

"I… he…" Kanda stopped short, his mouth open, no words within it. "Hm. That depends who you ask." He sighed at the face Raphael made – calling him stupid – and worked himself into talking again. "He says I am. It's not as clear cut as it should be. We argue every time someone asks. I finish whatever he starts, usually."

"What's a _seme?_" Juliana repeated a little more pressingly.

Raphael laughed a little, awkwardly, and his dark hands came to rest on his hips. It was a thoughtful expression on his face that made his eyes sparkle when he shook his head, sighing. Kanda figured the man didn't like the idea of people like _him_ in the camp, but Raphael would tolerate it. His stance, though stiff and defensive, lacked an air of foreboding to make him tense. There was only slight distrust. Distrust would lead to more distrust, then to dislike, then to disapproval, then to defensiveness. They would have to be careful.

Julian pulled on Kanda's leg, hard, and stomped her little left foot on his toes. He looked down at her pouting face as if he had not felt her there. She narrowed her eyes at him dangerously. "What's a _seme?_"

"Che. You can say that word fine, why can't you say Moyashi?" He poked the end of her nose with his index finger, watching her eyes cross in an effort to follow it.

"Not an answer. What's a _seme?_"

"Go read a book."

"Pretty! Don't be mean! Tell me what a _seme_ is!"

Kanda sighed and looked at Raphael, sapphire eyes pleading. The bald man didn't say a word, just shook his head at it before rolling his eyes. He tilted his face to the side as if playing with the idea of telling the girl, before he smiled. It was a strange smile. It was the kind of smile he might have seen on Allen's face, looking from behind the back of a hand of cards. "If she wants to know something it's best to tell her in the most delicate and accurate way possible. She won't stop asking you until you tell her. Trust me. I know. We're related." His teeth showed for a moment, whiter than ivory against his chocolate skin. "Tell her."

Kanda blinked at him for a long moment, ignoring the girl holding onto his hands. He flattened his lips with his teeth before turning to her with a thoughtful expression, obviously searching for words. After a moment he knelt again, just as he had before, and she plopped herself down in front of him, watching with great amazed eyes he could see his reflection in.

_I need a brush._

"The word as two meanings." He explained curtly, letting go of her hand to tap at the dirt beneath them, as if it were a desk and she his student. "In Japanese it literally means _offense_, or _attacker_, aggressor – if you know what that means."

"A rapist?"

"No. Not a rapist. Usually."

She nodded, looking down at his hand then back at his face. "Ok."

"It also means… well… when… I mean… it's not…" He sighed, but the exhalation only made her tilt her head in wonder and annoyance, eyebrows lifted into the middle of her forehead. It was a curious expression, like how Lavi had looked at him the time he had tried to explain that they were _not_ friends and never had been and he had only saved him for the sake of trying, and it gave him an idea. Forgetting the definition, and the physics of what he needed to explain, how would _Lavi_ go about dealing with a child? The wrong way. Scientific language would get him no where with this one.

"Raph, this is taking longer than when you told me where babies come from."

Kanda forced a laugh. "Che. I was thinking. When two people want to show affection for each other, they might kiss. The _seme_ kisses. Get it?"

"Doesn't it take two to kiss?"

He nodded, putting both of his hands on the ground as if to illustrate. His right hand moved closer to the left, both of them standing on two fingers. "If _this_ person," He wiggled his left fingers, "Goes up to this one," He moved his right, "And – _chu!_—_ "_

"_That_ one did something _seme…y!_" She pointed with enthusiasm. Her nose wrinkled up and she smiled, taking his hands again. He had to fight the urge to pull away – he did have an end to his patience – but let her drag him to his feet, bending so she could keep his left hand when she hurried off toward a sack of supplies near the fire.

"What are you—"

She shoved her hand into a pack and came out with a cream colored shirt before proffering it to him, still grinning. "Here. Pretty shouldn't be half-naked. And you have dirt on your face too. Come on, I'll show you where you can get clean." She yanked at his arm, dragging him toward the tree line, away from everyone, including Allen. He looked over his shoulder and stumbled, just barely seeing that Raphael and the two people he had not properly been introduced to smile at him. He waved his hand in hope of making up for his rudeness, and bowed his head to them in a silent show of gratitude.

The woman by the fire pushed herself up when he was gone and turned to Raphael with a sigh. Her hazel eyes glimmered in the sunlight. "It is unfortunate that there are two."

"Indeed." He acknowledged, nodding at her. "It will be hard on us."

The lady sighed softly, the man by the fire rose to his feet before moving closer to Allen, tending to him silently. She didn't look. "It is adorable, though." She shook her head. "She seems so happy, just to have other people around."

"Children her age want friends."

"Raph." His brother said from Allen's side. His voice was higher than Raphael's, his accent less heavy. He placed a rag on the white haired Exorcist's forehead just in time for him to cough. "The fever has returned. Would you like me to tell the other of his condition? Or continue to medicate him?" While Marcus spoke he smoothed the cool fabric, his right hand tilting Allen's face until his lips parted naturally, air hurrying in and out of them almost frantically.

Allen's eyes blinked open slowly, unfocused. His lips moved for a moment before he made sound, shivers stalling him. "Ka… Kan…" His voice was cracking. Someone shushed him but he could not tell who, or why. He heard something said and felt the press of a cup on his lips, the contents bitter, like something from a nightmare, and gagged, unable to see what was in it. For the life in him he couldn't make himself see anything, not Kanda or anyone else, and the smell coupled with the spinning threatened to make him vomit. There was a black wad of wool in his mouth and he couldn't get around it, couldn't fight it out without biting off his own tongue; there was a person on his chest, holding his arms and squeezing out his air. The world was moving, spiraling out of control, and yet he could remember just a moment ago he had sat and talked with Kanda, the world had been right, his head had been in one piece then.

_Am I… breaking?_

Raph rolled the white haired young man onto his side in time to stop him from drowning in his own vomit. He held on while the boy retched repeatedly, continuing to heave even when there was nothing left for him to expel, gasping and shaking, knees curling as if the tendons had turned to springs. Hurriedly, in an effort to get it in him before he passed back into unconsciousness, Raph took the cup from his brother and poured the contents into Allen's mouth.

"Drink it," He ordered, placing a hand over the boy's lips. "Or you'll die."

* * *

"If I had a camera, I would take a picture of us right now, wandering _aimlessly_ through this forest, and label it '_How my would-have-been Mother-in-law walked us into a bear's den, where we were eaten by HUNGRY BEARS!'_" Sable grumbled, ripping another twig from Hitori's hair. He made a strangled sound that might have been a negative and rocked forward slightly, his left arm curled around the top of his head in an effort to stop her efforts. The attempted was wasted. "How did we get _lost_? I never get lost. This is all because your mother—"

"She might hear you."

"I don't care. I'm too Goddamn tired of walking. And I will not – _will not_ – sleep in a bear's den. Not even if she pays me."

"She could pay you."

"I do not care."

Hitori sighed and turned to face her, dirt smudged mouth drawn into a soft smile. The two of them were balanced on a large trees stump, feet hanging down the sides, her boots and his sandals thumping on the bark. He reached out to her and wrapped his arms around her middle, drawing her hands to a stop. She wordlessly watched him pull her close, laying his face on the fabric of her jacket with a sigh.

"You shouldn't do that." Sable mumbled softly. "She might see."

Hitori didn't move, instead his hands continued all the way around her until he held his own elbows, firmly pressed against her torso. He smiled when the gesture was returned, despite her protests. "Don't care."

"Won't she kill us both?"

"Only if you keep sleeping on me."

"You make a good mattress."

"And _touching_ me in awkward places when you do."

"Pfft. I am _never_ sleeping when I do that."

"Right."

"Really. I just keep my eyes closed."

"That must be why you lack rhythm."

"Excuse me? I would be _fine_ if you didn't hump me."

"I don't hump you." His face was burning. "I…"

"Don't even try."

"I love you?"

"Meh. That works."

He laughed, pulling back enough to kiss her lips for a moment, just long enough to feel her breath catch. It made him smile. She made him smile. "Tomorrow, after we've spent the night in a bear's den, what do you think will happen?"

She shrugged, but the movement did not sway him. "We'll head to town. That's where Cross will go, at least."

"Good." He kissed her again, just for good measure. "Then we can have a bath."

"Singular."

"Singular."

"Yay…" Sable enthused. "Cleanliness is next to godliness and all…"

"Really? I thought it was next to nakedness."

"Hito!"

He laughed again, loudly, and her brow furrowed at it, eyebrows forming a broken bridge of gold over her eyes. "Sorry," He offered without meaning the word. "You say every smartass comment and vulgar remark that comes to mind, so I thought I would give it a try."

Sable rolled her eyes at him before smiling almost shyly, her eyes gentle. He did not move when she let her hands slide up his back to his neck. "If I said every vulgar remark that came to mind, you'd be scarred for life." The smile transformed into a knowing smirk and he laughed again at it – she had never heard him laugh this much, especially not with his hair as gross as it was.

"Scar me then. If it would please you."

"Oh, not when your mother might catch us."

"Fuck her."

Sable giggled. "We need a room."

"Yes." His hands slipped down her coat, pausing at the small of her back. "We do."

* * *

Cross growled low in his throat at the sight of the empty camp, the ground littered with footprints and bullet holes, and pulled the growing golden orb that was Timcampy from his jacket. The golem's wings fluttered slightly, though not enough to free him from the general's hand. Cross looked at the little near-living machine with his left eye, and smiled.

"How very like you," He said shortly. The golem left his hand for a moment before falling back down again, stomping tiny hands on his palm. "That much, eh? Then we're gonna go find them… I get it; you don't have to tell me twice. I swear, just like a woman Tim, every time you want something you tell me twice." He chuckled at how the golem opened its mouth in a toothy, half-menacing smile.

He knew what that meant. The golem would take either gender, so long as it was alive to have one.

"Lead the way." He ordered. "I'll follow."

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**Rereading it now I think it most likely WILL NOT decide to go where it tried to go. Which means… YAY! It's gonna go as planned!! \0/**

**Thank you very, very much for reading and reviewing! I will try to update as soon as I can!**


	88. Pretty and Pain

**Soooo… I tried to DL this game called **_**Spore**_** which is very fun and cool but… it seems that it strongly dislikes my laptop. It dislikes it SO MUCH that it made all of my windows vanish, including review replies. So I went back and tried to answer them, but some I couldn't remember if I had or not. Just throw me a line if you wanted one and didn't get it. :)**

**Also. Longest. Chapter. Ever.**

**Disclaimer of D'Noah: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… O Lawd, Lenalee would have a new fetish. 8D**

**WARNINGS: YAOI. A touch of sadism and a touch of masochism. And an annoying five year old.**

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Pretty and Pain

Lavi watched Komui leave, aware that the hand on his back was pulling at the second set of strings. When the fabric of his shirt went sliding to his elbows, he turned to look at Tyki, curious why his clothes would slowly be coming off, when he felt hands hook under his arms and touch the skin of his bare chest, a face pressed into the skin of his throat. He gasped, having not anticipated the touch, and leaned into the press of teeth to his skin.

He trembled, but left his hands where they were. "We shouldn't do this here." He strangled out, yet the words were not as serious as he might have wanted them. When the grip changed he followed it, allowing Tyki to pin his hands against the couch, nibbling the side of his neck. He moaned softly, panting at the press of hard fingernails on his skin. "Ty-chan… this is his _office_… we… shouldn't… Oh _God,_ don't be nice about it, if you're gonna bite me, _bite_ me." As he said it the Noah pulled away, kissing the skin of his jaw, his lips, lapping at the sensitive spot by his ear. After a moment he looked down at the flushed face of his lover and smiled, rocking forward with his weight on the boy's arms.

"You are alright with this?" He lifted a knee, placing it next to his lover's right hip, pinning him. Lavi grinned up at him, pressing up with his hands, and sighed almost contently. Tyki raised and eyebrow.

"I would like to do this somewhere we won't get caught, but if this is my only option…" His voice went from dry to heady, his tired eyes hooded dangerously. A too tempting tongue swept gently out of his mouth to slide across his bottom lip. _"Please_ stop looking at me and start making yourself sane." Delicately, as if moving too quickly would ruin the moment he arched away from the couch to kiss the Noah, lips inviting him in with their willingness, tongue playing back when he felt a brush against it. Fire lit enjoyable in his chest, filling him like it had before, only this time there was a distinct difference.

He didn't cry, he laughed.

Tyki withdrew at the sound, brows furrowed at that strange reaction. He hadn't heard Lavi laugh like that – as if he were amused by touching – in all the time he could remember, but there was nothing sad or wrong with it. He let the apprentice Bookman's hands free yet they stayed where they were, the face that looked up at him bright like something from a distant, happy, impossible dream.

"What?" The interrogative was less a question, and more an inquisition into the redhead's mental state. Lavi's right hand came away from the couch and tangled itself in Tyki's hair, messing his curls into odd, unnatural shapes around his face.

"Just love."

"Quit that, it tickles." Tyki shook his head from side to side, but the hand kept at it, petting his hair in the wrong direction.

"It's soft." Lavi said quietly, and the words made the Noah stop attempting to bat his hand away. "We've used the same soap for weeks, yet it's just as soft as it was the first time I touched it, how does that work?" His fingers paused so that only his thumb continued stroking, his eyes focused on anything but his lover's. Tyki let himself sink down on the Exorcist, turning his face against the boy's chest, and sighed, the arms that wanted so much to hurt curled around Lavi in an unsuppressed sign of affection. The embrace was returned after a moment, a hand still on his head pressing him against the smaller man's half naked chest, flitting through his hair. "Do you want to tie me up and hurt me tonight, or was all the biting just because?"

Tyki smiled into the boy's flesh, and planted a sideways kiss on his collar bone. "Tomorrow, dear. I am afraid that tonight is yours, not mine."

"Hm?"

The Noah placed his chin in the middle of his lover's chest and looked up at him, brown eyes holding the one green one that stared curiously back. "Have you not noticed? Earlier you had a nightmare, but you forgot it when I started to think of all the wonderful things I could do to you without clothes. When I told Komui of my growing insanity and the reason for your terrors, you came to find me. The first thing you said was—"

"There's something wrong with me." Lavi remembered with a frown. "But what does that mean? First we're sharing dreams and now I'm getting telepathic messages?"

Tyki laughed. "I don't know what it means. I would like to think that it proves that we are soul mates, or something along that line of reasoning. It is far more likely, however, that it is something else." He sighed deeply; brown eyes hooded, and once again kissed the closest thing to his lips. "You are tired. And apprehensive, but you still want me." He observed softly, continuing with another press of his lips. "Can you try to tell how I feel?"

Lavi nodded, unwinding his arms so they laid to either side of him, no longer hindering his lover's upward progress. His eye fell shut while he thought about it. "You're still dark. You want to hear me laugh like that again, and scream, pain and pleasure, love, you want me to touch you, but you want me to keep my hands away, you want the lights turned off so you can hear my voice more clearly in the dark, water. You are angry with Komui. You are happy with me." He stopped, his eye popped open at a gentle sucking on the left side of his chest, the swirl of lips on his skin. A tiny hiss of air passed from his mouth, loudly, and the fabric of his still half removed shirt went sliding down his stomach. "How come you _want _so much?" He asked softly.

"It is my nature." Tyki answered at once, breathing cool air on the place he had made warm and wet with his mouth. His lover shivered, fingers hardly brushing the shirt on his side. "There was never a moment that I did not want something until I met you. That first night, after I hurt you, there was nothing but the feeling of you, nothing but your voice, and I wanted what any human would want."

"How did you stop it before?"

"I killed people. I lived two lives. I filled my days doing anything I could lose myself in, enjoy. Now though… now…"

"I know."

"Do you?"

"My room. No one will know we're missing until a couple hours after dawn. Please." Lavi dragged his lover's face up to him, trying to continue sensing his feelings. "Please…if you want to… _hurt me…" _Lavi cringed as he said the words, feeling his lover push himself up on his arms and frown.

Tyki's right hand touched the bare plane of the younger man's chest, his eyes soft, dark, flecked with gold. "You mean that. You really want me to give you pain. After all that has happened, you truly wish it. How could you? How could ask me?" His lips wandered to the skin of Lavi's forehead and he kissed it as lovingly as he could, warm breath spreading across the younger man's face in a wave. Tyki let his forehead come down on Lavi's, pressing him into the couch. "I _want_ to hurt you, but I _don't_ want to hurt you, Lavi. And when you ask me… I just… God…"

Lavi shushed him, running his hands through the Noah's hair again. "I can ask you because I love you."

Tyki closed his eyes, fighting a sudden wave of nausea. He knew that he would do it, no matter how much he didn't like the idea. He would do it because as much as he hated the thought, hated the way it would make him feel, he loved it. He loved it almost as much as he loved the young man he held so strongly between his arms. Cold so chill it burned filled his chest. Fear. That's what made him want to stop, what made him want to hold the precious person against his chest and cry until his sanity ran out of him. But what was he afraid of, if not breaking Lavi?

**Hate.**

"Tyki?"

"Hm?"

"You just changed color."

The Noah opened his dark eyes and frowned at the Exorcist, an expression that lacked seriousness. "Did not, we were just having a talk."

"About?"

"If we go to your room now, and spend what remains of the night with those lovely wrists of yours tied to the bed frame, will you hate me in the morning?"

Lavi laughed at him, tilting his head back to enjoy the moment, then brought his mouth firmly into his lover's, shocking Tyki into a muted exclamation. The apprentice Bookman followed his retreating mouth until both were sitting, his hands tearing at the shirt on the Noah's chest. By the time he had the older man pressed against the opposite side of the couch they were equally naked, breathless, shaking, he panted at the older man's neck for a moment before he spoke in a voiceless whisper, left eye turned up at him. "I won't hate you, Ty-chan. I can't hate you. We're soul mates." He caught Tyki's hands and dragged them up to his face, where he turned them over. The Noah watched on as Lavi opened his left hand and then his right before placing his own wrists in them, encouraging him to hold on, and then smiled. "My room, or _I'll_ pin _you._"

* * *

Allen gulped the liquid searing down his throat, fire burning in his chest. Tears formed in his eyes that were pain induced, and he tried to turn his head, to get air in his mouth – to get anything in it to get rid of that terrible flavor – but the person over him wouldn't let go, wouldn't let him breathe. Breathing through his nose was like choking in smoky air; his mind reeled with it, washed white with panic. He was going to drown in this sick, black mouthful of life saving drink, and then it would be over. No Kanda, no akuma, no people, nothing. He was going to die.

Raphael let go when the silver hair Exorcist started to thrash, his hands formed into useless claws on the ground. One mouthful out of the three he might have found useful, and already he seemed improved. The young man tried to curl in on himself but his wound would not let him, instead he twitched weakly, his eyes fighting to close on him, confusion evident on his features.

With his long dark hair thrown forward over his shoulder, dripping with cold water, Kanda came back to the camp with Juliana at his side. At once he rushed to his lover's bedroll, leaving his borrowed shirt open and the girl that had named him standing alone, still talking. He fell to his knees beside Allen, making his already dirty pants dirtier, and smashed the younger man's shoulders to the ground, holding him even when his left wrist was captured and tugged on, Allen's face tilted up as if it improved the rate he could breathe. Kanda did not ask what had happened, did not inquire what had gone wrong while he was away, instead he touched his lover's blazing shoulders with his right hand and cupped the side of his face with his left.

"Moyashi!" He yelled the word in the hope that volume would get his attention. "Che. Stop moving, you'll hurt yourself! Moyashi!"

Allen's silver eyes settled on his face but didn't seem to see him, his flushed expression did not change. He was crying, and he couldn't see for the tears.

"Stop." Kanda commanded more calmly, dabbing his lover's eyes with the corner of his sleeve. "Tell me what is wrong with you."

The white haired Exorcist blinked at his lover, at last convincing his eyes that they wanted to focus. He stilled when he saw that it was Kanda, his hands shot out and gripped the man's shirt, an action that sent pain through his abdomen, and curled against Kanda's frighteningly cold skin. He choked on the words he meant to say, coughing, until a callused hand pressed on his forehead, cooler than the wet rag that had long fallen beside him; he wanted it to stay forever. He let go of Kanda's clothes with his right hand and thumped his fist on his own chest, attempting to explain the problem.

"Talk!"

Allen opened his mouth but only retched brokenly. Was it in his lungs? Had one been punctured and they hadn't known it?

"Here." Raphael said from his side, proffering a small cup of foul smelling liquid. "It'll help."

"Che. What is it? Liquid death?"

"_Aab-e-hayaat_ is what my father called it, but I doubt it's the real thing_."_ Raphael said plainly, as if Kanda would know the term's meaning without trouble. When the Japanese man raised his eyebrows and did not take the glass, he frowned, offering it more enthusiastically. _"_Trust me, it's good for him." He offered the cup again, watching Kanda eye it suspiciously.

"It's not addictive?"

"No."

"Side affects?"

"Sleepiness, a lack of appetite, unnatural long life."

Kanda took the cup, half-satisfied with the man's explanation, half wanting more. It did not matter what he wanted, however, only that Allen was still thumping at his chest, tears burning in his eyes. Kanda tilted his lover's head back and brought the cup to his lips, frowned when Allen tried to shove him away, then poured it in regardless. He laid his lips on Allen's, a touch the surprised him enough to make the liquid vanish down his throat, burning a line of fresh shivers down the back of Allen's spine.

Kanda could taste it in his lover's mouth, the terrible, bitter, rotten flavor of what was in that small container. Like death, clogging up his senses with just the after residue. He wanted to pull back but Allen held him steady, kissing him violently more in an effort to rid his mouth of the flavor than show affection. When they broke Allen looked up at him with clear eyes and panted, sweat sparkling like shattered glass across his forehead. It shouldn't have worked that fast, it seemed impossible, but the proof was there in how the boy pushed himself up and yanked Kanda into an embrace, damp skin going cold in the open air.

"Kanda… Kanda…" Allen repeated the name, smashing in face in the curve of his lover's neck. "Don't make me drink anymore, please. Please. It's so awful… it burns. Just give me water. I'll be fine with water. I promise. Don't make me—" Kanda wrapped his arms around his lover's shoulders and held him up, feeling his breath move as normally as it might have without being wounded, no trouble at all. Kanda's eyes wandered to the little girl who had showed him to a nearby stream and watched her smile knowingly, reaching out to touch Allen's shoulder with him. At that moment she was perhaps the most terrifying person he had ever seen, not because of her expression, but because of her indifference to Allen's weeping recovery.

"What did you give him?" He asked softly, not aiming the question at anyone in particular. Juliana's smile widened but her eyes stayed soft, her hands gentle.

"It helped didn't it?" Raphael said from behind him, stalking away from the sobbing Exorcist. Kanda looked over his shoulder, letting his hands stroke through his lover's hair without seeing him, and watched the dark skinned man flick the end of his nose with a smile. At that moment he despised that smile, hated it with a burning passion, loathed it with a twisting gut, sinking heart. He had never seen a man as cruel as to laugh at the tears of another, not these kind of tears. "Don't glare at me, it did help. He will be fit to travel in two days."

"We're leaving tomorrow."

"Not a good idea." Raphael insisted, lowering himself next to the supplies and sifting through them. "Between the blood loss and the placement of his wound, travel would have him feverish in two miles. Stay." He found what he was looking for, small, hard loaf of bread and a pack of dried meat, which he offered the Exorcist from afar. A peace offering, it might have seemed. Kanda stared at it for a moment without moving, still petting Allen's hair, not willing to take it.

"Bread… he has bread…" Allen said softly, rocking forward slightly. "Bread?" His right hand worked at the tears in his eyes while is left reached around Kanda's back, black fingers twitching. Raphael leaned forward and the hand snatched the loaf away almost faster than he could follow and disappeared around the Japanese man's shouldered. A muffled, hurried thank you passed over after a moment, the young man having forgotten to say it at first.

Kanda looked down at his lover and frowned at the vicious way he tore into the loaf, chewing maybe twice before he swallowed. He pushed the smaller boy back a little, catching the loaf before it disappeared completely into Allen's mouth. The British boy looked up at him and chewed, eyes wide and curious.

"Che. _Baka Moyashi._" He fought to pry the crust from Allen's fingers but didn't manage; his left hand would smash it before it let the morsel go. "What's gotten into you?"

"I'm hungry." Allen growled defensively. "I didn't even have you for breakfast, thanks. Just a lot of feeling sick and crying. If I don't eat I'll—"

"Bread will not save you. Take the meat too." Kanda interrupted with a glare. He almost smiled at how his suggestion made Allen's eyes widen in disbelief, the bread slip easily from his hand. The silver haired Exorcist was still angry, that was obvious, and he expected Kanda to be angry back. He wasn't. He knew that he deserved every glare and angry word the boy knew, and he would let his temper get the best of him with Juliana before he did with Allen. Allen, after all, was forever, no matter how short a time that was. "Take it."

"Ka… Yuu," Allen dragged his eyes away from the food with an obvious effort, and laid his fingers on the edge of his lover's shirt. The vague pain in his chest didn't feel like anything compared to the guilt that tightened his ribs around his lungs. Silver eyes met Kanda's sapphire; Allen slipped his fingers onto the skin of his hip. "I'm sorry." He mumbled, moving his hand to the mark on his lover's chest and covering it with his palm with a tenderness that made Kanda shiver. "I'll try not to be too mad at you anymore; you just have to promise me something."

"Che. I'm not promising not to save you."

"Let me come with you." Allen went on despite the sudden change in Kanda's expression, his hand stealing the bread back again as if the move were instinctual. He tried not to look at it, or smell it, but his hand pulled the loaf next to his face all the same. "When you go find the man who did this to you."

"What?" The word was little more than a whisper.

"So I can be there…" Allen pressed the food to his mouth even though he had started to cry, like a child weeping into a cookie. He blinked in an effort to stop the tears but they only came more quickly. "If you don't… find him…" The bread made it into his mouth, muffling his words. "I wanda bih der… ig you… don fline 'im…"

Kanda's face cracked in a lopsided, unfitting, nearly laughing grin before he pulled Allen against him, smiling into the side of his face. "We will, Moyashi. I promise."

"Don mek promishes you cin't keep."

"I can. I know I can."

Juliana – whom Kanda had all but forgotten about – moved away from Allen's back and more to his side, her tiny hand holding onto the end of his hair. The British boy looked up at her with curious, red rimmed eyes, and chewed his bread at her, more childlike than he might have known he could look. Juliana smiled at him for a moment before tugging a little on the leash-like lock she had wound between her fingers. "Mochiki, your hair is white."

He nodded, swallowing what food he had in his mouth, and moved a little away from Kanda. "My foster father made it that way."

"Oh. Well, it's your hair, and it's white so…" She waved it in front of his face like a tiny, badly cared for flag. "Can I call you Old Man?"

Allen's expression fell, his back hunched forward, the rock of past nicknames pressing him toward the ground. Kanda had called him that, long ago, and so had any number of children between the time he met Cross and now, but he hadn't heard it at all recently. Being reminded, and by a child no less, brought all those hardships back to recent memory.

"No. Get Moyashi down before you start naming him too." Kanda growled at her with perhaps the evilest glare Allen had seen since they had parted ways with Lavi. He almost scolded the older Exorcist for it but the little girl only giggled, taking a strand of his hair in her unoccupied hand. "Don't—" She tied the two strands together in a messy knot, grinning at his horrified expression.

"You were Pretty before I named you Pretty, so I guess you're right."

Allen raised an eyebrow, glancing sidelong as his lover. "She nicknamed you 'Pretty?'"

"Che. I don't want to talk about it."

"She's still _breathing_?"

"Moyashi."

Allen laughed loudly, ignoring the warning tone of Kanda's voice, the bread covering his mouth as he openly guffawed. Splotches of pink formed in his cheeks while Kanda tugged at their hair, eyes narrowed to daggers. "I never – you're so – you won't – I mean… Ka—" Allen found himself pinned to the ground by the shoulders, Kanda's hands holding him down, but continued to giggle uncontrollably, holding his chest for the pain in it. Juliana stared at the two young men with a curious expression, bottom lip slightly farther out than her top one, eyebrows drawn together. "Sorry, I just… _you_ and being called Pretty… God, Love! Lenalee would _die_ if she heard this."

"Che. You're not telling."

"_Oh, yes_. I am. I'm telling _everyone_."

"Moya—"

"Your mother, your brother, Komui, _Lavi_ – he'll _really_ get a kick out of it. It'll be great…"

"If you say one fucking—"

"_Pretty,_ there's a child present."

"I'll cut up your clothes."

"Oh, what I threat. What will I ever wear? Nothing will hurt you more than me…"

"You _annoying_, naïve little—"

"_Child_, Pretty. There's a _child_."

"If you call me that again I swear…"

"Call you what, Pretty?"

Kanda silently fumed at him, fingers squeezing and loosening on his flesh. Allen had him, and at that moment there was nothing he wanted more than to tear off his clothes for some reason, to prove that the name was unbefitting with his own body as comparison. Instead he growled low in his throat, fire burning in his dark eyes. "When we're in town, do you know who's _not _getting a turn for two weeks?"

"You."

"Oh no," He leaned down slowly, so his face was above his lover's, hovering. He could see in the way Allen's mouth twitched that he wanted a kiss at the moment, but he was not about to get one. _"You_. And when that time is over, you won't even remember what it's like to—" His voice fell dangerously, his face dropped to the smaller boy's ear. "I'll be sure of it."

"Kanda…"

"Not. One. Word."

Allen grumbled disappointedly. "Get off me, I should rest."

"I won't forget. Straddling you or not."

"You'll forget or you won't get any."

"Empty threat and you know it."

"We'll see."

"We will." Kanda stood up, smoothing the fabric of his still open shirt with a long look at Allen, seeing the mischief in his lover's eyes, the cunning. He would win this; he would abstain. He was stronger than the idiot he had fallen for.

* * *

They were silent until they came into Lavi's room. The redhead would have paused at the doorway, would have lingered on the threshold to admire the simplicity of his dwelling place, but his lover didn't let him. As soon as the door was shut Lavi was pressed against it, assaulted by a mouth thirsting for his flesh, eyes that glittered with love and yearning, hands like vices, nails that left small red cuts on his skin. A startled gasp was his only verbalization at first, followed by a growl of want, and both of them made Tyki smile into his lips, losing himself. Lavi could remember the first night, next to the campaign glass, when the man had seemed to have too many thoughts in his head to know what he wanted; now was different. Now, he could feel the man's desires, dark and light, almost as keen as he could his own.

He had thought that the older man might have sought to conquer or to defeat, to force him into submission, but that wasn't it. The last thing he wanted was submission. The first thing he wanted was something that resembled a fight or a game, like a child, seeking out something with which to occupy its time. Entertainment. To lose himself in entertainment.

So he pushed on the hands that held him, kept his eye wide despite the dark, stumbled purposely when the man pulled him forward only to shove him once more into the portal. It wasn't like acting, really, he would have done those things not understanding what his lover wanted, but now they made sense to him. Now he understood why crying made the Noah hold him. It wasn't entertaining.

His named came from that pair of questing lips, next to his ear, a slow pulse of air on the shell. A shiver took his spine for a moment and he moaned softly, the sound a whimper in the back of his throat. "You are too good at this, Lavi." Tyki whispered the words so they sent a line of goosebumps down his side, "I know _exactly_ what I want to do to you with how you are acting, I understand what I want most. Do you know what it is?"

"Just _do it_."

The Noah laughed, guiding him across the dark room as if he knew where he was going regardless of his lack of sight – Lavi would have tripped on his suitcase if he had not remembered placing it beside the bed. Not that it mattered. The Noah pressed him forcefully onto the mattress and yanked his shirt off, tearing the last of the strings against his back. Lavi was surprised to feel something wrapped around his right wrist, like fabric, and reached out with his left hand to improve his idea of what it was, but swiftly found it caught up as well. He gasped at the tightness of it, and frantically struggled until Tyki let his hands go as if understanding his panic. His heart raced for a split second and he closed his eye against it, biting into the flesh of his lover lip.

With half cold fingers that could only pull apart so far as the bond would allow his wrists, Lavi comforted himself by touching his lover's face, breathing and blinking up at him in the dark.

"Should I leave them like that?" Tyki's voice was soft on his fingers, his right hand a slow moving caress of affection on the redhead's stomach. Lavi traced a line from the side of his lover's face then down his throat before looping his arms over the man's head, drawing him into an awkward embrace. "Dear?"

"You can tie me to the frame if you want," Lavi answered at last just as softly, running his hands through the tendrils of hair he could reach so easily. Like dark curling water in his grasp. "I just wanted to touch you for a minute before I let that happened. I can't see. It's too dark. I want to know…" The words halted Tyki's hand on his skin, just over the line of his pants. "I'm ok though, I don't need a light or anything."

Tyki's mouth smiled. "Would you mind candlelight?" Lavi laughed a little at the thought but didn't say a word, just let his lips lift a little, his head tilted slightly to the right, almost shy.

"Does it come with table sex?"

"No, no. It comes with lovemaking on a soft, though slightly old, mattress."

"And?"

"And bruises."

"Ooh."

"And a gentle, slow, loving exploration of—"

"Light the damn candle, Tyki."

The Noah chuckled softly, and his left hand wandered away to the nightstand, searching for something in the top drawer. His mouth was less than an inch for Lavi's when he leaned to the side to reach, so the redhead caught his lips unexpectedly, aggressively nibbling on his lower lip. Tyki made another sound of amusement when his hand found what it was looking for. The kiss broke as suddenly as it had began and Lavi smiled up at him, bound hands still playing in his hair. "What?"

"Nothing. I just never thought you'd tie me up again after the creepy Noah dungeon thing. The more you act like you, the more comfortable I am, I guess." He frowned when his lover pulled away, hands patting at his person in the dark. "What are you doing?"

"It should be obvious."

"Can't see…"

"Matches or a lighter, being a candle is useless without one or the other."

"Oh. I thought there was a spider."

Tyki didn't respond to that, only made a short sound of discovery as he fished his matches from his right front pocket. The acidic scent of sulfur filled the small space between them for a moment when the match was struck, illuminating Tyki's features. He saw then that the man had found an old prayer candle – a gift from someone on his birthday – imprinted with an image of the Virgin Mary, which now seemed ironic, given the events the candle would stand vigil for. The match disappeared behind the glass for a moment as Lavi let his hands settle on his chest, watching the small matchstick came out again. The Noah shook it and sat the candle on the nightstand, making to leave both there for the time being.

"Can I have the matchstick?" He asked softly.

"What for?" The question was curious, even as he asked the Noah picked it up for him.

"I wanna eat it."

"What?! No!"

Lavi rolled his eyes. "I don't mean the wood Ty-chan! C'mon! You've _never_ eaten a match head before?"

"No! That's disgusting!" Tyki persisted, face drawn up in an expression that fit his words. "Why would anyone want to put that in their mouth!"

"Um… Ty-chan, you _smoke_. That's about fifty bajillion times worse than eating sulfur."

"No."

"Can I lick it?"

The Noah looked at him with a deep frown for a moment before offering the matchstick, unamused by his enthusiasm, and watched the Exorcist lick it with a gleeful smile. He didn't understand it, but he wouldn't stop Lavi from doing something he found pleasant. Instead he took the little piece of wood back and placed it beside the candle, sitting with his feet on the cold stone floor.

"Now that you have been as eccentric as you get, Lavi," He said gently, his hand on the younger man's bare chest, flat. "With the light, and your hands like this," His fingers hooked into the fabric around Lavi's wrists and dragged them up to the wrought iron bed frame, then slipped the material through the middle bar, securing them there. "May I make you forget the last few weeks of your life?"

"How would you do that?" Lavi's voice had fallen to a whisper, his eye wide.

"By hurting you. By loving you. By doing whatever comes to mind."

"What's on your mind?"

Tyki smiled at him and sank lower, tracing a line to his belly button with his index finger. "Where do you keep your belts?"

* * *

It was nearly dark when the Delacroix family unrolled the remainder of their bedrolls, Rina serving something greasy and noodle-y and far spicier than Kanda would have normally cared for. He ate it anyway. Two servings, when a second was offered. He realized when the sun went down that he and Allen hadn't even had breakfast that morning, nor much more than a loaf of bread during the day, yet the white haired boy only ate as much as Kanda. It seemed to him that Raphael had not lied about the strange, disgusting drink he had given to Allen.

When he was sure that everyone else was at least pretending to sleep, Kanda slipped himself into Allen's bedroll, enfolding him in an embrace that had the younger man curled against him in less than a moment. He could not help but smile when, despite their fighting and petty teasing, the British Exorcist leaned up enough to kiss him without drawing his eyes open, then worked his face into a comfortable place on his shoulder. The closeness, and the feeling of his lover's chest moving with breath, soothed him more than a little. He was tired, that was obvious, but this was the first time he felt tempted to fall asleep before Allen did.

"Kanda." The name was whispered into his collar bone just loudly enough for him to hear it, and it coaxed his hand to his lover's hair, running through it. Allen sighed at the touch before he went on, yawning. "Will you talk to me? Like you did before."

"Che. Do you hurt?" His hand paused but continued after a moment, separating knots when he found them.

"No. I just want to hear you tell me a story."

"You're like a child."

"You're like a pedophile."

"Che."

"Story."

He sighed, laying his chin on the top of the smaller man's, his hands sinking lower. He bit his lip for a moment, until a small smile cracked his lips. "A long time ago, when I was maybe fourteen, I made the stupidest mistake of my life." He said with an uncharacteristic chuckle, shaking his head back and forth. "The end."

"That's not a story. What did you do?"

"Something very, very stupid. Goodnight."

"Kanda."

"I'm sleeping."

"Bullshit."

The Japanese Exorcist smirked down at his lover when he was pushed away, fighting the urge to laugh. He rolled his eyes for a moment, glinting in the fading firelight, and sighed. "You really want to know?" He questioned half-serious, the answer already know. Allen nodded at him and he sighed again. "Swear not to say a word to Lavi. _Or_ Komui."

"Ok. I swear." Allen said at once. Kanda had the feeling Allen would have crawled on top of him to hear if he weren't embraced at that moment.

"When I was fourteen… I… I had my first and only… attraction to someone. Because I admired their strength. Before you, I mean, but that's obvious. If I weren't attracted to you I wouldn—"

Allen frowned at him. "Just go on, before you dig yourself a hole."

"Che. I gave her flowers." He said with finality. One hand left the comfort of Allen's hair and rubbed for a moment at Kanda's forehead. "It was so stupid."

"You're _supposed_ to give people flowers, Love."

"Not in front of their overprotective, psychotic older brother you aren't."

"Well, no. But you did the… right… hey…" Allen's face lit with sudden realization, metallic eyes bright with firelight. Before he could stop himself he hit his lover in the chest with his right first, hard, and went on despite the pained expression the contact got him. Kanda would recover. "You gave _Lenalee_ flowers?! _You_ liked _Lenalee_!? Ugh… the things you never want to know about Kanda…" Allen rubbed his own forehead for a moment before another idea hit him. "Wait! What did she _do_? You're friends and everything so, she couldn't have put you down too hard. But you're mine, so it's not like she said yes."

"Rub it in, Moyashi."

"So she said no?"

"Two months later, when I woke up on the medical wing, yes."

Allen snickered, curling his arms around Kanda's waist. "Then why are you friends?"

"Che. Because that's what you become when everyone around you keeps dying. Those that stay are friends, those that disappear quickly you don't care about. Which is why I was mean to you on the first day I met you. Among other reasons." He explained softly, and his expression fell yet lower. "Besides, even though she said no we still… never mind."

"You still _what_, Love?"

"Nothing. Goodnight, Moya—"

"Kanda. You don't _say_ something like that and shrug it off as nothing."

"Hn." As his only reply, eyes shut tightly, and Allen hit him again, right in the sore place over his heart.

"You didn't… I mean… you were _fourteen_ so she had to be what? Twelve? There's no way you… _did_ anything."

"Che! Mind out of the gutter, Moyashi." Kanda growled back, forcibly turning his lover and yanking him back into an embrace. Allen wiggled in protest but gave up relatively easily, a slow sigh shaking him. With the warmth of Kanda's chest behind him, the press of his arms on his chest, it didn't really matter what Lenalee and he might have _still_ done regardless of rejection. All that mattered was the sense that, in that moment, he could sink away into sleep without a fight.

But there was one little thing…

"You've never given me flowers." Allen mumbled, hands a little tight on Kanda's arm.

"You're a man."

"So?"

Kanda shrugged, snuggled into his neck, and sighed hot air across his skin. He was tired. "It's on my to do list." His arms gave a squeeze for a moment and his eyes fluttered shut, his lips hardly brushing at Allen's flesh. "Like sleep."

"And cuddling?"

"And… I died a little today, Allen. No more talking."

"Are you tired?" He asked softly, with a slight tilt backward.

Kanda hummed a positive, his breathing slow and deep. "I should have rested earlier. And you shouldn't have hit me." He breathed, hunching into Allen's back, soft silver hair parting over the bridge of his nose. Allen could feel that his breaths were shallower than only a moment ago, as if some part of him had broken while he spoke. He turned slowly in the larger man's arms until he came face to face with him, drawing him into a tight embrace.

"Sorry. Did I make it worse?"

"Stop. Talking."

"Love, I just… alright." His right hand, much to Kanda's displeasure, rested lightly on the skin of the samurai's chest, on the symbol that marred his skin. Allen wordlessly closed his eyes to it, perhaps in prayer, before laying his lips next to his hand. _"Oyasumi_._"_ The wish made Kanda shiver. Even though it hurt to do it, he lifted his lover face with his left hand and kissed him, his own lips cold.

He did not speak, but Allen knew what he was saying. Quietly, without moving his lips, Allen returned the gesture, running his tongue gently over the older man's lower lip. He breathed softly when Kanda rolled invitingly onto his back, letting him use the plane of his chest as a pillow. He wanted more than that, but neither of them were in a condition where more was a good idea. And then there were people around them – not people who would giggle and draw pictures if they caught them, either.

_I won't say it but… I want to crawl in your shirt, Kanda. Not because I just want some either. I want to be as close to you as I physically can because someday, you might not be there. All the stories will be gone. All I will have is this memory of you, and I want it to be the best memory I can have. So I want to get in your clothes and touch you, smell you, if only to keep you forever. Is that stupid and naïve of me Love, to think that I might hold on to you when you're gone? I don't think it is. I think it's stupid and naïve of you not to notice._

"Why are you crying, Moyashi-kun?" Kanda's lips pressed into his eyelids, still cold.

"It's nothing, Love." He lied, laying his face sideways. "We can talk tomorrow. For now… we both need to sleep. And the sooner I get to sleep, the sooner you do. So…" He yawned despite the tears, face scrunched up in an expression similar to Juliana's. His cheek came once again into contact with his lovers half open shirt, tears soaking through the fabric. "Goodnight, Love."

Kanda sighed softly and kissed the top of his lover's head, pulling him closer. When the smaller boy was snuggled firmly against his chest, eyes more or less dry, he found his thoughts wandered to a place they hadn't gone in a very, very long time.

Dying.

The act didn't scare him. He had been through enough pain not to be afraid of it, he didn't concern himself with hell or heaven, but for there same token, dying meant leaving _here_. Leaving Allen. It was a selfish emotion that filled him at the thought, not a feeling of abandonment, a feeling of _loss_, and it frightened him. Part of him, the twisted part perhaps, did not care if he died so long as Allen died with him, but the rest wanted him to go on, happy, with lots, and lots of dango.

"_Pretty?"_ The sound of his newest nickname made him stiffen, but he didn't look. Not wanting to. "Here. For the morning." Juliana's hand came over his shoulder and laid another blanket over him, wool, then disappeared again, as if staying too long would burn her. "And… if you ever want to break something, go back to the person who made it. Unless you can't find them, then it's best to look in the last place you'll look." She said smartly, laying a palm on his head.

_Go away,_ He thought darkly. _I will not yell at a child._

"O-yakisoba."

"_Oyasumi._" He growled.

"Night!"

_Great, a philosopher fiver-year-old._ He thought with a sigh into Allen's hair. _This is not my week._

* * *

"You shouldn't be this picky."

"It cannot be too thick; you will bleed."

"So?"

"Do you really want blood on that fantastic orange blanket of yours?"

"Not really…"

"Thin with a medium heavy end…"

"How about you pick randomly and I just live with it?"

"Lavi."

"Ty-chan, I'm tied to the bed. You're _asking_ me to go insane if you don't _do_ anything!" The apprentice Bookman said a little too loudly for his own liking. Tyki turned back to him from his place by the dresser and raised a suggestive eyebrow. The redhead wasn't lying, the flushed state of his cheeks proved it. "Please, please, _please_ just pick one? I'm begging for it… you said you liked to—" He heard the crack of leather on skin before he felt the sting of it, pain jolting across his ribs, circling his spine. That one bite of contact made the air move more quickly in his lungs, arched him from the mattress. He could see in the way Tyki stood over him that this was only the tip of the iceberg, the beginning, and it made him shiver; by the end of the night he wouldn't give a damn about what happened in the Noah mansion, he would have this night to drown out the memories.

"Is that what you want, Dear?" Tyki flipped metal down this time, fast enough to make the lash whistle, Lavi bit out a short moan that was neither purely pain nor purely pleasure, wrists twisting in his binds. "Is this what you like?"

Three more strokes, each harder than the one before, the last across his throat; the redhead coughed for a moment, arms shaking with strain. He spoke scratchily, drinking in air. "Do you like it?" His lover took two swift steps to the edge of the bed and leaned down enough for him to see the man's face in the light. The eyes that looked down at him were black and soft, a combination that he had never quite imagined.

"Yes." The Noah leaned down and kiss him, letting the belt fall to the ground. His hands were on either side of Lavi's face, framing it. "Tell me Lavi, how long should I go on for? Until you cry? Until you beg me to kill you? Or until my heart is satisfied?" His mouth went slowly to the curve of his lover's jaw then back to his mouth, open.

"Satisfied." Lavi whispered back. "Don't you dare stop unless you have to."

Tyki's smile was too wide, but his words came out white. "If I do that, you will not be a pleasant person in the morning." His right hand trailed down the front of Lavi's throat to the growing bruise there, delicately tracing the crooked line that ended just below his jaw, in a patch of red. Without speaking his hand trailed lower, pausing at each line, before it came at last to Lavi's hips and stopped, dragging back and forth across the top of his pants, teasing. His eyes never left Lavi's face, not even when he slipped his fingers under the fabric.

"Ty-chan…" His name made the Noah smile.

"You are very warm, Lavi."

"I _want_ you. Please, just…" He tapered off at the touch of Tyki's left hand on his lips. The Noah kissed his forehead, the same as he had in Komui's office. "Do you want me now, or are you going to pick up my belt? It'll be dawn before we know it and I don't want you to have to suffer through tomorrow like you have the last week." He spoke into the man's fingers. Unsurprisingly, Tyki forced himself back, peeling his fingers with obvious effort from his lover's skin. With the way he was going, not all of him would be content and that was the point of this – saving his mind, not sating his body.

His right hand gripped the belt almost angrily, his eyes narrowed at the expectant, half-innocent eye that looked up at him, dazzling in the candlelight. Right handedly he drew back his makeshift whip, his eyelids falling shut to the anticipatory breath that passed through Lavi's lips; he had to let go and looking wasn't helping. When his arm arched in the motion to strike he moved aside his desire to stop and comfort his lover instead of hurt him, ignored the urge to cry out against the speed of his own hand, and let the enjoyment, the pleasure, take him. Two strikes and his strength had built to something inhuman, but he didn't dare stop, not when the dark was taking over, not when stopping meant crying and kissing and starting over.

He had promised himself on the train that he wouldn't let this happen, wouldn't let the dark hurt Lavi no matter how much he wanted it, yet here he was, giving in to it of his own will.

**You said you wouldn't let me.**

_You didn't love him then._

**I kill the things I love.**

_But not him._

**No. Not him.**

His arm hurt, but he wasn't moving it. The thing in him, the thing that curled around his wrists and down the backs of his hands, moved for him. With his eyes closed he couldn't see if there was fear in his lover's gaze, only hear the strangled cries of pain when he hit already bruised flesh, and an undignified, heady moan.

He opened his eyes because of that sound, and reeled at the sight of his lover. Lavi's eye was closed, long red lines and short red blotches marring his torso, blood oozing from a gash in his side, a thin layer of crimson mixed with sweat. Tyki dropped the belt again – or the dark did – and he reached out to the apprentice Bookman, brushing the tears from his eyes.

"Ty-chan what are you—"

"I am sorry," He said in a rush, falling to his knees beside him. His lover's brow furrowed at him, but he ignored it, laying his hands on the deeper bruises with a tearless sob. "I can't… I can't…"

"My hands, Ty-chan. Untie my hands." The words were hardly out of his mouth and Tyki pulled his arms directly though the fabric of his bonds and gathered him up, pressing their mouths together. Lavi pushed him back a little, frightened by the horror lightened eyes that looked back at him. "It's ok, what is it? What can't you do? Ty-chan…" He stiffened for a moment at the contact of reverent lips on the skin of his throat, warm and gentle, loving in a way that made him shiver.

Tyki looked down at him with tired, black eyes, and sobbed again, this time ebony tears came with it. "Hurt you… anymore… not if you… not if you…"

"If I what?"

"_Lavi." _His right hand moved to Lavi's hip and stayed their shivering against his flesh. "I want to hurt you, but I _can't_. I am… breaking."

"Breaking?"

The Noah nodded into his skin, smearing blood on his neck. "Please tell me… is this enough for you? Do you want me to… hurt – you – more?" Tyki would have said more, but didn't, Lavi's hands on his cheeks stopping him. There was no fear in the look Lavi gave him, not for himself. "I made you bleed to satisfy myself but looking at it, seeing your skin stained red, I am not happy. I am not satisfied. I still _want_— _"_

"Then _do it_, Tyki." Lavi said the words less kindly than he wanted, pushing himself up with a wince. Tyki blinked at him as if frightened, continued to blink even when Lavi retrieved the belt and placed it into his grasp. "Gag me if you have to, I don't care. I _want_ this. When you cut me, I didn't even feel it. Please," His hands curled around Tyki's, forcing the Noah's fingers closed on the leather in his palm. "Don't stop unless you have to."

"But I might…"

Lavi shook his head. "If I live, I'll be fine. I'm tougher than you think, okay? _Enjoy_ yourself. Let go." His hands slipped away from Tyki's and the belted stayed there, though only gently. "For me?"

Tyki nodded, standing on shaking legs. "Tell me… how you want it."

Lavi turned slowly in the candlelight, working the fabric of Tyki's tie from the bars. In less than five minutes he was on the floor beside the bed, offering the tiny garment to his lover. "I'll just hold on, fewer bruises for people to see tomorrow." When the Noah took the tie Lavi turned away again, kneeling, and braced himself against the bed frame, knuckles white. His head tilted down into the mattress, and his eye closed, not that Tyki could see that. "Whenever you're—" The sting was so sudden he gasped, the brush of his eyelid on fabric sent him forward, fingers clenching on the iron of his bed. He realized with a second strike across his back that he was frightened this way, not like he had been while looking up at his lover, and the thought made him curious. Was it the fabric? Was it the leather? Or was it the fact that he couldn't _see_ who was hurting him?

He didn't know. He was scared. He liked it.

He shivered, mindlessly counting the marks across his back, breathing brokenly between them. His face was wet but he couldn't tell why. His hands were shaking. There was a laugh. With his face turned down he couldn't tell if he was laughing or Tyki was, if the candle was even there. It might have been a blind fold on his face, the metal in his hands chains, the now shredding slashes on his back the touch of a real whip, the laugh – growing louder – amused and hungry, not insane with release. The smell of blood and the sound of it, splattering on the floor, made the illusion complete.

He was _there_ again. If only for a moment.

_It's not real. It's not real. It's not real._

Five more hits. They were tears, soaking into the fabric across his eye. And that whip – not a whip, a belt – landed with the bite of metal, sharp – like a knife.

And Tyki kept laughing.

Lavi's hands came off of the bed and he shoved himself away from it, his arms hooked around the Noah's knees before he could stop himself. The smell. It was the one thing that kept him from falling back again, that smoky, dusty, earthy smell, and the underlying hint of _Tyki_. For a moment he stared the floor behind his lover, trembling. _This_ was Tyki, his Tyki, and if he asked him, if he said he was finished…

A hand touched the bruised skin of his shoulder, empty, and he let Tyki push him far enough back so the man could kneel. He sighed when the Noah embraced him, wrapping his still clothed arms over the welting mess of his back, stinging. Looking back, and feeling the aftermath now, he realized how absolutely wonderful it was to feel that ache in his ribs, the burning in his side. He felt _good_.

"Thank you." He mumbled into Tyki's neck, smiling. "This beats the shit out of internal bleeding."

Tyki chucked into his shoulder, a normal, human chuckle. His heart danced to hear it. "I can't believe you let me do so much…" He pulled Lavi flush against him, rocking forward. "God, I haven't felt this way since… since Rhode found you. It's so _quiet._ If you weren't bleeding, I'd make love to you right now. But you are, so I'll – Lavi, what _are_ you doing to my pants?"

"Taking them off."

"Lavi you're—"

"Don't _even_ pretend you don't want to." Lavi growled at him, his hands – which had trailed their way to his lover's pants' buttons – jerked forward and he lurched, bringing his face just above the line of his lover's belt. Tyki tried to stop him but his gaze made the Noah pause, sticky hands on Lavi's shoulders. "Look, Ty-chan," He reached up and captured one of his lover's wrists, then dragged it down to his own budding arousal. "Do I _feel_ like I care if I'm bleeding?"

"Dear, I…" But he couldn't deny the pressure against his palm, the heated quality to Lavi's skin. He couldn't believe that the boy was _this_ willing, _this_ masochistic, but he wouldn't deny it verbally. His eyes fell shut slowly; his right hand turned Lavi's face up to him before he looked again, and kissed the side of his mouth with petal soft lips. The breath against him was short and ragged, mouth open gently, and the delicate caress of his name on his ears made him shiver. Lovingly, he repeated the gesture, on the other side, and smiled at his lover's suddenly hitching breath. He could enjoy it knowing there was no fear in it, no pain. There was no desire in him to do anything but please, and it made him stop short, hooking his free fingers on Lavi's hip.

"What, Ty-chan?" The redhead swallowed hard, panting, flushed.

Tyki looked down at him and smiled, nestling his face into the apprentice Bookman's shoulder after a moment. "Alright. You win. But I won't harm you, hurt you, tease you – I won't do any of it. Not when I don't want to." He leaned his forehead on Lavi's, drawing from him a deep, needy sigh. _"Amante… Eu te amo mais do que você sabe. Ferir-me que você iria causar dor. Eu sei que tenho de som ridículo, mesmo melancólico, mas você deve entender como me sinto."_ He kissed his lover's lips chastely, watching his eye close, and sighed at the pair of arms that wrapped around his shoulders.

"You don't sound ridiculous or melancholy, you sound bright." Lavi answered in a whisper, hands buried in his lover's hair. "You always speak Portuguese when you're bright." He mumbled, leaning into the older man. It was hard to explain but now, after a light beating and short walk down memory lane, he felt like he wanted this – not needed like before. If it was gentle, if it was rough, if his hands were tied or free; none of it mattered. He was in his room with the man he loved.

Lavi wondered vaguely if that was what he had needed; to relive what had happened with a different person, to enjoy it. His mind felt so clear when he pushed himself up to standing that he had to smile at the Noah, the kind of smile that came easy, soft on his features. The fire that burned in chest almost made him laugh, cry, giggle, but instead he could just smile, the endorphins in his system less than half of it. Gingerly he let go of Tyki, content to just stand in his presence, aware that even without the man's skin again his the burning was still there, as was the safety, the light and the dark, everything. There was nothing here that wanted to hurt him.

Tyki tilted his face to the side, brow furrowed at the boy. "Why are you smiling?" He asked gently. "Did I not just whip you until you couldn't stand it anymore?"

Lavi laughed, reaching out with sore arms from his sitting place on the bed. "Because right now… I feel alright. I feel really, really good somehow." He took a hold of Tyki's hand and drew him down onto the mattress, sitting beside him. His eye wandered to the light growing in the window and he sighed, head tilted onto his lover's shoulder, before his eyelid fluttered downward, shutting out the orange of dawn. "Too bad, doesn't look like we have time for lovemaking. The sun's up."

"Well, well, so it is." Tyki said into the top of his head with a gentle kiss. Lavi smiled at it. He felt pleasantly tired, like sleeping or not would be equally fine with his body. "Tonight, after dinner then."

The redhead nodded, letting out a contented sigh. "We should have done this before."

"We should have."

Lavi made to speak further, not that there was a need to, but a light, shy rapping on his door made him stop. He glanced for a moment at his lover who, in a moment of juvenile silliness, let himself slide against the bed, arms draped over his face. "Fine. I'll get it." He poked the older man firmly in the ribcage – or tried – but his finger didn't strike. The Noah chuckled at him. "Cheater."

"Always."

"Jerk."

"Most of the time."

"Cute."

"Ye… no."

Lavi made a childish face at him and stood, forgetting a shirt, and made his way to the door. He was looking forward to the Head Nurse yelling at him and dragging him back to the hospital wing only to kick him out again, and he was also looking forward to a long, do-nothing day afterward. Reading, lounging, sneaking off to the library with Tyki, maybe trying _alone_ time in the woods for a little. Outside. He hadn't been outside in a while. Such were his thoughts as his hand closed on the door knob and then pulled it open, expecting Lenalee or the Matron or Komui.

He was _not_ expecting a thin, familiar, long-absent face to greet him. He knew it by heart, down to the feminine curve of its jaw line, its nose, its eye shape, the long tapers of black hair to either side of those mongoloid cheekbones. He blithered for a moment, and a pair of sapphire blue eyes went from his fiery hair to his chest then back up again, lingering on the bruises, beginning to frown. He felt the blood run out of his face. Before he could stop himself his mouth formed a word, a dangerous word, and his brain let it tumble unfaltering past his lips, even though he knew it was a bad idea, even if it was right.

"_Yuu-chan?"_

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**If you can figure out who's at the door… I give you a million um… virtual goodies… of some kind.**

**AND NOW, I must fulfill my role as Spokeshawtie (I didn't come up with the title, I swear), for a group I am a member of on LJ. If you like fics, want more funny, emo, Yullen, Lucky, Lamui, icons, mat images, drabbles, YnM, DGM – whatever! Come take a look at the AssHat Productions community on Live Journal. We're looking for members! 8D**

**Http : (slash)(slash) Community . livejournal . com (slash) 5ilver5erpent**

**Omit spaces, please. And put slashes in place of "(slash)". :)**

**Ok. Rant over. Thanks for reading!! Reviews are uber love!!**


	89. Things How They Are

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Things How They Are

It was just past sundown when Kanda sneezed violently into Allen's hair. The British boy blinked at it, half waking, and yawned into the growing night with a shiver. _"Ugh… if you got snot in my hair…"_ The threatening whisper died when he heard the deep, sure sounds of sleep from his lover, felt the soft press of arms on his ribcage. It didn't matter. He was too tired to do much but lie there anyways.

His limbs felt like lead, his eyelids like boulders, and breathing made him sleepy. He blinked a few times in an effort to dispel the feeling, but his sight only became worse. "Kan…da…" He hardly squeaked out the name, his throat very much against speaking. The camp swam before his eyes sickly, fire liquefying into the dirt and going back again; he couldn't fight his eyes into focus. "Kan…d…d…_ah…_" The body behind him shifted and he rolled back, a blurry face hanging over him, long dark hair brushing the sides of his face. He could feel a hand on his forehead, but he couldn't do much more than blink at it, fighting to keep his eyes open.

_What's wrong with me?_

"Che. You're fever's back." Kanda pulled the wool blanket over his shoulder and laid it on Allen's chest, leaning down enough to kiss his temple. Allen wanted to reach out to him with his right hand but only his left would respond. His fingers wrapped around his lover's and gave a shaking squeeze. "Let go, I'll get… Ru… Ja… _Gaki._"

Allen only released him at the soft touch of lips on his forehead.

* * *

"_Bear!"_

"Shush, it's _not_ a bear. It's a raccoon, see?"

"Hito…"

He chuckled, snuggling closer to the already clinging Exorcist. He felt perfectly safe to cuddle ten feet away from his mother, being she hadn't said a word about it and the two of them were being less than stealthily about everything. At this instant, with his head placed delicately on the side of Sable's, watching the shadows of night creatures flit passed, he felt oddly like he was defending her, and the thought made him smile. He would have been content to sit like that forever.

"It's not a bear-den 'Kaasan picked to sleep in. It's just an old, abandoned rock house, if that helps you not think about it that way." He threw an arm over her middle, feeling her curl in closer. "Close your eyes."

"Then I can't _see_ the bear when it comes to eat me."

"It won't eat you. I'll watch. Close your eyes." He kissed her cheek softly for a moment, just a little.

"Ugh… I feel gross though. Closing my eyes doesn't help." Sable mumbled with a sigh. She had felt painfully close to vomiting for nearly an hour, and now was no different. She couldn't remember being sick more than a sneeze or a wound induced fever – aside from seasickness – but now she felt like her stomach disliked the meager amount of food she had eaten. "Blegh."

Hitori chuckled, resting his face on the turn of her shoulder. "We'll get to town tomorrow and you can be sick all you like until we find the others. But right—"

"Shit!" She pushed him away, rolling three fourths out of her bedroll and retched, coughing up nothing but air. Hitori was at her side in a moment, pulling back her braid, his hand on her back. She expelled a mouthful of dinner, rousing Hiroko from her slumber with the noise. _"Oh, yack…"_ Sable mumbled wetly, continuing to heave. Hitori kept rubbing her back, silently, watching his mother glance up at them from her place deeper in the cavern.

"Flu?"

Sable shook her head, wishing she hadn't eaten quite so much.

"Pregnant?"

Hitori snorted – a betrayal to the possibility – and didn't look up.

"Don't think so…" Sable choked out, shaking, and fought to wipe her mouth on something. After a moment she found a rag, dry, and scraped her face with it, leaving the skin red. "I just feel… sick…" She elaborated without detail. Hitori pulled her back into him, running his fingers across the sweat slicked curve of her brow. "Hito… your mother…"

"Shush." His other arm hooked around her waist and pulled her close, away from the pile of half digested sludge by the fire. She was trembling, though not badly, and she didn't feel feverish. After the tiniest struggle she let him hold her and brush the bangs from her face, feeling at her neck, behind her ears. A deep frown settled on her features at the inspection, Hiroko's as well, but they both let him. "No fever, nothing swollen… well… that I've touched."

"Hito…"

"Feel better?" He asked softly, tilting his head a little to the side with a half-serene smile. "I hope so…" His voice fell dramatically, but his smile stayed on his face. "If you _are_ then it's three fourths my fault so…"

"I'm _not_." She said forcefully. "I don't think." More softly. "I'll castrate you if I am."

"First off, if you are, _you_ aren't. _We_ are."

"Like you have a lot to do with it."

"I'm not leaving you." He said seriously, expression falling. With his eyebrows pushed together like that, and his hands so firm on her skin, she knew he was serious. Serious usually meant he was about to curse. "Che. I'm not some fucking slut-faced bastard betraying prick, Sabe. If you're producing my spawn – even if neither of us is old enough – I'm sure as hell not going anywhere. 'Kaasan can throw me out and Yuu can have an aneurysm, I don't—"

"You're sweet, Hito." Sable silenced him, looping her cold hands in the ends of his hair. "But I threw up. Let's not jump to conclusions. I bet I'm just stressed out from sleeping in a bear's den." As she said it, Sable glanced over her shoulder to see Hiroko send her a vicious, deathful glare, lips nearly raised in a snarl, and shot one back at her, just as thick with wrath. The Japanese woman growled low in her throat, just audible, and turned away, smashing her head on her pillowed arm. The blonde smiled in triumph. There was no way Hiroko hadn't figured it out yet, but she wasn't complaining – Sable guessed that she was fighting her own feelings for a tall, red haired, smoking _gaijin_ and didn't want to make herself a hypocrite. At least not in front of Hito.

"Yeah." The Japanese boy said softly, shaking his head in a feeble attempt to displace her hold. She held on. "What's that Spanish saying? Kay Sarah, Sarah?"

"_Qué será, será."_ Sable chuckled. "What will be, will be."

Hitori nodded, looking back toward their sleeping place. "Lay down, I'll get you water."

"Aw, you're so nice."

"And then… we can talk about names."

"Names?"

He nodded, a strange smile spreading across his lips. "Because if you _are_... we should name it something cute!"

* * *

Tyki turned at the name, a frown creasing his features. It was hard to frown with how insanely – or sanely – wonderful he felt. The dark, the white, every part of him, the violence and the love, wanted to smile.

Lavi wavered on his feet in front of the door, staring at the woman – was it a woman? – standing in front of him with one flaming eyebrow cocked over the other. After a moment a hand came up, long fingernails clean and curved like a female's, and poked him in the middle of his chest.

"Do you have mental problems?" The voice was definitely feminine, serious, excited, soprano, and innocent in a way that broke the spell over Lavi. This was _not_ Yuu-chan. At least not any Yuu-chan he knew. His eyes went over her face again, searching for subtle differences, until it came to her hair. Bone straight, blue black, just like Kanda's, but cut short to her chin, longer on the left, parted on the right, with two long tassels in front of her ears, dangling nearly to her elbows. And by her elbows – boobs. Decently sized, succulent, feminine boobs. No, this was not the Yuu-chan he knew anymore than it was his own reflection, it was something completely and utterly beyond his understanding.

"Ty-chan, I think Komui finally did it." The redhead said softly, taking a step back from the door. "He turned Yuu-chan into a girl."

Tyki laughed and the woman reeled back, eyes glaring so darkly Lavi could have swore she was about to hit him with Mugen. Instead a soft hissing noise started at her feet and came forward, dragging his eyes away from the woman's, forcing him farther into the room. A lizard, perhaps ten inches long and four tall, lumbered at his bare feet, clawed toes scraping at the floor. He made a tiny sound of horror before his visitor gasped and bent, plucking the creature from the floor – careful with its fin-like back ridge – and brought it to her shoulder.

"Herth! _Warui, baka inosensu… Rabi ga kowanai, yo…_" She thumped the lizard on the nose and it shook its head at her before she moved it, clawed feet first, onto her shoulder. The tail, quite a bit longer than Lavi would have wanted in a pet, curved around her neck while one of its front claws reached into her hair and caught on the top of her ear, keeping steady. He continued to gape at it, and the woman, without word, while Tyki stared silently at the almost laughable display the three made.

The Noah didn't moved from the bed, even when those dark blue eyes flicked over the room then back to his lover, this time with a gentle, though still harsh expression.

"Pardon me, Mister umm… was it… Ravi? No that's a river… Lavi! Yes, Lavi." Her left hand came up in a very unKanda like show of gestures and darted to the side, pointing at nothing. "But Komui-san sent me to find out all about your traumatic experiences, though that may not be a great place to start being you don't know me, so I just kind of came by to introduce myself and see if we might trust each other before I ask you to spill your guts at my feet. Heh. Anyways, I guess we got off on the wrong foot with you calling me _Yuu-chan_ – I don't answer to it – you can call me pretty much anything but that though, I'm easy to get along with. By the way, what's wrong with you hair?" Lavi stepped back again when her hand went once again for his body, only this time higher, slipping into his bangs as easily as if they were her own. He stiffed, but she didn't seem to notice. "Never seen hair that color…" She went on, twirling it between her fingers. "Only orange. Not red like that."

He began to blither again. She was too much, who ever this talkative Yuu-chan lookalike was. He wanted to crawl under the bed and hide she was so touchy feely. "Um… sorry… but…" He swallowed hard, and this time her eyes looked at his and stayed there, calculating. "Who are you again?"

She laughed awkwardly, drawing her hand away with a smile. "Nakamura Yumeko," she said in a nearly sing-song sort of tone. "Your... therapist, for at least a month."

"You've got to be kidding me." Lavi breathed at her, eyes narrowed. "I do _not_ need therapy."

"Really? So you have marks on your chest because you're a masochist, right?"

"For your information, yes. Can we _not_ talk about this halfway in the hall?"

"Sure, I'll just come inside!" She took a brazen step forward just as Tyki pushed himself up on his hands, watching curiously from his place. She was tall, quite tall, even though her slippers were flat, her simple black dress (perhaps Lavi had mistaken it for a coat) hanging to her ankles. She was not the most graceful of individuals, flouncing about on her feet as she entered, smiling down at Lavi as if it were her room and he were holding the door for her, but she had an air about her that reeked of confidence. And naïveté. "You need more furniture."

"I keep telling him that." Tyki spoke up at last, offering the most gentlemanly smile he could with his shirt half unbuttoned, blooded belt at his feet, and two fasteners of his pants hanging open. Her eyes darted to him, but she only smiled.

"Oh, you must be… erm… Tyki. And you're half naked. That's lovely." She came to Lavi's desk and plopped herself down on it, not bothering with the chair. "I hear that you're… innately evil and all that, but... _wow_…_mmm…_ Oh! But is it true that you can rip out people's organs and stuff?"

"How _old_ are you?" Lavi interjected when he had the door closed.

"Twenty."

"I can. If the desire strikes me." Tyki said calmly.

Her eyes became bright and round, curious, but she didn't push too far. "I don't know much about what you are, but I know a little. My guess is, if the notes I read were right, half the time you're normal and the other half you're not, and the longer you're normal, the worse it is when you're not. I'm also guessing that the _not_ part is the part that—"

"I am sorry," Tyki interrupted, pushing himself a little higher on the mattress. He sent a glance to Lavi and patted the bed beside him, lifting the back of the blanket a little away from the wall. "You lost me after the word _normal_."

She blinked at him, confusion blossoming across her features.

_She's in way over her head,_ Lavi thought as he sank down next his lover. The Noah put the blanket over his shoulders, hiding his nudity a little, and a short hiss escaped his lips. He stung all over. The sensation made him want to roll around on something scratchy, then soak in a hot bath, tingling and stinging at once. _She doesn't understand that human isn't normal for him, and that there is no difference to me._

"You aren't here to look into Ty-chan's brain, are you?"

"No, but I'd like to—"

"Let me save you some time, Meko-chan," He offered. A hand slipped into his just out of sight and he almost smiled at it. Instead he squeezed. "You're supposed to be here to assess my mental condition, so I'll give you an idea how I am – and why. A while back I was kidnapped, beaten, nearly raped, rescued, forced to remember things that aren't my memories, and I haven't had a good, decent, fearless fuck in longer than I can remember. I have nightmares, terrors, I black out, I get lost in someone else's thoughts, and I haven't been that bad recently. Any questions?" When the words were out of his mouth Lavi immediately wished he could take them back. She was looking at him with an emotion like fear in her eyes, and Tyki's hand twitched with the desire to touch him more closely. There had been anger in his voice. He didn't remember feeling angry – he didn't remember feeling anything but fear for the memory – but he sounded prepared to rip someone's throat out, or worse.

"Why does saying it make you look surprised, Rabi?"

"Lavi."

"I'm bad with names."

He looked down, mulling it over again. "I don't feel anything." He said baldly, leaning a little on Tyki's shoulder. "I sound angry, I used to be scared, but now… after last night… there's nothing. It's just like… a memory…" He paused, brow furrowed. "It feels funny to think about it, I don't want to, but… I don't feel like I'll be washed away if I do." He looked up at Tyki rather than the woman he was supposed to be speaking to, and sighed, not moving his head from its place. "Right now, I'm thinking about how they almost stabbed my eye out, but I don't—" His lover's hand pressed into his face suddenly, blocking the light from his sight. He smiled, then laughed, proving to the Noah just how honest he was being. "Ty-chan, that just makes me want to jump you."

The woman hummed softly, folding her ankles together. The lizard on her shoulder licked her face. "Did you do anything different than usual?" He could tell by her tone of voice that she wasn't looking at them, too lost in his words.

"We…"

"The bruises and cuts are fresh." She said quietly, tapping at her lips with a finger. As much as she looked like him, Yuu never made that face. "So if… then… that's an odd sort of thing to do… phobia… but doesn't _act_ phobic, not like normal. Then…" Her eyes brightened suddenly and she glanced between them, her mouth falling open.

Tyki picked that moment to close his eyes and tilt into Lavi's head, wanting this woman gone. If she were gone, they could shower, sleep, eat, read – anything. But only if she were gone. He smiled when he didn't even have the desire to hurt her, let alone kill.

"What?" Lavi questioned from his lover's shoulder.

She moved her hands, but no words escaped her for a moment. "The two of you! I get it!"

_She's slow…_

"Not – I mean – not the relationship, I mean your heads." She went on excitedly. "Because the terrors are like a traumatic experience, but you dealt with it like a phobia, and it would make sense if… Kiki? Tyki, sorry. But who…" She frowned again, looking between them. That gaze made Lavi feel like a creature in a laboratory, not a person in a room with a mind doctor. "I don't know how much you affect each other yet, but if one of you – or even both – _wanted_ to hurt or have pain then… it's possible that that desire has been transformed into a near psychotic _need_, so it's enough to push you beyond the memory. You _want_ to remember on some level, you _want_ it to happen again so you can enjoy it. It's twisted but… you're like a reverse serial…" She looked down at the floor, eyes on the discarded belt that Tyki had used. "Do you have flashbacks? Moments of realistic, unwilling placement into that time?"

Lavi frowned thoughtfully. "Kind of. But… the last one I thought my way out of."

"What brought it on?"

He swallowed and his fingers closed more tightly on Tyki's. "It could have been a lot of things."

"Like?"

Why was it hard? If it was a memory he should have been able to retell whatever it was that used to trigger it, but for some reason he didn't want to. He didn't want to start the day like this. He wanted her gone. "Not being able to see, the same kind of pain, the same smells, the sound of… sounds…" He trailed off. He was shaking, but she couldn't see that. "But I don't know what did it. It wasn't just random like before. And now I just…" His eye closed and rocked a little to the side, feeling tired for the first time all morning. How long had they talked for? He couldn't tell. He could always tell. He only knew that the hand in his had grown sweaty. "I don't know."

_I don't know, I don't know, I don't want it. How many times have I thought that without knowing what I was thinking about?_

Tyki's right hand pressed for a moment against the side of his face, guiding him down into the curve of his lover's neck. The fingers in his slipped away to hook around his side, drawing him in, pressing him close. "You should stop." Lavi couldn't tell who the words were directed to. "It will happen again."

"You're here. I'm ok."

"If that were true I wouldn't have had to rock you back to sanity."

Lavi smiled a little, nuzzling into the warm skin on his face. _God, if she weren't in the room…_ "You don't have to. Not anymore."

"_A mulher deve apenas deixar estúpida, ela não ajuda em nada. Você fixa-se."_ Tyki said languidly into his hair. Lavi almost laughed at him, but bit it back, pushing away with a soft smile. _The stupid woman should just leave, she doesn't help at all. You fixed yourself._ What a terrible thing to say in front of a person only trying to help. _"Por favor, diga a ela para ir para que eu possa ter sobremesa antes do pequeno-almoço, Amante."_

_Please tell her to go so I can have dessert before breakfast, Lover._

Lavi really did laugh. "Meko-chan…" He glanced at her, laying his hands on his knee. "How long were you going to be?"

She shrugged. "I've assessed your mental status for the time being, though I don't have enough to tell you what's wrong. It appears to me, in my professional opinion, that you're coping in the best way you know how, and because of your… special point of view toward pain, it isn't unhealthy. Yet. If it were self-mutilation I would be concerned, but…" Her head moved back and forth and her hair waved with the motion, slowly, and her face broke into a smile. "I don't know enough yet to make anymore than an educated guess of your progress, though it is obvious that you have made some. Now I just have one more question."

"Shoot." He didn't really care what she asked; he was feeling the hand trailing agonizing lines down his ribcage. How Tyki could keep a straight face and do that was beyond him. He could feel the tips of his ears burning under the line of his hair, and struggled not to leap into the other man's lap when salty skin found the smallest open cut. He shifted uneasily, knowing that such a blatant show of want would most likely undo every good observation this not-Kanda had made of him. He licked his lips and forced himself to listen.

"What made you call me _Yuu-chan_?" She asked simply, standing from her place. Herth, that strange lizard he was starting to become used to, hissed at the movement but settled again with nothing but the lightest pet of her fingers.

He shrugged, minutely leaning into Tyki's hand. "You look a lot like the Yuu I know, he has um… a rather pretty face for a guy."

"Really? He works in this branch?" Why did she seem excited?

"Yeah. He's been gone for a while though. I think he should be back with Allen in about three weeks."

"Wow. It would be neat to meet my long lost face twin."

"Don't call him Yuu-chan though. He doesn't like his given name."

"Oh?" She frowned too deeply at that. "What does he go by?"

"Kanda."

Her smile became so wide he thought she might have been distantly related to Tyki's darker half. It was eerie, and the lizard didn't help. Her black dress flowed gently around her feet as she stepped – _very_ tall, now that he was sitting – and offered him a tiny, cortical bow, not displacing her uncomely friend. "That's ironic of him. Anyways, if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm leaving you in the dark. It was nice to see you, Lavi, and you've grown a lot since the first time we met. Have a nice day." She headed toward the door, not looking at him, and he opened his mouth to call her back.

Tyki stopped him with a hand placed firmly over his lips; just strongly enough to pull his head back, exposing his neck. He wanted to whimper but didn't, instead he watched this person he didn't remember meeting the first time open his door and walk nonchalantly into the hallway, leaving with a wave she did not turn to give. The door slammed behind her, hard, and a warm breeze of air brushed his ear from behind, stalling his desire to find out who she really was. Instead he melted, oozing back against his lover in a slow, gentle, moaning wave of enjoyment.

The Noah chuckled softly as he wrapped his arms around Lavi's ribcage and guided him backward, kissing a tantalizing line down the side of his neck to his shoulder. The redhead turned toward him, capturing his mouth, and his right hand delved once more into the silky tresses at the back of Tyki's neck, egging him on with slow swirls and gentle tugs. The fingers that had silenced his lover fell delicately to his throat, the edge of his thumb working from jaw to Adam's apple, slow and cool and so soft it left Lavi gasping. Deep brown eyes looked loving down at him when the kiss broke at last, and he didn't look away, only up at the unadulterated tenderness in Tyki's expression.

"Ty-chan."

"Hm?"

"Is this how you were… before you became what you are?"

"No." The man answered at once, brushing away Lavi's bangs. "Though it is perhaps as human as I get, _Amante._"

"You're always human, just not humane."

Tyki smiled at him before bringing his lips into the younger man's forehead, rocking gently, and then pulled away to press the side of his face there instead. "You love my cruelty." He quietly observed, but he was only distantly aware that Lavi nodded at it, awkwardly. "All the same, would you like it if… I… you're trembling, Lavi. Do I even have to say it?" The redhead turned in his hands, hooking his arms behind the older man's head. He was quivering, shaking uncontrollably, but it didn't stop him from rocking his hips forward suggestively, a tiny sound in the back of his throat.

"You've been teasing me since before I opened that door, now quit it. Please, please, please yes. I want to—_Oh…_" His whole body shivered at the touch of Tyki's mouth on his neck, nibbling up to his lips. Gently, at a pace that made him want to declare his annoyance, Tyki leaned them toward the mattress, backward, so Lavi had to catch himself on the bed or risk injury. The apprentice Bookman smiled down at his lover, legs stretching until he felt the tops of Tyki's feet against his toes. The lips against him made a wet sound as they came away, leaving that small section of his neck exposed to the coolness of the room.

"Would you like anything specific, Lavi?" Tyki pulled him down on his chest with one hand and moved his hair aside with the other, eyes steady. Lavi breathed heavily down at him, mouth open and frowning. After a moment the Noah went on, more quietly. "I think that whoever that woman was, she riled your anger."

Lavi's frowned deepened. "She doesn't know anything."

"No, that's not it." Tyki smiled, the hand on Lavi's back slinking lower. "When she spoke to me… after that, you were angry with her."

Lavi's eyes narrowed dangerously, his mouth hovering for a moment over his lover's. The shaking was hard to stand but he did it, his arms feeling as if at any moment the magnetic energy between himself and Tyki would snap them or bend them, sending him into an unavoidable torrent of claiming and touching. Because, as much as he hated to admit it, Tyki was right. He had not been angered by the memory, he had been angry at her leering eyes. It made sense now. "She wowed at you. And noticed your clothes… I just…" The strain was too much; Tyki dragged him into an embrace that made him sigh, still trembling against the larger man's chest. "I'm a defensive jerk aren't I?"

Tyki laughed, slipping his hands beneath the line of Lavi's pants. "I don't mind in the least." He pressed down with his palms, moving Lavi's hips into his own. The movement brought the redhead back to his arms, looking down with a curious expression. He bent a knee, hooking it through the younger man's leg to pin him. "I'm starting to mind your clothes, though. Would you like to take them off?" Even as he asked the question his hands immobilized the Exorcist against him as he lifted his hips, giving a low hum as the younger gasped at him, obviously finding it difficult to swallow. "You're terribly warm for me hardly touching you..."

"I was ready when you tied me to the bed, you tease. _Stop_… I can't take anything off if you…_ Tyki!_" The redhead squirmed against the leg that held him but it was no use, his hips moved down of their own accord, twice, and the Noah smiled up at him, returning his movements without restraint. Lavi whined at him, curling his fingers in the fabric of his comforter with a furrowed brow. He bit his lip and spoke with half of it. "Ty-chan… are you _trying_ to make me rip your clothes off? Because I will."

There was no answer to the question, only another lift of his lover's pelvis and the press of lips on his own, just as needy as he felt. The leg between his lifted subtly, pressing unfalteringly into his growing hardness, the rough texture of his thin pants a torturous combination on his flesh. A heady moan dragged his mouth away from Tyki's and he bucked into him, twitching right hand falling to the skin of his lover's chest. Buttons came undone with difficulty, what with his mouth once again restrained by his lovers coupled with the continued rise and fall of the thigh that teased him, but he inevitably pushed aside the thin barrier that kept him from his lover's chest. Panting, half moaning, he brought his lips to the Noah's skin in a kiss that was neither closed mouthed nor open, more of a parted lipped plea into his chest bone.

Tyki made a strange, clicking grunt at it, his hands forcing them closer. After a long moment of feeling his lover's moist, warm breath against his skin, he spoke, voice rough and low, heavy. "We should eat breakfast."

"Fuck no." The words danced in little vibrations across his chest and down his ribs, making him chuckle. The man against him laid perfectly still despite those words, left eye shutting out the daylight. "No breakfast until after dessert, Ty-chan."

The Noah laughed, bending his knee until Lavi unconsciously arched into him, pressing his now obvious erection forward with a quiet groan. He raised an eyebrow, shocked by the shaking touch of fingers to his hipbones. "I've got you in a state, haven't I? My apologies, _Amante_, I thought you were trying to flatter me." His leg unhooked from his lover's and his hands slipped to the front of Lavi's pants, tugging at the string that held them on.

"God, Tyki… I'm just not scared anymore. I won't cry. I just…" His hands pushed Tyki's shirt away, his legs guiding them both up until they were sitting, one foot each on the cold stone floor. He felt the restraint on his pants come undone but didn't move, too set on working his shivering fingers into undoing the remaining three buttons of Tyki's slacks. "I guess I want you the way I should have from the start, without being overwhelmed. My chest hurts, but I don't have a metal rod through me. Everything feels… _good_… and I want to feel you like that. I'm not scared of you or anything right now, so maybe…" Tyki cut him off with a hurried, if gentle, kiss and a tug on his clothes. His fingers managed the last button, which he smiled at. "It's pent up wanting you." He finished in a whisper.

"Lavi."

"Yes?"

"How would you like to handle this?"

"_Handle?_ Ty-chan, I don't know what kind of euphemism that is, but I'd really like to _handle_ it with an orgasm, if at all possible."

"That's not what I meant."

"What did you mean?"

"I want to know… if you would like to play my part this morning."

Lavi's head tilted to the side and he blinked, an unruly forelock falling over his eye patch without notice. Two more blinks before he seemed to comprehend those words, and even then they were more than half lost on him. "We have parts?"

Tyki laughed softly, kissing him again, more fervently. "Never mind. I'll explain what I mean at a less urgent time. Pants, dear."

"You can explain while we take them off," Lavi offered, sliding from the mattress, both feet on the too cold floor. The garment was too big to begin with and came off with little more than the force of gravity, pooling around his feet in the sunlight. Tyki looked at him from head to toe for a moment, grinning crookedly.

"Would you, if the opportunity arose, like to be _seme_?"

Lavi fumbled over his pants at the words and tripped, bashing his right knee on the iron bed frame. Tyki watched the color drain from his face as he hit the ground, a naked heap of writhing, moaning, shaking lover. Curse words so foul they made the Noah's mouth fall open escaped his lips, his hands curling on the crumpled limb. In a moment Tyki was on the floor beside him, hauling him by the shoulders into bed, forcing his knee to unbend. They both knew it was the one he had broken, knew it was weak for the time being, knew that even that seemingly small wound felt like a white hot knife stabbed through the soft tissue under his bones. He instinctively clutched the hand his lover offered, using the other to feel the lay of his bones and compare it to the lines he knew from memory.

"God, Lavi, I'm sorry… I didn't mean to make you fall. You're gasping… is it…"

Lavi shook his head, fighting to catch his breath. "Hurts like a mother-father." He panted, giving his kneecap a final squeeze, "But it's fine. I love endorphins; they make pain I don't want so much better." He lifted his leg experimentally then lowered it again, wincing. "Ok… don't throw me into anything or ask me to run, we can do this."

"Mother-father?"

"Shut up and come 'ere."

"Did you even hear the question I asked?" Tyki shed his pants gradually to the floor before rejoining his lover on the bed, crawling until their faces were even. Arms twined gently under his and across his back before falling to his hips as if holding him back. His lover had a tiny, almost pained smile on his lips.

"I did. But I like things how they are. It would be hard to let you… I mean, it makes more sense if… _Ty-chan…_ I'm trying to hold you back for…for…" All it took was a hand, pressed against the warmth of his arousal, and the young man's eyes were squinted nearly shut. He stroked it gently, fingers parting over the velvety skin, and Lavi moved to meet him, hands tight on his hips. _"Please…_" The word ended in a plaintive moan of longing.

Tyki grinned and leaned in, laying his lips on Lavi's. His palm pulled away for a moment and the redhead growled for the loss of it, widening his mouth to accept his lover's tongue. The Noah could sense his desperateness in the still quaking quality of his hands, the arch of his spine from the bed even if it won't help him reach anything. The young man was shivering like mad, thighs hungrily pressed to his lover's sides, hands traveling the path to his chest like slow moving pilgrims, weighed down with need. They danced slow circles across the line of his throat and then downward, lingering in the center of his torso.

The kiss broke. He rocked forward. Lavi almost mewed at him, hot face pressed into the side of his neck.

"Ty-chan…"

"Should I keep my word, Lavi? Or would you rather I tease you?"

"_Please… please…"_ It was the only word he seemed to know. In the back of his mind Lavi wondered what he was begging for, release, denial, or something he didn't understand. He didn't know, but the word calmed him. The fingers that wrapped firmly around the base of his manhood drove a long, keening cry from the back of his throat, breaking the word, and he wound his arms suddenly around Tyki's shoulders, drawing him closer. The Noah let him, even if it moved him farther away from his actual destination.

"Please what, _Amante?_ What do you wish of me?"

"I don't… I don't know…"

_Stupid, stupid words._

"Are you sure, Lavi?" A kiss on his temple, on the side he couldn't see on, warm and soothing. "If I can, I will give you anything you ask of me."

"I don't know… I want… I want to…"

"Yes, Lavi?"

_How can I say it? How can I say it without him understanding me?_ "I want to love you." He said at last, and the hand on him slowed for a moment before it took up again, surprise cast aside. "But it's not the same I feel… I… please…" The Noah drew back while his left hand flailed blindly for the nightstand. "Say it, Ty-chan. Please… I want… _feel_ it… I want you to… I…" He didn't have to go on, the fire in his chest redoubled at the caress of lips once again on his skin. The pain made him smile. _Yes, that's what I wanted. I wanted it to be like before, because you love me. You love me. How could you? How could you fall for someone who isn't supposed to feel anything? I don't know. I don't know. But I want—_

"I love you, Lavi."

"Oh, God…" Tears filled his eye but he wouldn't let them spill, not now, when he said he wouldn't. He could smell that strange, soothing smell, and buried his head in the curve of his lover's neck, unable to kiss it, unable to do much more than breathe. _This_ was different. _This _pain in his chest, and the press of a finger too cool and slick to have innocent purposes, made him feel different. But he didn't know _how_.

"If I am right Lavi," Tyki spoke to his temple, single digit working him wider. "Something in you is now a lot like me, the dark – if that you doesn't mind that nickname – seems to have finally taken notice of me, and spoken his mind." He moved his hand aside for more lubricant, speaking constantly in an attempt to keep his lover distracted from the pain as well as his mind, both of which seemed to be working overtime against him. Truthfully he did not care if the darker reaches of Lavi's brain liked him or not, so long as they stayed out of it. He only _wanted_ Lavi. "Do you love me, Lavi? Or should I move my fingers more slowly?"

The redhead barked at laugh, hands fluttering down Tyki's back. The thin layer of sweat there cooled his hands, stilling them, and when he spoke he lacked any of the anger or fear Tyki might have expected. "Yes, Ty-chan. I love you. I didn't get my… sentence… _oh…_" He swallowed hard and pulled his head up determinedly, eye focused on his lover's face. "I want… a better way to show you that. But I can't think of anything."

"Letting me please you is show enough, Lavi."

"No it's not." The apprentice Bookman responded at once. Tyki was tempted to cut him off – just curl his fingers and the young man would be speechless – but chose instead to listen, kissing Lavi's face as he did. "I want to give you something that can't be taken back, something that you can only have once, but—"

"Bake me a cake."

"Ty-chan."

"There is nothing – _nothing_ – I want like _you_, Lavi." The Noah responded gently, curling his fingers so suddenly Lavi almost screamed for the surprise of it. He could see the young man's mind spinning, not understanding, and did it again, just to hear him. "Can't you tell, _Amante?_ What do I want right now, if you can sense it?"

Lavi's hands were too unsteady to do much so he clasped them together against Tyki's spine, grinding his hips downward. He could hardly feel anything outside of himself but he closed his eye and tried, damning his own need with a quiet curse.

A vague sense of want, but what of he couldn't imagine.

_Need._

"Ty-chan..."

"Can I have you now, _Amante?_ Surely we've done enough talking and you are nearing the point of pain. You're so _warm…_ shaking like a spider in a gale…" His fingers slipped away at last, eliciting a sound not unlike a sob from Lavi's lips, low and dissatisfied. With his now free hand he quickly coated his own erection, aware of the wanton eye that followed his hand as if it could not do otherwise, wide and bright, clear. What the redhead was thinking he didn't know, but the sense that he was too far away was enough to add the slightest of trembles into the touch he placed on his hips.

For a moment the Noah paused, only looking, before dragging the smaller man from the mattress and turning his own back against the wall, guiding his lover's seemingly boneless form against his chest. The hands against his back slipped hurriedly to his shoulders, leaving long scratches in their wake, but he ignored them; too intent on working his legs into a cradle beneath his lover's weight. Lavi – much to Tyki's surprise – took the initiative and lowered himself fearlessly onto him, whimpering even at his own doing. Seeing his expression, hearing his voice, feeling himself sheathed so fully left him holding Lavi as still as possible, fighting for breath.

"Ty-chan…" Lavi embraced him loosely; eye closed to the sensations running rampant through his body, and laid his face on his lover's shoulder. He took two long, slow breaths, releasing them across Tyki's warmed skin, before he attempted once more to speak. "I'm thinking in Portuguese."

The Noah laughed, rolling his hips forward with the sound. Lavi clamped tightly to him, bending his spine away from the wall, and his lover. "It's not my fault; I only did for a moment. Now dear… like this…"

Lavi nodded, not needing to be told. "You can't do a lot, I get it… ok… I'll… _ah…_" He moved himself back and upward, trembling on his knees until he came down again, far more gradually than he would have liked. His eye stayed on Tyki's face, his brown eyes, and watched as his lover's neck tilted his head back into the wall, a near silent exclamation of enjoyment on his lips. He moved again, with more confidence, up and down, pressing one hand to a shoulder and the other to the middle of Tyki's chest, feeling his breath change with each motion. He slid forward with purpose, feeling the gentle prod of flesh against the most sensitive place within him.

Tyki choked out his name, his thumbs hooked in the curve of Lavi's hips and he lifted. The redhead gasped when he was pulled down again, nearly at the perfect angle. He leaned back further, then made a surprised sound when legs stopped his movement a hair too soon, leaving him tottering between touching Tyki with more of himself, or reaching that place again. He whined, looking down at Tyki with an expression not unlike confusion. The Noah smiled.

"If I let you…" The words were little more than said. "You won't wait for me."

The apprentice Bookman growled low in his throat then threw himself forward, rocking into his lover almost violently, pulling his face into a sloppy kiss, hands on his neck and in his hair. The Noah lifted into himself into the sudden movement, and moaned into the mouth on his, astounded at the suddenly aggressive way Lavi tried to please him; much more rapidly than he might have ask for. It was too much for his lover, it seemed, to wait any longer than he had to.

"Tell me, Ty-chan," Lavi breathed between hurried kisses. "When you're close."

"_Amante…"_

"Stop thinking in Portuguese."

"Oh_, Lord,_ Lavi… you're…" Another kiss, this one shorter; he was nearly out of breath already. His hands didn't need to guide his lover, only hold his trembling form steady, so he traced slow circles on his ribs, following the rhythm. The fingers on his throat trailed down to the tiny space between them and slipped still lower, toying with the skin on the inside of his thigh. It was enough to send his feet slipping over the edge of the bed.

The redhead tilted back as far as he wanted and slammed forward, driving a cry from them both. His hand slipped up to Tyki's chest so he might use it as leverage, forcing himself back and then forward, deliberately increasing with every pass. Purposefully, ignoring the sudden increase in his lover's breathing, he tensed; a ragged, hungry cry seeped from Tyki's lips and teeth found the skin of his right shoulder.

The moment his teeth closed on flesh, Tyki felt Lavi shudder. The cord in his stomach, having long sense pulled to taught, twisted around itself, heat flooding his chest. With a harsh swallow he withheld himself, lifting into every motion the redhead continued to make.

Lavi let out an awkward squawk of surprise when the Noah lurched off the wall and pinned him hard against the mattress, stilling his hips and moving like a madman. Lavi bucked desperately, and found his movements met with an equal amount of force, nothing restrained or dimmed out of fear or worry or darkness. It was him and Tyki in a tangle of limbs, nothing between them but a thin sheet of sweat and the sound of his voice, raised in a wail of surprise and yearning. The muscles of his stomach were drawn like bowstrings, back bent so far he thought his spine would snap for the strain of it, leaving him broken. He was so very close, toeing the edge of oblivion, when his lips were sealed with his lover's.

And a hand drifted from his hips to his aching erection to give one long, powerful stroke.

The string snapped.

With a sound too much like a muffled sob Lavi rode out a long, ebbing, wave of pleasure, still rocking in an effort to see it through to its last. Tyki's release, brought on by his shallow but hungry movements, shocked him into a gasp that parted their mouths, leaving him staring up at his lover, panting deeply. For a moment he didn't move, just breathed, aware that his hands were shaking regardless of their actions.

No words. He was out of words. They didn't mean anything. Instead he reached up with his shaking arms and buried his face in the crook of his lover's shoulder, sighing. A low hum in his lover's throat was the only verbal exchange for a long, happy moment, and he didn't even want to cry.

"Lavi," The name was too soft for his liking, but it didn't matter. His arms still clung more surely. "Does that beat internal bleeding as well?"

The redhead laughed, a crooked smile dancing on his features. "Oh yes. Many times over. Internal bleeding is on its figurative knees, begging to surrender."

"On its knees, hm?"

"Ty-chan… what are you thinking…?"

"I didn't get to eat my dessert, Lavi. Sit. I will introduce my old man knees to your floor."

* * *

"Oi! _Gaki! Asa!_" Kanda poked the little girl repeatedly in the ribcage, watching her roll. There was no way for a person to move that much and _not_ be awake but he continued to watch, fighting an annoyed snip at her. He cursed at length in Japanese, too tired to hold it in and too nice to let it out, grabbing her slim shoulders and giving her a shake. The eyes that looked up at him were orange with firelight, and smiling, her arms at once reaching for his hair.

"Did Pretty have a bad dream?" She caught the parts that always hung down in front of his ears and twirled her fingers in them, smashing the tips in her palms. He mentally cringed; if this kept up he'd have split ends from the bottom to his roots in a week. "No… you wouldn't wake me up for that. Is it Mosneaky?" Her eyes suddenly filled with concern and her little fingers jerked; he could _hear_ the ends falling off, breaking, becoming uneven. His teeth clenched. She needed to let go of his hair and stop messing up Moyashi's name or he'd make her into a tender little shish-kabob and he knew it.

"Let _go_ of my hair." He said the words through his teeth, fingers twitching for his sword handle – not that it was there. Her fingers didn't move, only pinched harder. "Che. Yes, it's Moyashi. He can't move. I didn't want to wake your… relatives."

"You forgot their names, didn't you?"

"Che. No."

"What's my name, Pretty?"

_Fucking retarded, annoying, bothersome, stupid little girl._ "Gaki."

"Nooooo… my real name, _Kadna_."

"Ka_nda_."

"See? I can't remember yours and I don't honestly care. You try."

He glared death at her. "Jemima."

"I don't even like pancakes."

"Che. I don't _care._" He forcefully dragged her hands from his hair, but held them more loosely than he was inclined, not quite grinding bones. Her eyes weren't frightened, only curious. "Look, I need to help him and then I need to sleep. I won't make it through tomorrow if I don't." _Bad wording, bad wording, she's five…_ "I'll collapse."

"Ok." She shook her hands free, splaying her little palms at him. "Lemme get up."

"You've got two minutes."

* * *

No matter how he blinked he couldn't see the stars anymore, just the white-crystal glimmer of the moon against a bed of ebony velvet. It was a lot like falling asleep, only he was doing it at a rate that that made him feel sick and dizzy and a bit like someone had stabbed a knife in his chest and left it there. And his eyes wouldn't focus.

How long had it been since Kanda walked away?

He didn't know.

_Come back. Come back. If you can't find anything to help then just come back and stay with me. I'm not dead yet, I won't die soon, so stay with me…_

The hazy, strange silver orb above him blinked out for a moment with the thought and a face took shape above him, frowning, fighting a glare, cold. He almost smiled at it – would have if not for the feeling that his face would render him dead if moved – but instead only focused his eyes on those of his lover. The Japanese man had a hand on his face, cold, and another feeling at his throat for a pulse, most likely checking to see how slow it was. Allen couldn't tell what those fingers told him, nor could he ask. He could only watch Kanda's lips form words and hope that he read them right, being sound had vanished with the stars.

There was still one sound. A distant, vague sort of song in the back of his mind, but he didn't pay attention to it. It was just his mind playing tricks on him.

Kanda was saying something to him, something long winded and violently loving. There was a nonsense word in the sentence that seemed key, and a question as to what he felt. Parting his lips to answer left him without the strength to focus his eyes at all.

His head moved sideways and the dark world faded away, just out of reach, the only thing left of it that quiet song and the warmth of Kanda's hand on his forehead.

* * *

"Moyashi! Moyashi!" Kanda couldn't bring himself to smack the life back into his lover, so he settled for hoisting him up, tilting the boy's head against his side. If he had not remembered what it was like to see his lover sick and hurting in Japan, he remembered now. The heated quality to his skin, the chills that started at the base of his spine even when he was sleeping, the way his head gravitated to Kanda chest even though it logically should have rolled the other way – it was all the same, and it made him wakeful with worry. Wakefulness was a long undying enemy this night.

Juliana fetched water while he arranged blankets, tilting his lover head back against his knee. She gave him a three fourths full cup and he managed half of it down Allen's throat before he choked, left eye cracked a little more than a hair's breadth. Kanda didn't know if Allen heard him speak before but it didn't matter, the water had gotten from him more than air had, and that was what he had wanted. He didn't have to be perfect.

"Oi, Moyashi. Open your eyes." He might have poked the younger man's forehead in the past, but now he traced a slow line from the side of his temple to his jaw, tenderly. When they did as he asked he lifted his lover's head and filled his mouth with water again, watching him drink and the light return to his gaze. "More."

"Love?"

"Che. Drink."

Allen did as he was told, taking the cool liquid deeply. He seemed far more willing with water than he had with that foul smelling stuff the man had given him, and it made Kanda glad to see him improved with it. With the cup empty he poured some for himself, tiredness returning. "I had a dream."

"You were out for maybe four minutes. You couldn't have dreamed."

"I had one. And we were at Home." Kanda went about checking his heart rate again while Allen talked, more or less ignoring him. If Allen could talk – longwindedly – he was better. "I dreamed that we came home, and Lavi was there. And he hugged you. So I hit him." The silver haired Exorcist laughed lightly, sighing at the press of a hand across his eyes. He was more tired than he had been before he slept. "After that… it's muddled."

Kanda smiled at him a smoothed the hair from his forehead, looking at him from an upside down angle. "Che. Are you better?"

"Thanks for listening."

"I'm trying to keep you from dying, Allen. Are you better."

"I don't think I can stand."

Juliana made a sound between a yawn on a gasp, stealing their attention. She sat slumped over the water sack, arms stretched across it, eyes closed. In her sleep she tugged at the top of her hair and sighed, nuzzling into the side of her awkward pillow. _"Pretty…"_

Allen chuckled, his hand closing on Kanda's knee. "Put her back. I'll be ok. Keep the water close."

"Allen," His thumb stopped on the star of Allen's curse and lingered there before slipping to his normal skin and coming back again, following a pattern. The British boy closed his eyes and sighed, reminding him that his head hurt, if only vaguely. The hand on his face lulled him into turning his head, perfectly prepared for a long, restless sleep of nightmares, dreams, and feverish shivers; a sleep that he wanted more than anything at the moment. "If I wake up next to a corpse in the morning, I'll kill you."

"If you wake up next to a corpse in the morning, I'll be dead."

Kanda leaned down to lay his lips on Allen's forehead, a move that did not make the younger of them open his eyes. "When we get to town the day after tomorrow, you aren't moving for two days, understand." There was no question in it, no suggestion that Allen might argue, only firm concern and command. Allen cocked a grin at it, and his fingers closed a little more on Kanda's leg.

"I'll be fine."

"You better be. Day three would be a challenge otherwise." Slowly, his kisses came to Allen's lips, tender in a way that drew a soft contented sigh from the British Exorcist's lips. He didn't take the invitation, only smiled into his skin. "Necrophilia was never to my taste."

"Ew. Please, don't ever even think about it." Allen giggled, lifting an eyelid enough to smile at his lover. "But… that means I can expect to have you naked when we get to town? And I mean naked _under_ me, Mr. Breakyourwillwithmyexperthands."

"Che. Maybe. If you're better."

"You have the most horrible way of encouraging me."

"I could describe to you all of the things I'd like to do, if that would be better."

"No, no, that's perfectly fine. I would hate to be sick, tired, _and_ denied."

"I'll have another look at your chest in the morning. The fever is high enough, it might be infected, and if that's the case, you might be denied for a while."

"I've never had an infection in my life. I don't even think I can get one."

"A lot of things can happen that you never thought could."

Allen made a soft sound of amusement and his eyes fluttered shut again, the hand that wasn't already occupied traveled gently to the side of Kanda's face. His fingers told him the expression on his lover's continence as well as how warm his own body was, but neither mattered overmuch at the moment. He cared much more about the mouth that hovered unwaveringly over his own. "Will you put her to bed… so we can sleep, Love? It's cold without you."

Kanda's expression became soft against his fingers. "Che. If you were much warmer you'd—" His words stopped, seeming surprised by something, and Allen felt something small and sleepy curl against Kanda's leg and glanced down at it, a tiny smile turning his lips. Juliana's eyes were closed, her small arms seeking little more than the warmth he radiated, but it was enough to make him snicker just seeing Kanda's expression. "Great."

Allen's eyes fell shut just in time to see the little girl nuzzle his lover's calf, completely content. "I think she likes you."

"Shut up."

"Oh, come on, _Pretty_. You know you don't mind."

"You start the _Pretty_ thing again and I _will_ wake up next to a corpse."

"You're no fun at all."

To Allen's surprise, Kanda didn't argue. Instead he carefully slipped himself away from Allen and then settled between the cuddling young girl and his lover, drawing the bedroll over them before allotting the wool blanket to Juliana's back. Allen managed to look at him with round, wide eyes for a moment, completely amazing that he would _let_ the annoying child cling to him so closely. Kanda's eyes told him all he needed to know – he was too tired and worried to care. It made him wonder, looking, if the Japanese man had been not-sleeping again, and it had been a very good fake that settled him into dreams himself.

"Are you alright, Love?" The question was out of his mouth before Kanda's head hit the rolled up, sad excuse for a pillow they shared, but Kanda still had time to glare before he was completely horizontal. "You look worse than you did before we went to bed the first time."

"Che. I feel worse." He lowered himself to the ground completely and the child at his side nestled herself snuggly again him, his other arm pulled Allen equally close. In another universe, he knew, he would have screamed at her and made her go back to bed by herself and in tears, but not this one. Here he was much too tired to give a damn about how _nice_ it made him to let a stranger share his bed – or lack there of.

"Anything I can do?"

"Share some of your inability to feel like shit."

"Kanda!"

"Come here, if you can." As he said it he released his arm a little, giving Allen the leave to use him once again as a pillow if he could traverse the distance. "I won't have to think about it if I can feel you breathing." He tried to say it as nicely as the words would allow. The silver haired Exorcist strained in moving his head and chest against his lover's side, but wrapped his right arm half over Kanda's chest and buried his hand in the folds of his shirt before he felt too weak, just against his skin. That tiny, tiny bit of contact made him smile despite his inability to see.

"Good…Love?"

"Mn."

"Oya…su…"

Kanda didn't hear the end of it. He was already sleeping.

* * *

It was nearly midmorning by the time Lavi dragged himself grudgingly out of bed and into the shower, leaning heavily on his left leg, Tyki clinging like a mischievous child to his hand. He felt positively giddy after lying, sitting, and lounging about naked for the better part of three hours, though it had nothing to do with how much sweat now soaked the topmost layer of his blankets. He was warm and relieved and felt oddly like throwing his arms in the air in an expression of satisfaction, but at the moment the shower curtain would likely end up on the outside of the bathtub, so he refrained. Instead he leaned back into Tyki, wet hair sticking to the Noah's collar bone. It didn't work to relieve his urge to proclaim the burning, bubbling emotion running through him.

Tyki looked down at him with an amused expression and brought him into a backward embrace, tilting their faces into the water. He spoke despite it, eyes hooded against the flow. "If you looked any happier I'd be worried you weren't telling me something."

Lavi laughed, the sound odd in his skull from the thumping of water on his eye patch. "Like how _wonderful_ this morning was?"

"Not really what I had in mind."

"Or how willing I am to do it again when we get out?"

"Really? Not what I was thinking either."

"Hungry?"

"A little. But I was thinking that I haven't seen this side of the spectrum when it comes to your emotional extremes." Tyki nuzzled into the smaller man's neck, wetting the top of his head at with the same motion. "You've forgotten _all_ about that best-friend-lookalike, hm? Figured you would."

"Best-friend-lookalike? Meko?" Lavi rolled his head to the side to expose more of his neck. The subtle touch of teeth made his eye close, his left knee felt like giving out. He sighed at it. "Shit, she _wows_ at you and I let you touch me in all _sorts_ of places the Church would find less than amusing, yet you still think about her. I must be a terrible, horrible, pathetic excuse for a—_eep!_ Tyki! That'll come _off_ if you pull on it like that!" His head jerked to the side, but only enough to feel his earring tug in the Noah's teeth, then he stilled. A hand slipped from his waist to his hip and then down the inside of his thigh, the jewelry in his right ear clicking in his lover's mouth while he hands groped for something to hang on to – or something to help him fall more slowly. All he found was the wall. "Ty-chan…"

His ear was released.

"The only thing you're bad at is saying no and meaning it."

"Not true."

"So I should keep going even though we'll run out of hot water and be unfashionably late for breakfast?"

"…No."

"I submit that answer as evidence of my point."

Lavi growled, turning against the wall so his left leg bent slightly, just enough to hold him at ease. Between the warmth of the water and the press of his lover's too warm mouth on his throat, he moaned, hands seeking out anything that would continue to keep him from falling. The idea did not last, however, when his lover pulled away, moving to capture his lips.

A tiny, almost nonexistent gasp from Lavi's mouth made Tyki pause, left hand on the curve of the redhead's chin. Between the water and the heat, the expression on his face of lingering desire was perhaps the most keenly stirring thing Tyki had set eyes on since the evening they had spent in the greenhouse. There was, however, a slight lift of Lavi's lips that kept him still in the cooling stream of shower water.

"Yumeko." The younger man said flatly.

"I'm insulted."

"Ty-chan, that's not what I meant. I'm an idiot and an ass, thank to her."

"You've had quite the ass for as long as I can remember, _Amante._"

"Are you listening?"

"Most intently."

Lavi's face tilted up so his lips were just below Tyki's, tickling his mouth with his breath. "I forgot. She's Yuu-chan's sister."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**There you go, guessers! If you didn't remember her name, you now know.**

**Poor Hito. His odds just went down again… sad…**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing!**


	90. Together

**Shorter than the last few (sorry? Yay? I'm not sure which…) but it does get everything closer to where it's supposed to be.**

**If I didn't answer your review… it's because my computer threw up on it. Like hardcore. It seems like my computer crashes about once a week, just in time for reviews. :( I'm sorry.**

**And… for those who are wonder… two chapters from now is headquarters. :)**

**Disclaimer of D'jerk: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… Cross -sniffs-… Cross would -sniff-… Cross… UWAAAA!! -sobs- **

**WARNING: YAOI and whatnot.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Together

Far, far away, on the edge of awareness, he knew that there was light. The light was unpleasant – for a moment he wished that someone might turn out the light and leave him be – but he remembered it hurting more than it was, like a pair of daggers jabbed into his eyes. There was a smell with it, and a touch like a tiny hand on his forehead, brushing at his hair, warm and gentle, soothing. It made him want to fall asleep again, if only a twinge.

On the outside of his face the world was washed in the brightness of a cold morning, birds and insects taking to flight after an evening's rest. After a moment of listening to the slow, labor-some stirring of the day, he opened his sapphire eyes to the cloud covered sky, blinking at the familiar face of a five year old who looked down at him expectantly. He sighed and rolled away from her, ignored the smile on her lips, and made to curl himself around Allen, snuggle close, and wake up when the sun was much, much higher than it was.

His hands found empty air.

The Japanese man jerked up suddenly, blinking, but slumped back down again when the sky began to turn over him, clouds on his left moving with the horizon out of sight. When his face came once again into contact with his pillow he became aware of how thirsty he was, like he hadn't had anything in days, and ran a hand over his face, willing himself not to faint. He had to find Allen. He needed to speak to Juliana so she could help. He had to get up and _move_, even if he felt like his body was about to fall apart into at least six pieces.

"Love?" The word drew his eyes up to a pair of dirty, bare feet by his head, just next to the bedroll. He didn't have to follow the legs upward – Allen bent to look at him, petting the bangs from his forehead, and grinned at the shock that blossomed on his lover's face. Kanda reached out and touched his cheek, to see if it was really there.

"Che. Since when are you better?" He sounded like a he had tried to swallow Mugen.

"Since last night. Come on, up you go…" Allen's hands pushed him back to sitting, one holding his shoulders, the other clamped on his right arm. The girl at his side gave him a blindingly bright smile and offered him a cup of water, which he accepted without word. While he sipped it, Allen went about tugging the shirt from his shoulders, sliding it from his arms as he talked on, conversationally. "I never knew you liked sleep so much. Yesterday morning I thought you'd died on me, but you were breathing, and Raph said you weren't in any trouble, so—"

Kanda shivered and his free hand ran through his almost greasy hair, not yet registering what Allen was saying. His brain felt a bit like it was on overload. "How long did I sleep?" The question made the white haired Exorcist smile.

"About thirty hours?"

"Che." He brought the water once again to his lips and downed it, eyes glancing about the camp before they came back to his lover, almost as a glare. Allen studied him with a gaze so bright and clear he almost trembled at it, the sunlight glimmering metallically from those worried, rested eyes, snow white from his hair. Without much more than a sigh he reached out and took a firm hold of Allen's right arm and jerked him forward, laying his head on the younger man's shoulder in a half-formed hug. The British boy didn't respond for a moment, but recovered enough to return the embrace, fingers trailing the bare skin of his lover's spine.

"Is something wrong, Love?" Allen's voice was so soft, it made Kanda close his eyes, if only for a moment.

He mumbled something, but it was lost in Allen's hair.

"Hm?"

He nuzzled more closely, spirals of goosebumps running up his arms to his neck. His stomach growled. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sleep that long." He repeated, laying his lips on his lover's throat. His sweep of the camp had proved it more or less empty – only Juliana and Rina remained, and where the others had gone he couldn't tell – so he was not too worried about that tiny show of affection. "Did you hold up alright?"

Allen hummed, laying his arms over Kanda's shoulders, and smiled. "I wore your jacket all day yesterday. It made me feel better."

Kanda chuckled, pulling back to look once again at those loving silver eyes with a smile. He didn't speak, only leaned down to kiss Allen almost shyly on the lips, somehow finding the will to ignore the little sound of disgust Juliana made at his side. Allen giggled into the touched and tried to withdraw, but the Japanese man followed him back, dragging him onto the outside of the bedroll to pin him on it, touching as if the five year old beside them had not begun to groan in earnest. By the time he pulled back Allen was tugging him closer rather than pushing away, an enduring smile on his face.

"Moyashi-_kun_."

Allen obliged him grinningly before he spoke, trailing his fingers across the back of Kanda's neck. "Yes, Kanda?"

"We should get to town."

"You wake up and that's the first thing on our minds?"

"What is?"

"A room and a bed?"

"No. That's where everyone else will be," Kanda said logically, laying his hands to either side of Allen's face. There was a palm on his chest, lingering, and another toying with the leather of his belt. "I told you, two weeks."

"Two weeks, what?" Allen's expression fell, his fingers slowed.

"That I'm not laying down for you."

Allen pouted at him, tugging on his clothes for a moment. "But… you know what day that is, Kanda?" He pulled more surely, but he didn't attempt to slide his fingers anywhere questionable. The man above him cocked an eyebrow, obviously not caring in the slightest. "It'll be six months." He said flatly. Kanda's eyes went wide, his head a little lower toward his lover's. The curtain of hair that fell around them served to block them from Juliana's eyes, not that she didn't know what they were doing anyways. "Do you really… not… want…"

"You remembered." Kanda cut him off, his fingers curling in the fabric over Allen's chest. For a moment the silver eyes he looked at almost laughed, then they vanished, closed for a kiss so deep it left him panting. When the contact broke he didn't move very far, instead he stayed as close as he could without actually touching, right hand on the curve of Allen's cheek. "Good wife."

"It's Allen." His voce was exceedingly soft.

"I guess we'll see who breaks for the occasion, won't we?"

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than Allen's right hand had crossed the line of his belt, stiffening every muscle from the tip of his toes to the base of his skull. He didn't move for fear someone might see, especially Juliana. The warmth of fingers wrapped expertly around the base of his manhood forced a gasp from his lips. He didn't know what Allen was doing with his hand perfectly still, but he could feel the results of it with only a moment's observation.

"Moya—"

"The way I see it, Love," The British boy smirked at him. "We can spend that _entire_ day doing anything we want, however we want. I could spend and hour just _squeezing_ you, if we wanted."

"Allen… you're making me…"

"Hard?" There was something distinctly dangerous about his voice. "Oh, I know. You've been _out_ for a while, so I suggest a little workout in the shrubbery, if you aren't _too_ hungry…" He could see Kanda's fingers twitching on the bedroll and he made to say something smart – but something unexpected stopped him. Kanda's arms lowered him downward, trapping Allen's hand flat, unable to hold on the way he had been; teeth pressed hungrily into the British boy's flesh and he gasped at it, perfectly incapable of pushing his lover away with his arm constrained between then. "Kan-Kanda!" The call was louder than he meant it, but the man over him still did not stop until he needed air.

"Do _not_," Kanda mumbled between nibbles. "Even. Try."

Allen growled lowly, left hand clawing weakly at Kanda's shoulder, yet he still smiled, even when the larger man didn't move. After a moment he sighed and tilted his head back, allowing Kanda to lick and bite to his heart's desire. "That feels…" His arms went to jelly, _"So_ amazing…" He shivered for a moment while he worked his left hand into Kanda's hair and pulled from the roots, dragging his mouth away. For a moment he thought the samurai might not get the hint, but the Japanese man withdrew, slowly.

"Che. _Child_, Moyashi." He was sitting, Allen's hand drifting out of his pants as surreptitiously as it had gone in, but the British boy didn't move from his place on the ground. His round quicksilver eyes watched Kanda stretch and push back the covers, healthy and wakeful and dashing in the morning light. Without even a glance at Juliana he reached out and laid his right palm flat against his lover's stomach. "What?"

"Having one of those moments."

"Moments?"

"You're…" He paused, trying to find a word Kanda wouldn't mind the use of. "Hm. I like how you look? That doesn't sound right. I want to call you beautiful… or pretty… but…" Kanda's stomach growled against his fingers and he smiled, giving it a little pat. "Breakfast!"

"I'm breakfast?"

"If you insist…"

"We have aloo poha!" Juliana enthused from just beside them. The two looked at her, Kanda with raised eyebrows, Allen with a disbelieving sort of sag to his mouth. She bounced to her feet – nearly as tall as Allen was sitting – and grabbed Kanda by the shoulder. "Would Pretty like some aloo poha?"

"Aloe poo?"

"Aloo poha." Allen repeated, a smile spreading across his lips. "It's Indian. It's really good. I don't know if you'll… like it… being it's not… boring." Allen smiled at the word, as if the expression made it sound less drab. Kanda's expression immediately called him stupid. "Trust me?"

"Che. I'll eat it if it's food."

"_Yay!"_ Juliana bounced away toward the fire, louder than any child her size should have been. Kanda watched her go, a tiny, half formed smile glimmering in his eyes.

* * *

'_Lavi?'_

'_Hm?'_

_It was Crowley's castle and they were grave digging. Two coffins left._

'_You have to remember. Soon.'_

'_Something of Tyki's?'_

'_Yeah. If you keep holding off, the dark will take you.'_

'_What do you mean by that, Allen?'_

_His shovel hit something hard, but Allen kept digging as if he hadn't heard it, cracking the wood. The redhead stopped and stared at the corpse he revealed – glassy eyed and comparatively fresher than the others. It was wrong. Allen paused, looking at him with eyes too much like the body's._

'_You'll get stuck like you did before. It will chip away at you. You might go nuts.'_

'_I've been through a lot. It'll take more than memories to make me go nuts.'_

'_So you could remember someone else's rape and not let it bother you?'_

_His fingers tensed on his gardening tool and Allen smiled, lifted his shovel once more. The white haired Exorcist savagely stabbed into the flesh of the corpse beneath them, nearly severing the head. Struck for a moment by such a show of violence, Lavi was speechless, and stepped away into the dirt._

_He knew that body's face. He had looked at that face a lot since he joined the order, seen it glare more than most, watched it cry. But he had never seen it dead before – never seen the throat beneath it expose every tendon and vein and artery – and seeing it now made him shiver. This was his best friend, dead, and his little brother chopping off his head with a smile._

_His stomach churned._

'_What is this? Why am I here?' He stepped back again when Allen stepped once more on the back of the shovel's head, grimacing. 'What are you doing?!'_

_Allen looked at him and smiled sweetly, pulled his blooded tool from the grave and turned it over, laying his right hand on the spade's edge. The blood was too fresh. That body had been living._

'_This is a dream, Lavi. This is how it starts. You are here because your own memories bleed into his sometimes. And I, as you see me, am burying the dead.' He turned back to the bloodied corpse with a melancholy smile, 'I'll miss him.'_

_Lavi choked._

'_Too bad, really.' His neck turned toward the voice and the brutalized body in the coffin, and nearly screamed to see those once sapphire eyes gone white, long ebony tresses thinned unhealthily. The corpse – Kanda's corpse – smiled at him. 'I always wanted to be cremated.'_

* * *

The cafeteria was not yet packed with people, not in the time between lunch and dinner. Inside the thick stone walls of the tower people went about scurrying to do paperwork, run tests, bathe – completely oblivious to the world outside. They were insects, foraging and fighting for their queen, only mildly annoyed that he had picked this moment to nap. Unseen by the scientist-insects, beyond the stone confines of the Order, the fires of twilight burned the sky a hew of orange that was not quite red, and dyed the clouds a delicate pink like roses and in the distance, a spiral of strange gray fog warned of rain, not that any of them cared. They were much too busy. All of them except for one.

"I'll have…" Science Department Chief Reever leaned into the ordering window and scratched the quarter inch of stubble on his chin as he thought. He looked more awake than usual – he was even down to eat at something resembling mealtime. "Steak and onions. You know the fixings." He waved at Jerry, who nodded, leaning on the counter so his hair fell to either side of his shoulders, shirt more or less open. The Australian man shifted under his scrutiny, stuck between walking away and asking him what he wanted.

"That darling new Exorcist, the one sitting next to Lavi – ugh he's asleep again – do you know what she asked me today?" He smiled almost too sweetly.

"What?"

"She ordered soba and tempura and dango, and a side for her pet, and then asked…" He lingered on it, a smile slowly spreading across his lips. "Who you killed."

"Excuse me?" Reever blinked a number of times and his stomach rumbled. How hard was it to just get a meal and move on?

"Because you're Australian. She thought that maybe you had killed someone to be—"

"I'm a Dutch colonist."

"Officially."

The scientist groaned.

"You should talk to her – at least a little. Enough to stop her curiosity."

"She's a psychologist, Jerry. If she wants to look at me and decide if I'm a murderer—"

"Or a tax evader—"

"Or a thief or a rapist, that's fine, doesn't change the official story. I don't care."

The Indian man sighed, turning at last to his dishes. Reever did not move, instead he glanced over his shoulder and leaned closer, listening to what the cook mumbled into his cookery. "She asks a lot of questions, that girl. I know she only wants to be friendly, but it's unnerving. There is one nice thing about it all though."

"What's that? Her bloody croc?"

Jerry frowned. "No. She asks questions, but the answers don't affect her, see?" He pointed with a chopstick and the scientist turned. Yumeko was seated squarely next to Tyki, seemingly unbothered by his status, braiding the tassel that hung down her left side while her basilisk curled on the table, resting it's head on Lavi's across from them. She didn't seem to care that it was so close to a Noah and a potential traitor at once. "Before she went to see them, she asked all _sorts_ of questions. How many people has he killed, how long has Lavi been with us, how old are they, have either of them been different since they came back… but she still…"

"Acts exactly the opposite of how you think she would?"

"_Smiles."_

Reever chuckled, turning completely away from the window to stare unabashedly at the woman who was now attempting to braid Lavi's hair without waking him, the Noah beside her feeding her Innocence without touching it directly. "It makes you miss Allen, doesn't it?"

"Of course it does!" Jerry burst over the sound of clattering dishes. "If she ate more I'd be in tears!"

The scientist laughed, at ease with the scent of cooking beef in his nostrils. "The three of them like that, you could almost image that he's normal."

"Lavi?"

"No."

"You could almost imagine that it's Kanda-kun… if she weren't smiling."

Reever laughed. "I think that's easier for you."

"Oh, shush!"

"How's that steak coming?"

"Ten minutes?"

"Great." _I can take a standing nap while I wait._

* * *

**Love. Love. Love. Protect. Love…**

It was an ongoing chant in the back of his mind and it made him smile, if only a little. This girl – no matter how flirtatious she was – could not compete with the darling way Lavi slept against the table, both arms on the flat surface, spine bent at an angle that would leave him arthritic by the time he was thirty. The red of his hair didn't make his face look pale for once, and the green of his headband was just the correct shade in the light to strike a contrast. There was something simple and nice about the moment, something delicate and warm, and his fingers sliding through those oddly colored locks made him smile. His heart felt inexplicably light.

Yumeko was talking, as always, but he didn't have ears for it. He was listening to his own thoughts more than anything else, just because they were so different.

The Innocence on the table – Herth – didn't bother him. The Noah was willing to ignore it if he could just sit here and pet his lover's hair, fed and satisfied. It was also willing to ignore every pair of staring eyes in the room. They didn't mean anything by it, they simply didn't trust him. Yet.

_I should take him outside._  
**Find a tree—**  
_To sit under._  
**Of course. Have your way, I am satisfied.**  
_Terribly noisy for that._  
**I want to protect him.**

"Tyki, you're spacing…" Yumeko comment softly from his side. He cracked a smile at it.

"Thinking." He corrected. "I like to think while he sleeps." His fingers paused for a moment, and changed angles, drifting down the back of the boy's neck to the finer hairs. Those were softer, if he could get to them under the band of cloth. "I doubt I will have the opportunity to think quite so clearly in a month, so I take my time now."

Yumeko made a face but he didn't see it, lips drawn into a pout. "What will happen in a month?"

Tyki smirked. "I may have to hurt him."

"You're whole mental order astounds me." She said almost absentmindedly. "You love him, so you want to keep him safe and hurt him, and at the same time you want to kill people. It's more confusing than he is."

"I'm broken, in the simplest of terms."

"See, I don't get that either." She went on, mashing her food on her plate with a chopstick. Soggy tempura was gross tempura. "I was told that a Noah wears away at its host until the host isn't the person they were. So how are _you_ two people?"

"I am one person. I have two sides."

"Same thing."

"Not at all." He shook his head. "If I were two people I would not be here. I would have stayed in an effort not to lose either of the things I lost in coming here. Because I am one person I was capable of giving them up to save the one thing both parts share. Him."

"You don't talk like you have multiple personalities…"

"Because I do not."

She sighed. "In any case, you should wake him up and take him back to his room. He seems worn out."

"He needs to work on his stamina."

"Stami—hahaha! You're funny, if a little perverted."

He tilted his head a little to the side, an expression like amusement playing on his features. "Thank you. I believe that no one here has given me credit for the second of those as of yet, it is nice to hear it once again. But now," He stood slowly, laying a hand on Lavi's shoulder. "We should go back. I apologize on his behalf; it was rude of him to fall asleep when you are supposed to be analyzing his mind."

"That's ok!" She chimed with enthusiasm. Her right hand caught Herth around the middle and situated him on her shoulder, hissing and nipping at her until he seemed secure. She nuzzled her chin into the top of the lizard's head, seeming not to notice. "If I get to know you, I get to know him. Sorta. I mean, your brain and his brain are a lot like the same brain – which is really cool being I've never even thought of something like this before – so your brain and his brain are both things I'm interested in. Besides, how many people can say that they looked at a man who claimed to have a light and a dark and only saw different shades of gray?" She smiled at his confusion and ignored the fact that Lavi had blinked his eye open, a foggy, confused expression on his face. "You're not insulted when I tell you that, right?"

"Not at all." His right hand moved gently to Lavi's cheek, his expression gentle. "He is much the same."

"I hate sleeping." Lavi growled, pushing himself up into a more or less sitting position. He yawned, dragging his lover's hand from his shoulder to hold onto it, the table between them. "Dreams are freaky."

"Remembering?" Yumeko asked without pause.

He shook his head. "I need to remember some stuff. Mostly not my stuff… then maybe I can start dreaming like normal again. My head feels fuzzy." He blinked a few times then rubbed at his face, trying to appear more awake than he felt. It didn't work. "Maybe I need sunlight, too." It made Tyki smile.

"I doubt they will let me out the front door, but we could try the roof if you want." Tyki offered, squeezing the boy's hand. After a moment the apprentice Bookman sagged against the tabletop again, a tiny smirk on his lips.

"'Kay. You can carry me whenever you're ready."

"Lavi…"

"Mmm… the horrors of sleep. Oh save me."

"Lavi."

"Oooh… naked Ty-chan… Ima like this one…"

The Noah shook his head for a moment, fighting down a look of amusement. His fingers played for a moment on his lover's then traveled up to his wrist, circling it slowly. No one but Yumeko would notice such a seemingly innocent gesture, and he doubted she would speak of it, not until later at least. "I hope you are satisfied with dreams; it is all you will have for the rest of the day i—"

"I'm awake!" Lavi said at once, jerking back with his hand enough just too feel the resistance. Leaning heavily on his left leg he pushed himself up and limped over the bench; Tyki held his wrist for a moment, not willing to let it fall, and the two looked at each other, Lavi's eyebrows held thoughtfully midway to his headband. "Hey… I have an idea…" He looked from Yumeko to Tyki and back again – Herth made a disgruntled sound that warranted a glance as well – and then he smiled, almost too brightly to not give reason. "I'm not so sure ya wanna hear this, Meko-chan."

She laughed, tilting her head to the side. "I'm married. Anything you say will be old news."

"Oh. Right." He didn't trust that assumption. "We can get a blanket and go on the roof and… maybe…"

"Engage in sweet, romantic lovemaking beneath the velvet and silver canopy of the night sky?" Yumeko said a bit too happily, eyes almost starry. Lavi bit his lips in an effort not to laugh. She looked like Yuu but when she said things like that, he was sure the two hated each other. "Oh! You should take food with you! Strawberries and chocolate are a classic! Or you could take ice cream, you can work it into some shapes that will leave you both breathless." She grinned, nodding to herself. A Finder walking behind her gave a look that said a thousand words but she didn't see it, so continued unabated. "Honey is another good one – just don't try to use it _too_ intimately. Sticky, smelly, might make you sick… um… counting stars is always fun. Or picking out shapes. If it's cloudy you cou—"

"It's gonna rain." The voice was sure enough that she stopped, looking over her shoulder at a blond man in his middle to late twenties, holding a plate of steak and onions and potatoes and salad, a cup balanced delicately on the side. "No use goin' outside." _Get near someone who thinks I killed somebody and me brain goes dumb._ Reever thought with an internal scowl. A grin leapt across his face as he sat down, lifting a fork almost violently. "I suggest the library. Or as _far away_ from the Supervisor's office as possible."

"Thanks, Reever." Lavi smiled. For a moment he thought about pulling his hand away from Tyki's, if only for appearance sake, but decided against it, knowing none of them cared. "Why should I avoid Komui's office?"

Reever gulped steak, still rushing even when he was early for dinner. "Bookman's been whining to him a lot recently. I don't think you want to see him for a while, right? Well, at least that's how it's seemed. None of my business either way." Potatoes and onion gone, he really was mean to his digestive system. "But the guy's made himself Komui's tumor until further notice – or you see him."

"How's Komui taking it?"

"Expect a robot within the week."

"Great…"

Yumeko's face became suddenly horrified. "Not the caffeine drinking kind, I hope."

"Guaranteed to be."

"Maybe if I pray hard enough, I can get my first mission by then. Lower fatality rate."

Lavi chuckled. "Just don't let him dart you – everything will be fine." With that simple instruction he tugged on Tyki's arm, stepping back from the table with a tiny smile. Yumeko gave him a look that was somewhere between gentle and encouraging but didn't speak, while Reever rolled his eyes a little; the last thing he needed was to be left _alone_ with someone who was on to him. After a moment the redhead flashed his teeth at the two and tugged again, hoping Tyki would drag him away toward the bedroom.

"By the way…" Reever mumbled through a mouthful of food. "I've been wondering, you gonna get your Innocence back? Or do you wanna wait until things die down a little? Helve doesn't care either way, I've just never seen you so calm without it." His eyes flicked from Herth to Tyki and back to Lavi, words forming on his lips without pause. "And _you_ don't seem to mind it."

Tyki smiled pleasantly, his hand squeezing a bit on Lavi's. "Active it gives me a headache worth killing to get rid of. Shall we?" He took a step away from the bench and Lavi moved with him, not letting their hands fall apart until he was close enough to take the Noah by the elbow. Anger. It seeped from his lover in almost palpable waves, making his own hands shake with it. He wondered if it was Reever, or Herth, or Yumeko, or a combination of all three, but he didn't ask. Instead he guided them out of the cafeteria and toward the stairs without word, intent on climbing up them until they were far enough away from everyone else to be noisy, and then he would—

"Lavi." He realized then that they were already on the stairs, heading swiftly toward another floor, faster than he thought they would.

"Hm?" _How long have I been lost in my thoughts?_

"This is far enough, I am not that angry." He stopped them on a landing, pushing Lavi against the wall with a little more force than necessary. The hand that had twined around his arm caught on his shoulder, pushing back just enough for him to feel resistance, just enough to wake a little thrill in his mind. It wasn't the dark that liked it, either. "More annoyed, actually."

"Why's that?" Lavi pulled him close suddenly, leaning into the wall. That way, Tyki found it hard to be annoyed at anything but his own self control.

**He's well, you know…**  
_Oh, shut up._  
**You thought it first. Not my problem.**  
_Yeah well, I don't need you to echo my thoughts for me. I'd like to talk to him, not just…_  
**Fuck him into this wall?**  
_Stop. It._  
**If you want me to, why are you smiling?**

"Tyki?"

The Noah lurched forward a little and kissed the redhead, rocking on his toes until a muffled hum brought him to a halt. It was enough. He would be happy with this. He wouldn't do anything. "He addressed me rather rudely… and bringing you Innocence into it... I could… I want to…" He didn't finish, instead he pulled back with a sigh. "It isn't important. I wouldn't do that, no matter how much you used it." Another kiss, longer, and Lavi wasn't pushing him away, instead he was pulling them closer. A pair of arms twined around his hips and tilted them forward, drawing him into a strange sort of embrace, Lavi's tongue encouraging him. When he pulled away, a soft smile spread across his lover's lips, almost hungrily. He smirked at it, but didn't start again, choosing instead to let the younger man lay his face on the side of his shoulder.

"I love you." Lavi dragged them closer, effectively pinning himself between the larger man and the wall. He felt safe that way, with the wall behind him. "And I know you wouldn't. You know how much it means to me."

"Lavi…" Tyki drew back and said his name with little more than a brush of his lips against the skin of his lover's cheek, creating a line of goosebumps to his shoulder. A great sigh shook him and he moved forward again, pulling the redhead flush so he could bury his face in his hair, grinning. "How come you trust me so much?"

"Yer dumb." Lavi squeezed his waist as if to reassure himself.

"That's a stupid reason."

"Never mind. You wanna go to the roof?" He looked up at his lover but did not bother smiling, it seemed like too strong an expression. "Maybe just until it rains?"

"Is there something you want to do there?" Tyki questioned with a gentle lift of his lips.

"Yeah. I wanna remember."

"Oh?"

"I had a dream in the cafeteria. And I got lost in your thoughts coming up here. And I'd like to be someplace no one can hear me screaming." The curious eyebrow Tyki raised made him laugh awkwardly. "I meant from the memories."

Tyki surprised him by yanking away from the wall and back down the stairs, moving on hurried feet. He spoke as soon as he saw Lavi's frown. "If they will make you scream, dear… I think it might be best to… muffle them, rather than move them."

"You mean…"

"And this way…" His feet slowed as if volume and speed were directly related, his feet touching a little more strongly on the steps than usual. His hand clamped on Lavi's, but it was yet unclear to him who he was reassuring. The apprentice Bookman would know what he wanted, he knew what he wanted, but part of him questioned the sincerity of it, his ability to truly feel what he meant to. There was a large difference in his mind, usually, between the black and the white, but he couldn't distinguish them with those two ideas playing around each other in his head, frolicking like playful children. They both – even the good – liked it. It made him shiver.

"This way what?" Lavi prodded, coming up beside him.

"We do not have to get wet."

**Liar.**_  
I'd rather say that than be honest._  
**Just tell him. He understands me.**

"Right." Lavi said disbelievingly. _I know you better than that, Ty-chan, but it's fine. We all have our secrets._

* * *

The sun was just a few degrees short of its zenith when Kanda shrugged on his coat, thanked Rina, and attempted to slip away with Allen without anything more. That, however, was not how the world worked. It was against the laws of the universe for him to get away with something as simple and logical as a stealthy escape. It was also, it seemed, against them to leave Juliana without making her cry.

The girl, whom he had come to hate more and more by the day, no longer clung to any of her family members demurely or pouted at him like he were mean. She hung on the fabric of his coat, crying, but her lip stayed firmly tucked against her teeth, refusing to let it tremble. Her large brown eyes glimmered nearly red in the sunlight, the tears on her cheeks like liquefied mirrors, and her tiny hands clamped like vice grips on his clothes, holding him two steps away from the road. There was something uncharacteristically annoying about her little round face at that moment, and it wrenched at something in his chest to look at it. It made it hard to glare. It made it impossible to drag his feet from the ground and just leave her.

As did the knowledge that if he did, Allen would kill him.

The British boy was watching him from perhaps six feet away, wearing what Rina had deemed as a shirt Raph did not need and sporting a small pack filled with food. Kanda glanced at him for a moment – noted the disgusting glimmer of tears in his eyes – and sighed. A crying child, Allen in a shirt that left a good portion of his chest showing, a vow of celibacy – today was not his day. Today was the day he needed to learn to control the anger roiling violently through his gut, and fight down the urge to kill/maim/sooth the two sobbing individuals nearest him. If it didn't kill him, he would get through this. He had to.

"Pretty…" Juliana bit her lip as soon as the word was out of her mouth, fighting its continued shaking. Her hands let go of his jacket and she threw herself at him, hooking her short little arms around his knees, and sobbed. It didn't matter how she fought it, she was crying. "Why do Pretty and Mosagi have to leave?! You shouldn't get to leave! You owe me a day!" She leaned up higher, rocking against his legs, and rubbed the left side of her face against him in attempt to wipe her tears. It failed. "You slept _FOREVER_ and didn't get to do _ANYTHING_ with you! Didn't even get to play with your hair!" She looked up then, anger hiding the sadness in her eyes. "If I were taller… I'd… I'd…"

Kanda closed his eyes and, swallowing, and bent to his right knee, taking the little girl by the shoulders. If he was angry or sad or what he didn't know. It just felt right. "Che. If you were taller?"

"I'd…"

"Finish your sentence?"

"Pretty is mean to me!!"

"Sorry, sorry." He patted the top of her head with his right hand, turning his face to his. Her lip twitched at him. "What would you do?"

She bit herself again, realizing that they were face to face, regardless of her height. For a moment she seemed to think about it, and her hands moved to his hair, just nicely enough to hold onto it without crushing it. He didn't pull away, so she leaned in further, her face mere inches from his. "I'd…" Her eyes darted back and for from his left to his right, the tears slowing. "Do something… seme…y…" She finished at last. Kanda blinked for a moment at the word, not knowing what she meant, and a shy, small, inexperienced pair of lips connected with his cheek. He bit his tongue to keep from smiling.

Allen made a sound that was too much like a giggle and a defensive growl morphed into one, so he fought to stifle it with his right hand. It did not work; Juliana looked up at him with big round eyes and frowned, her hands not moving from Kanda's hair.

"Chu?" She whispered softly.

Kanda couldn't hold it in. He laughed. "Gaki…"

"Hm?"

"I'm not good at this… but…" He pointed a thumb at Allen and let his expression fall, eyes narrowed. "I already have a _seme_."

"Love! I'm—"

The glare stopped Allen. The Japanese Exorcist gave the dark skinned girl another little pat and looked back at her, smoothing her hair. "But I'll be your _nakama_, alright?"

"Naked mama?"

"_Nakama._" He corrected softly. "It means friend, even if I go away or die."

"Oh." She sniffed deeply, tugging on his hair. "Will I see you again? Pretty Naked Mama?"

"_Nakama!"_

"Hee."

He sighed at her and tugged her hands from his hair, then tried to push himself to standing. He didn't make it. She stepped away slightly, but held his jacket when he tried to move too far for her liking. The anchor of her fingers tightened until he touched them, then loosened dramatically. "Che. When you learn how to suck it up, come find me."

"Ok. You're whole name's Kadna Love Yuu, right?"

"Kanda."

"Kanda. Ok. I'll look when my eyes can breathe water." She smiled brightly, cocking her head to the side. It took all of Kanda's self control not to tense when she wound her arms around his neck in a hug, and then a small scrap of compassion he didn't know he had to return the embrace. After a long moment he pulled back and she grinned at him, letting her fingers fall away from his hair to her sides. A few blinks and he stood, bringing her once more to eye level with his kneecaps.

"Che." He managed not to frown. "By the time you're that old, I'll have retired to a quite place in England if I have my way. Doubt he'll let me though." His face cracked in a crooked grin, showing a line of white teeth behind his upraised lip. She returned the expression as best as her little round face could, which left her somewhere between a smile and a scowl – Allen almost laughed at it. The samurai stepped away from the little girl, tucking his coat and setting his jaw, and started across the road toward his lover, averting his eyes from the shorter man's expression. He was halfway there when he heard her.

"_Je vais vous voir, joli."_

_She even calls me Pretty when she says goodbye._

"Hn." He didn't turn to look, just waved a hand over his shoulder, Allen caught his other as soon as he could, but turned despite it, waving back at Juliana over his shoulder.

"Thank you for everything!"

"Bye-bye... Mo…yashi?!"

"_It's Allen!"_

* * *

The fact that the room was packed to brimming was the only thing that kept Hiroko from killing him on sight. Too many bodies between the door and the bar – the floor would be so bloody she'd slip before her sword pierced his flesh. Her murderous look, however, was enough to make a clear path for her dirty feet to pass through, unhindered by limbs and chairs. Silence settled over the room but for two men, joking loudly at the bar.

"You've only become worse over the years, I swear. I haven't seen you oozing masculinity this badly since I met you."

There was a low growl. "I'm not manly. I am clean and distinctly masculine."

"Right. If you were any manlier, _I_ would be attracted to you. And I'm a straight, married man."

"Say that again and I'll shoot you."

"How's the hair working for you? It seems kind of… long."

Another growl, and the slap of glass on wood. Wings took to flapping at the intrusion. "The ladies like something to run their hands through, ya know? And pull." He winked. Hiroko didn't need to see it to know that he had winked.

Hiroko was behind him faster than she could will herself not to be. Every fiber of her being urged her to jab her short sword through the back of his neck and end it – forget whatever conversation he was having, the fucker deserved it – but she didn't. Instead, in a moment of not thinking, she elected to do the exact opposite; make him die slowly, of embarrassment.

Sable and Hitori – who had been behind Hiroko until the point when she stepped in the gap she had made with her glare – looked at each other with knowing expressions from the door way. If Hiroko was going to touch him, he was going to suffer, or she was going to cave. They hoped it was the latter.

The arms that curled slowly down around Cross's shoulders almost made him tense, but the familiar smell of Hiroko stopped him. He looked backward just as she craned her neck over his shoulder and smiled at him, expression dark.

"Well, speak of the devil."

"Is this your—"

"Daughter." Hiroko chimed at once. Sable chomped down on her tongue in an effort to keep from barking out a laugh. Hitori cringed beside her. Hiroko smiled sweetly at the horrified expression on the General's face and kissed him lightly on the cheek, almost shy with the touch. "Tell me, Papa, what made you leave me and your grandson out in the woods with those akuma? Surely it wasn't something as stupid and annoying and fucking bastardly as sneaking away to fornicate with an old bald drinking buddy, eh? Yes, I said fornicate. You'd make an adorable couple, Papa, if you weren't quite so hairy. I know how it is though, men like to hold on while they ride the Mari-Go-Round, ne? Ho ho ho. I've never seen you turn _quite_ that shade of purple, Papa, did I say something wrong? I see. You didn't want him to know about your dealings with women, did you? I'm such a terrible bitch for not noticing." She withdrew a little, looking at the dark, hairless man that sat beside them. "And who are you? A cue ball impersonator?"

"Raphael Delacroix," The man took Hiroko's hand before Cross could even grumble a retort to her actions. "All these years that I've known Marian he never told me he had a daughter." The back of her hand came to his lips, just so she could feel it, and then he laid it softly on the countertop. "And such a beautiful young one at that. Should have told me sooner, I'm taken as it is."

She laughed amiably. "Amazing. Who would have thought, even a bowling ball can find a women and Papa here," She patted Cross' chest firmly. "Has been celibate for nearly a year now. Not a girl to put out for him s'far as the eye can see." She shook her head sadly, but her eyes were smiling. "At this rate, he might yet turn into a real priest!"

"_Hiroko."_ The General said her name gruffly, his fingers reaching for the collar of her yukata. She gave him an innocent little frown when he touched her clothes.

"Yes, Papa?"

"_I am going to make you suffer for this."_

"Oh? Punishment?"

His eyes narrowed, eyebrows twitched, and his hand jerked forward, lifting the short woman from the floor and into his lap. To his surprise she didn't fight him, just grabbed his arms in an effort to keep from falling. "Tell him the truth."

"The truth?"

"If you don't, I'll kiss you."

"Ew!"

He leaned in.

"Fine! You Goddamn man-whore! Jesus!" She caught him by his forehead and pushed him back, looking a Raphael. "I'm not his daughter. I'm his sister."

"_Hiro!"_

"I'm an acquaintance." She blurted, smashing him nearly off the barstool. "No relation. And he's a – _you fucking pervert! Get your hand off of my shirt!_" She recoiled off of Cross' lap, slapping at his hands. When she was firmly on the floor her hands came down on the bar, rattling the glasses. "The questions still stand, by the way."

"What questions?"

Her glare did not seem to affect him. "This is the fourth bar I've been too! Why the fuck did you leave us there!?"

He raised an eyebrow at her outburst and smiled. "Tim noticed that Raph was in the area, so I arranged to meet him here. I wasn't going to search for you and your woman-son if it meant missing our chance to talk. His father was a great magician and my filthy apprentice can take care of his filthy self, I wasn't even worried." He looked her up and down, eyes pausing at her feet. "Speaking of filthy…"

"Shut up." She seethed at him. "We're getting rooms. You haven't heard from Whore-chan or Baka-Yuu yet?"

He shook his head, shrugging.

"Great." She sighed, turning to the barkeep. "Two rooms. Put it on his tab."

* * *

"Ty-chan, you're picky about _everything._"

The Noah grumbled at him, continuing to go through his clothes. "I am not picky."

"You're looking for a _sock._ Any sock will work."

"Not one with stains."

"They won't be seen."

"Not one with holes."

"Nothing will go through them."

"Not one that is perfect because you might destroy it."

"I will not."

"I was hoping you would have a color _besides_ orange."

"Oh. There should be some brown in there…"

"Ah! White!"

Lavi raised an eyebrow. "That's Yuu-chan's."

Tyki toward the bed and his lover, holding the white garment out as if it might give him a disease if he touched it too strongly, his expression became severe. The redhead he narrowed his gaze at reached out and grabbed his pillow, darting behind it as if it might protect him. It was stupid – Tyki could reach through it without thinking. The would have equal luck defending himself with his hair. "Tell me, Lavi," The Noah began softly. "How is that another young man's sock ended up in your drawer?"

"Eh…" Lavi tried to smile, but the expression only made his lip twitch. "It's not what you're thinking!"

"What am I thinking?"

"No idea!"

Tyki chuckled and Lavi went on.

"He took it off and left it here."

Tyki frowned deeply, drawing the unmated stocking over his fingers. He stepped forward, nearly to the bed, and made a glowering face at Lavi's lack of words. "Really?" He cocked an eyebrow. "Here I had thought it migrated all on its lonesome."

Lavi held the pillow more tightly. "No… he was visiting. He doesn't very often, but sometimes he does and… he just took off his shoes and socks while he was here. Don't ask me how he left without it. Maybe he left in a hurry or something." Tyki was at the edge of the bed, Lavi against the wall. "Oh! I stole his hair ties. That's why he came over. And I wouldn't give them back until he explained some stuff to me, so he took them off while we talked. When he left he carried his boots, it was late and he was tired." He paused, blinking at his lover's face. The sock was in a ball in his hand. "Trust me?"

Tyki smiled at him, knee coming up on the bed. "I never doubted you." Gently he held the sock out to Lavi, encouraging him to take it. A tentative hand caught the fabric and pulled it gently out of his hand, leaving his palm bare and upturned. He reached out and stroked Lavi's hair with it. "If you are very well done with confessing your lack of prior immorality, just slip that between your teeth and borrow my tie. No need to bind you. I doubt any memories of mine will make you fight, only speak."

Lavi nodded, pulling his lover's tie from around his neck as he did. The Noah kissed him deeply, laying the palm of his hand on the turn of the redhead's cheek. When he pulled back there was a strange quality to Lavi's expression, something soft, and it made him lift his lips in a nearly pained look of understanding. The Bookman apprentice took a firm hold on his shirt collar.

"No matter what kind of memories I get, black or white, I'll live. And I won't blame them on you. Okay?"

Tyki nodded, kissing one last time, and leaned into an odd sort of embrace, the pillow still between them. "I love you."

Lavi chuckled, gripping Yuu's sock in his hand. "I love you too. Ain't changing either."

"Try to remember something pleasant, hm?"

The redhead made a sound of agreement and brought the makeshift gag to his lips, feeling sick with himself. He would have to keep it from getting this bad again. He would have to live someone else's life more frequently. "If I need you… will you come get me?"

The Noah held his tie out expectantly. "The dark will."

* * *

It was after noon. The sun glimmered a bit to the west of the little tavern, shining light in the window like a smiling golden eye, hooded with clouds. The yellow light filtered green through the blue curtains, which turned Allen's white hair a shade like dying grass, and dyed his curse mark a hue like dried blood; Kanda didn't like the light. He did, however, like the mattress. Seeing Allen on the mattress, arms pillowed under his chin, made him like it even more. He just wished that they might be able to put it to some use, which he doubted would happen at this rate.

They had bee lucky to find a slightly less than sober Raphael on the road, heading back to his family with the supplies they needed to head south. The man had calmly directed them to _The Crow's Nest_, telling them that one General Cross Marian was waiting with a tab. And it was true. As soon as they entered, they knew it was from the ridiculous number of women fanning themselves at the bottom of the stairs.

But that had been at least two hours ago. Now, in the afternoon light, Allen slept with his arms gathered up under his face and his legs bent crookedly across the bed, it didn't really matter to Kanda that they had found everyone so easily. It only mattered how long Allen slept. With a slow, quiet sigh he sank down beside his lover and stretched out beside him, laying a casual arm over the younger's shoulders, pulling him close. The silver haired boy gave a little hum of appreciation and rolled to meet him, but did not bother to open his eyes.

Kanda chuckled at the soft entwining of limbs and the hushed proclamation of _mine_.

"Oi, Moyashi," He his white hair with a steady palm; a quicksilver iris met his gaze for a moment before falling shut again. "We should take advantage of the shower."

"Meh… we should take advantage of the skushy mattress." Allen mumbled back, dragging Kanda closer.

"Che. Sleeping on it his hardly taking advantage of it."

"I don't sleep well when you sleep too much."

Kanda chuckled, settling a little, and smirked at the expression his lover made. It was too cute to resist. "Shower first. You sleep better clean."

"No… if I get naked, I might give in."

"Give in?"

"Mmhmm. You might have slept _all_ of yesterday but… I didn't. I just watched you."

"That easy?"

"Shut up."

"Get up."

"Nu uh. I'm going to sit on this mattress and cuddle to my heart's content."

"Then I'll be in the shower, naked, and you'll be cuddling with yourself."

"Kanda… no fair…"

"Plenty fair. Come on, or I'll take off your clothes."

"_No…"_

"And lick you."

"Kanda."

The samurai leaned forward, hands sliding along Allen's shoulders to his arms, then down to his elbows. It was easy to do that with the younger lying half on his stomach. Tenderly he took each of his lover's wrists and brought them over his head and held them in his left hand, turning his lover with his free fingers and knee. The British boy looked up at him and frowned, but did not protest.

He got four buttons before Allen blinked.

"I told you." Kanda lowered his face just to Allen's but didn't move when those lips parted beneath his, inviting. "Shower now. Or I'll take off your clothes."

Allen growled up at him then threw his weight to his hips, forcing himself onto his side, and hooked Kanda's thigh with his right leg. With a groan and a hiss he turned himself over the Japanese Exorcist, ending with his hands intertwined with his lover's, lying across his chest. When he caught Kanda's lips he knew two weeks was far too long for either of them, especially with a mattress and a shower. The man beneath him relaxed immensely just as the thought passed his mind, and a hand pulled away to pull his face closer, cupping the base of his skull. He took his time picking the buttons of Kanda's shirt open one handed, letting his fingers touch the smooth skin beneath the fabric as he went, gently, taking the time to feel it quiver under his touch. By the time his lover's garment was hanging from his shoulders, his breath was growing harsh and a sound, quiet but still audible, had begun to ring in the very, very back of his head.

It sounded familiar.

"_Kanda."_ He said it with a shiver, shaking his head in an effort to clear his head. It reminded him of the time before, when his lover's hands had made his head sing with enjoyment, only it was different. This time, if he thought about, he might hear words. There had never been words.

"Che. What?" His voice was distinctly annoyed.

"Can you… hear that?"

"Hear what?"

Allen swallowed hard, trying to listen. "It's… a song…"

"No. I don't hear it." The samurai said softly, pushing Allen's bangs from his face. "Are you feeling alright?"

Allen shook his head, pulling away from the hand on his face. When he sat up entirely the sound faded to little more than a distant hum, just on the edge of awareness, but it was still there, where he could not pick out the melody. He sighed. "Maybe I'm more tired than I thought."

Kanda harrumphed at him, rising to his elbows. His sapphire eyes caught and held Allen's silver gaze, warm despite his expression, and flicked back and forth from left to right for a moment, seeming to search. "Che. I'll shower without you and wake you when I'm done. Maybe… if you're still like this…" He leaned upward, left hand closing on the blue ribbon around Allen's neck. "We can…"

Before they could touch Allen pulled away again, squinting.

"Che. What?"

Allen blinked repeatedly. "Nothing. Sorry, Love." His smile did not reach his eyes. He kissed shortly, leaned away again. "Go wash, I'll try to sleep."

Kanda nodded, feeling as if there was something missing from Allen's explanation, and pushed himself away. His hand touched his lover's face, tilting it upward. "If you aren't alright, tell me."

"I'll be ok."

"Promise?"

"Yeah. Sleep will help a lot, I think." His smile would have seemed natural, but Kanda knew it was only half felt. The British boy was transparent to him, every emotional mask little more than a veil of fog between them. It made Kanda's heart clench to think the younger Exorcist would try to lie to him with his face, if not his words.

"Che. If you hear something that's not there, you should think about meditating." He pulled away, standing on the carpeted floor just a few inches from the edge of the bed. Allen's eyes didn't leave him, so he went on. "After you sleep."

"Sleep, meditate, touch. Sounds like a good plan for the day."

They were the only words Kanda needed to walk away.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- OMAKE! Reever Special! -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -

When Lavi and Tyki were gone, Yumeko sat down again, turning sparklingly curious eyes to the Chief Science officer seated across from her. She blinked a few times, watching him inhale his food, before electing to just go for it; waiting never made asking any easier.

"So…" She began, twirling a chopstick in her fingers. "You're from Australia, right?"

He groaned, not really answering.

"And… it's been used as a penal colony for a while… so…"

He stopped eating.

"How'd they catch you?"

He looked up at her with tired eyes, lips turned down in a perfect fish mouth. "What are you talking about?"

Yumeko grinned from ear to ear at him, innocently. "You killed a guy didn't you? I'm curious how they found you out. Are you dumb? Or did they just—"

"I did not kill any guy."

She gasped. "You killed a woman!"

With a disgruntled expression he stabbed his steak and left the fork buried in it, running a hand through his perpetually messy hair. "Stop asking questions you don't need the answers to."

"Oh, but I want to know if you—"

"Drop it or I'll strangle you."

"Strangle me? Is that how you did it?"

"Yumeko." He deadpanned her name, folding his hands on the table. The Japanese woman blinked at him as if expected him to bare his soul for her pleasure, but that wasn't the idea he had in mind. She was smart enough to analyze people's minds but she was smart enough too understand a lot of things. Like how to be tactful. "Let's not get off on the wrong foot."

"Ok."

"The wrong foot is the one you're stepping on by asking, alright?"

She nodded in understand, expression falling. She pushed herself up, grabbing her bento box, and inclined her head to him, seeming solemn. "I'm sorry, I overstepped my bounds. I shouldn't poke my face into other people's business so soon."

"No worries." He managed a smile and picked up his fork again. If she were that quick to leave him be, she might be alright after all.

"Good." She stepped away a little with a lopsided smile. With a gentle wave she started away more quickly, but slowed to speak to him over her shoulder by the door. "I'll ask you tomorrow!"

The Chief suddenly lost his appetite.

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**Thanks for reading!**

**Reviews are LOVED! 8D**


	91. A Well Kept Vow

**I apologize in advance for the length of this chapter. It's more than 13k words. See Dark! I told you it would happen! :'(**

**There are a few confusing text things in here. When you see them and wonder **_why is that in bold?_ **remember how Tyki's mind works – or how it used to.**

**Disclaimer of D'lengthening madness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… The last manga chapter would have been a doujinshi. XD**

**WARNINGS: Mild violence. YAOI. MEN- LOVIN'-MEN. And stuff.**

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A Well Kept Vow

"Jessica."

"Fail."

"Olga."

"Fat."

"Phillip."

"No."

"Akiko."

"Too much Kiko."

"Kenji."

"Common."

"Yuki."

"Again."

"Asako."

"Bless you."

"Azrael."

"Creepy."

"Norm."

"Vomit."

"Aurora."

"That's better."

"Aki."

"Again with the ki."

"Velarius."

"Gag me."

"Rupert."

"These are getting worse."

"Murasaki."

"Quit it." Sable mumbled, elbowing Hitori lightly. The two were smashed almost too close together in their carriage, Allen and Kanda seated across from them, equally close. It had been fourteen long, arduous days since they had assembled in _The Crow's Nest_, and they were nearing the countries of the Near East at a pace that left them all wishing for a vacation. Listing potential names for unconfirmed but highly likely spawn was not helping to pass the time. Not with Kanda and Allen both sleeping soundly, unable to contribute, not that either of them knew what the names were for. "That's a ki name. And it means _purple_. I give up. You aren't naming any kids of mine."

"So what if it means purple?" Hitori frowned at Sable, tired features drawn, sagging more than the expression called for. "Mine means _alone_ and yours means _weasel_. Purple is way the fuck better than either of those, thanks."

"My name does _not_ mean _weasel_."

"Yes it does."

"It means dark."

"And weasel."

"Sables are not weasels."

"Same kingdom, phylum, class, order, and family."

"Which means they are _different_. My name is not weasel."

"No, but it _means_ weasel."

"Does _not_!"

"Does!"

"Not!"

"Does!"

"Not!"

"Does!"

"Che." The sound came from Kanda and the two looked at him at once, eyes round with fear. The samurai snuggled into his lover, eyes still closed, and draped an arm over the smaller boy's chest, the sword he held against him pressed between them.

Allen blinked his eyes open and leaned away a little, but stopped himself after a moment, gaze wandering to the two across from him. He smiled, but the expression was oddly empty, seeming forced. He breathed in deeply and ran his left hand – which Kanda was not pinned – through his hair before letting it out in a sigh, seeming to dispel a little of his sleepiness. The sunlight through the window helped to decrease the seemingly pale quality to his skin, but made him narrow his eyes, breaking the illusion of health.

With a shake of his head, he spoke. "How close are we?"

Hitori shrugged. "'Kaasan said we'd stop before nightfall."

Allen smiled wider. "Good."

"You both seem tired." Sable commented offhandedly, eyebrow raised. "You two didn't do something stupid to get hurt and not tell us, right?"

"No…" There was something left off, something incomplete. He pressed his lips together and looked at Kanda, then turned back to them, almost unsure. His hair fell in front of his eyes but he didn't stop it, electing to hide behind it like a veil rather than move it. "I'd like to ask your opinion of two things though, if you don't mind."

"Ok."

He bit his lip. "Are you crazy if you hear things that aren't there?"

"I abstain." Sable said at once. "I spent most of my life hearing other people's thoughts, I'm bias."

Hitori laughed, dragging his sheet of ebony hair of his shoulder. He started to braid it. "You could be, but I doubt it. Could be any number of things besides insanity. If you hear a sound too often your brain can reproduce it."

"Or synesthesia." Sable offered. "When one of your senses gets confused with another."

"How does that work?" Allen tired not to look too interested.

Sable shrugged. "Let's say your sense of touch and sound are confused, so when someone runs their fingers over your forehead, you hear a note. So if someone knew how to do it right, they could play a song for you, depending on pressure and whatnot."

"How do you know this?"

"Lloyd has it."

Allen blinked. It made at least twice as much sense as the different theories that he had come up with, and it eased his heart a little to realize it. Since the day he and Kanda had nearly consecrated the mattress in that little tavern, the sound had only stopped on occasion, though he could not say that it had grown particularly louder. It was there when he touched Kanda mostly, playing in the back of his head in different layers, emphasized in different ways depending upon how much of them connected. He hadn't told Kanda the specifics, just that he heard a song. He had simply pulled away whenever the Japanese Exorcist tried to do more than touch his face with a palm. It was hard. He wanted to be held by him, do more than hardly kiss, but the feeling of something in the back of his head singing frightened him more than a little. He had not wanted to do something stupid – become distracted, say something out of place, hum – but if it really something relatively normal...

He sighed and leaned his head on Kanda's. _We can actually touch each other today…_

Kanda stirred slightly, eyelids coming up like slowly raised blinds over the windows to his soul. He shifted and Allen moved his head enough to allow the motion, looking down at Kanda's soft, if hungry, expression with a smile. The white haired boy leaned forward and kissed him, grinning, and Kanda froze at the intimate greeting, eyes shocked open. After a moment he returned the gesture, moving the hand he had placed on Allen's chest to the turn of his ribs, pulling him just a little closer. For the first time in recent memory, his lover didn't pull away.

"Ew."

"Paper. Where is my paper?"

Touching as much as they were made Allen's head hum, but he couldn't pick out the melody. It had never hurt and it didn't now, it had only felt strange so he had avoided it, but if it was normal he could ignore it. No matter how loud it was he would be fine with it. It was just _Kanda_, expressed in a musical way in the back of his skull. And it was fine. It was _good_. It was _normal_.

Kanda leaned back at the press of a hand on his shoulder and fell awkwardly against the door of their little carriage, ponytail pressed into the red fabric that covered the cheap wood it was composed of. Hitori made a startled sound when Allen unceremoniously moved himself over Kanda, leaning on his knees. They did not respond. The two were far too entertained by the touch of their hands and the suddenly loose strands of Kanda's hair, falling around them like a pool, Allen's silver locks slipping through the fingers of his lover's left hand while his right displaced the hem of his shirt.

"Love…" The word hardly passed Allen's lips. It was almost there, the melody, and he knew that the more he touched, the more he breathed, the louder it would become. He honestly could not have cared less now that he understood it. Two weeks with nothing had left him caring about very, very little. There was a hand in his shirt that made him care. "We should…" He couldn't say it, not with his mouth captured, so he tried to speak between assaults. "Wait… until… we get… to town…"

The body beneath him made a negative sound and the hand on his bare chest slipped to his hip. Kanda did not need to speak to send the message.

"Hito and Sable…"

"Che." Kanda's other hand fisted in his hair, but did not move him. A tiny gasp filled the space between them. "I haven't touched you this much in _weeks_, Moyashi. Shut up." His fingers yanked downward, but stopped before their lips met, holding the British Exorcist an inch or so away. A needy sort of plea escaped his lover's lips and he smiled crookedly at it, his eyes softening. When Allen did not speak he lifted himself the distance between them, giving himself with eyes fluttered shut. His lover's right hand touched the curve of his jaw, then his neck; a broken whine seared from his throat.

A knee slipped between his, and he tensed, hands tightening on Allen.

The carriage moved in a way it should not have.

Allen made a short sound of shock as Kanda's hands closed painfully on his body and the two of them bounced from their seat, rolling from their perch and smashing onto the floor. Allen landed squarely on his shoulders, air racing from lungs under his lover's weight, his knee slipped forward and Kanda slipped down, a low groan of pain seeping from his lips. He blinked up at the ceiling, seeing Sable and Hitori clinging to each other without falling, and fought the rush of darkness that threatened with his lungs devoid of air. His arms felt impossibly heavy at his sides and his leg went limp. Something clicked and shattered; he lost sight of the sun. A thin, cold line started on the side of his face, the right side of his jaw, and all the while the world was going black.

Kanda retched into his shoulder as they lurched to a crooked halt, the angle so extreme it slid them into the door heads first. The blow, coupled with oxygen deprived lungs, made Allen choke. He tried to push his lover up but his hands did not feel like pushing; they felt like tingling when he tired to move them.

For a moment there was nothing. Groaning wood and the eerie sound of silence.

"Yuu-nii-corn?"

The only response was a slow, shuttering breath and a moan. Kanda dragged himself up enough for Allen to gasp beneath him, foggy eyes tearing as he coughed. Kanda's left hand balled into a white knuckled fist and smashed into the pine floor, leaving his knuckles stinging. It was enough to get his mouth working again. _"Fuck."_

"Nee-san?"

Allen coughed harder, sentences shattered with it. "I'm a… man… Hito…"

"Sabe?"

"Get your hand off my breast."

"So we're all alive. Great."

Allen reached out with his right hand and brushed it through Kanda's hair, pushing his bangs aside, and frowned. The Japanese man's skin was two shades too light, his mouth open as if he expected to vomit, and his shoulders shook every so often. Pain. Allen could only think of a few moments he had ever seen it so well expressed. "Are you alright, Love?"

"Che." He curled back; sliding away and bending almost double on his knees over his lover. The reaction made Allen worry. Kanda swallowed hard. "Your knee." The words were supposed to explain themselves.

And they did. Allen's eyes went wide with horror as he cleared his throat one last time, more or less recovered. "Did I… hit you… I mean… will it… will you… it's not…"

Kanda rolled his eyes. "I'll recover." As if to prove his point he leaned back further, moving to rest on his back, limbs more or less tangled in his lover's. They were still for a moment, waiting for something they could not name, and the Japanese Exorcist closed his eyes to the flicker of sunlight across his face. His fingers reached out and found the sheath of his sword, and dragged it back to him, an action that comforted him a little despite its childishness. "We should get out."

"I think… I broke my ribs." Allen mumbled at him.

"Che."

"I can't sit up."

_You better be able to_, Kanda thought darkly. _Fucking two weeks without touching and then you get hurt? Like hell._ He pushed himself up and looked at his lover; head tilted back, arms spread as far as they could in the small space they shared. A tiny like of crimson married his face, sparkles of shattered glass caught the light around his shoulders, the colors contrasting rather beautifully despite the circumstances. Kanda laid his hand on his lover's chest, softly.

"Ow."

"Sit."

Allen did as he was told with a grimace, but didn't make it halfway without help. He leaned heavily on the door. As much as he seemed to want to curse the words did not come. "You're not fixing me."

"I'm finding out what's wrong with you. How's the song?"

Allen shook his head. "Worry about that later." He winced at the touch of fingers between his ribs. "Can you check more nicely?"

"I think you bruised them." Kanda said without actually answering. Allen frowned at him. "All of them. You can move, you just have to try harder." He punctuated the statement with a disarming smile, as if to show that he did not mean it in the condescending way that Allen might have taken it in the past. The British boy made a disgruntled face at him, eyebrows pressed together, bottom lip pressed away from his teeth. It almost made him laugh. "You can move or you can forget about doing anything for our anniversary."

Allen growled. "I can move."

"Good."

Sable leaned over by the opposite door and worked it open, flooding the space in light. "Oh, look. I see why we crashed."

"What is it?" Hitori questioned from beside her. "A bridge?"

"Nope." She sighed, lumbering toward the outside. "A corpse."

* * *

The redhead lay with his eye open on the orange fabric of his comforter, curled around himself unblinking. If not for the slow rise and fall of this chest Tyki would have thought him a very newly killed body, if not for the color of his eye the dark would have thought him an awakening Noah, but he knew neither to be true. The fingers of his right hand trailed slowly over his lover's hair, unfelt, while his left arm curled around the boy's shoulders, rubbing at his back. For Lavi to not respond meant he was very far away, remembering something with his flesh.

An hour a day. That was what it took to maintain the memories, sometimes less. Tyki figured the apprentice Bookman would be free of nightmares for weeks when he was finished, but it was hard to say, the redhead never did tell him what he remembered. He never told him unless it was something he enjoyed. The bad, the twisted things he had done, they never talked about them. Yumeko never heard. The Noah did not understand his lover's reluctance to speak the truth.

The emerald eye he stared at blinked and a shaking hand moved up to drag the sock from Lavi's mouth, his expression unreadable. Tyki withdrew his hand when he saw the blank expression his lover wore, and lifted his arm when the boy moved across the mattress to him, trembling. It was bad. An unpleasant memory, it seemed, something dark, but he wasn't disgusted by it. Instead Lavi hugged him close, the dark blue material of his shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows in the hurry be closer. It was always the same.

Tyki wrapped him in a warm embrace, face tilted over his lover's hair. He body against him sighed.

"You never told me." Lavi whispered into his skin, "What it was like to change. You never warned me what it was like when all of it started."

"Did you remember it?" Tyki questioned him. That was not a time he wanted to share.

"No."

They were silent again. Tyki didn't try to recall what exactly Lavi had seen, it didn't matter. "Will you be fine?" He asked instead, running his hands gently over Lavi's back, feeling him slowly relax. He felt the apprentice nod and placed his lips on the side of his lover's temple, trying to smile. Happiness, he reminded himself, was usually infectious. "Tell me dear, do you wish to do something today? Or are you worn beyond the point of caring?"

"Just hold me." Lavi instructed baldly. "I'll be ok."

Tyki did not need to hear more. He pulled the apprentice Bookman closer, wrapping both of his arms and a leg around the boy. The full body embrace made the redhead sigh. "You don't need to remember for a while if you do not wish to. You have done enough." The chest pressed against his shuttered, but he kept on. "Tomorrow, being today might as well be over if it was that bad, we will do something together, and you will remember nothing of pain. I _am_ the Noah of Pleasure, after all."

Lavi chuckled, his lips just barely on the skin of Tyki's neck. "It doesn't matter what I remember, you always say something to make me forget. You're like… reverse Panda." He looked up at the Noah for a moment, blinking slowly. "But I'm tired, mostly. Dying makes me tired." He pecked at his lover's lips, his right arm curled enough to leave him close enough to feel every detail of flesh beneath Tyki's clothes. He grinned a little, hooded eye smiling. "Mm… but we might do something fun now…"

Tyki grinned lopsidedly. "What was that? I'm not sure I heard you." He moved enough for the skin of his chest to pass through the fabric of their clothes and onto his lover's, teasing, warm, solid; his heartbeat increased at the caress and Lavi's short intake of breath made him smile. The arm behind him tensed until it shook.

"Ty-chan…" Lavi's voice was little more than a breath. "Are you… serious?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, normally I say something like that and you roll your eyes, sigh, and tell me we have something more important to do."

"Normally you say something like that when we are in the cafeteria."

"I said it in the shower yesterday…"

"Or in your sleep. Or during a moment of sincerest intimacy."

"Oh." Lavi rocked forward a little. "So really… how about now?"

Tyki smiled at the sudden touch of hands on his shoulders, tugging on the material in an effort to get to the buttons between them. He shifted, pinning the smaller man against the bed, and pressed his weight into his hands, letting the garments between them fall away where Lavi's hands could work at them. "Now would be a wonderful time to stop talking."

* * *

Allen stumbled out into the sunlight with his head held in his right hand, blinking at the wreckage of their vehicle, and frowned. It was not exactly wrecked, just tilted. The two ponies that had until recently pulled them down the dusty stone road stood stark still on either side of the ditch the carriage had fallen into, eyes rolling, nostrils flared. The nearest animal, a brown mare, gave an annoyed snort and stamped her feet, antsy. He would have gone to her, if not for the pair of arms that suddenly snaked around his chest and pulled him back.

The sound in the rear of his mind made him tense for a moment until reminded himself that it was perfectly normal. "Yes, Love?" The little smile on his face dragged the samurai's eyes away from the front of the carriage, his sapphire irises transmuted gold and amethyst in the daylight. Seeing that subtle change was another note in the song Kanda played in Allen's mind, but he did not think about it; not anymore than he had to.

"Che. Before things get serious, Moyashi, what was it that convinced you that you aren't losing your mind?"

"You're taking time out to ask?"

"We've held to a vow of celibacy for two weeks because of it, _baka_. Anything that strong deserves a moment."

Allen laughed. It would be easier to lie his way out of this than he wanted to admit. The last thing he wanted was Kanda to worry about him – saying that he had simply accepted the sound wound undoubtedly work against him, saying that it had never been promised much less trouble. "I made it up." It still hurt to say it. "So we could make tonight special."

"Liar."

"Well, yes, but I did it for a reason."

"I meant now, you idiot. You always smile when you lie."

Allen frowned. "You won't let it stop us, right?"

Kanda smirked down at him and shook his head, disheveled hair shading his face and returning his eyes to their usual shade of blue. "No. If you're fine with it, I'm fine with it. Just don't lie to me." His arms gave a squeeze. "We don't know what it is, but if you _are_ going crazy, Komui might be able to do something about it."

"I'm not going crazy, Love."

"Right. You've been crazy for a while."

"Kanda—"

The Japanese Exorcist caught the younger's mouth in a shameless show of affection, his arms folding yet more tightly. At a small sound of discomfort his arms loosened a little; he had forgotten the state of his lover's ribs.

"When the two of you break for air," Sable muttered from somewhere in front of them both. "The driver died. We can't tell what did it, but it looks natural." Her voice came closer as she went on, though they did not acknowledge her presence. "I think he was about ninety."

"Older, by his teeth."

"Hito! Don't touch him!"

"I'm curious!"

Allen could not have carried less after _natural_. He wanted nothing more than to pull Kanda close and feel him, regardless of the song, the time, the place, the death – so he turned in the older man's hands and embraced him, fingers lost in his coat. Surprise shot through him like a pleasant bolt of electricity at the caress of fingertips on his neck, drawing him in, and he moaned softly, every ounce of him demanding that he be closer. Vaguely he wondered how far they were from town, how close they were to a bed, but he did not care for the most part. The gentle trembling of his hands let him know that no matter where they had to be to make love, he would get there in record time.

"I want to…" The words were out of his mouth as little more than a whisper, more or less swallowed by Kanda's breathing. "I really want to… we want…"

Kanda made a wordless sound of agreement even as he pulled away. The small space between them felt much too far for his liking. "Bury the old man, drive to town… Hito-to and Sable can worry about telling people." His lips gravitated to Allen's as if he was iron and the younger man magnetic. "You can have me when we get to town."

Allen blanched, pulling away. "Have… you? But Love! You said… you said you wouldn't… I mean… don't you like…"

"_Baka."_ The palm he pressed to Allen's cheek bent the British boy into Kanda's chest. "I'm not that simple minded. You haven't… done that for a long time. And I want…" His brain went on but his mouth stopped, the romantic words hitting some sort of idiotic barrier between his mind and his lips. He swallowed hard and leaned forward, eyes closed to the feeling that maybe, one of their companions might be within earshot. "You're weight on me. I really don't give a damn _how_ we…" He gathered his courage. "How we show our feelings, not in the end. Letting you do that is… my way of… damn it. I hate talking."

Allen laughed into him, smiling up with an expression half composed of amusement. "It's fine, Kanda. You're just saying that sometimes, it's good to give, not just take, right?"

The Japanese man nodded. "But doing that… I'm not sure which it is."

"Oi! BaKanda! Moyashi!"

"If you weren't Hito-to's woman I'd _kill_ you!"

Sable smiled at the threat, glad to see that she finally had the couple's attention. She turned away from Hitori and the carriage driver and looked at them, throwing an arm in the direction they were supposed to be going down the road. "It looks like General Cross and Hiroko are waiting for us, so we might as well bury this guy and get the carriage going. Nothing's broken but the window."

Allen nodded, but did not release his lover for a long moment, choosing instead to speak to him in a hushed tone the blonde could not hear. "Yuu, when we get to town… do you want to do anything romantic?"

Kanda blinked at him for a moment, seeming to remember the last time romance had been the subject of their conversation. "If you want."

"Ok. I'll need an hour."

"Alright, Moyashi." He smirked, pulling his arms away. "I just hope I can hold off that long."

* * *

The hall was more or less empty, the dark stone of the floor as shiny as it had ever been, the ceiling decorated with soft cobweb streamers, heavy with years of dust and ash. On an ordinary day at this hour, a mouse might scurry from the kitchen to an unsuspecting room and house itself in the warmth of an abandoned shoe, soundless, without a soul to see it. A certain redhead might have poked his head from inside of his room to watch it go, hoping that one day he might befriend it's fury descendants, eyes only for the adorable rodent instead of the dank roof that kept out the rain. There might have been a Finder or a lost scientist, or maybe one of each, rendezvousing in a dark alcove, away from the prying eyes of anyone with fewer than four legs as far as they knew. Hollow sounds would fill the silent space without breaking the quiet, too distant to be disconcerting, yet too loud to be ignored; the atmosphere would pulse like a vein too far removed from the heart of the tower, air clotted with pleasant abandonment. But now, the silence was shattered with a sigh.

Yumeko had gone back to the habit of wearing her shawl indoors, because the spring rain made her cold, and it helped to pad her back against the wall. It had become something of a habit to wait outside of Lavi's door, slipper-clad feet tucked up under her skirt, while the Noah and the Exorcist did more psychological exploration than she could hope to do in twelve lifetimes, with little obvious effort. The memories fixated her. She could not bring herself to ask what the apprentice Bookman saw or learned from them – she wouldn't unless Komui made her – but she could make herself observe his reactions to them, no matter how negative or seemingly insane they were.

Over the week his responses had been myriad. The first being the most worrying.

She had never heard a person scream like that, or cry quite so hard. She had never imagined that a man without a heart could express that sort of emotion without actually feeling it, either, or that a supposed enemy might say the things that Tyki had said in answer to the boy's shaken mind. The words, the tone of his voice, were things she felt her notes could not completely encompass, no matter how much she added to them. Thinking of them now, with her ears hearing the soft recovery of a less violently hour, she could see just how wrong she was in assuming that these two were anything like _normal_ people.

"Tch." Her voice might have been a thunderclap. _You should have picked someone smarter for this, Komui Lee. I can't comprehend them without cussing myself out when I start to think of them as two aspects of the same person._

Something squeaked, a plaintive moan of longing filtered through the door to her right, and a small grin cracked her face. _They do love each other though. No matter how wrong or fruitless it's supposed to be, they're not… fake or broken. They're…_ A thought struck her, so sudden and hurried that her head thumped into the wall with it. The clouds seemed to part in her mind and her feet shot out from under her skirt, tense. "They're… Kami! Why didn't I think of this before?" She pushed herself up, almost tripping, and set off for Komui's office. If she was right about this, if she had figured it out, there was something going on that no one had told her about.

_There is another side to this war._

* * *

The rooms were cheap, the floors dirt, the beds less than stellar, but it was enough. It was _more_ than enough. As far as Hiroko was concerned, it was absolutely perfect for their purpose.

Her ebony braid hung down across her shoulder like a long black rope, heavy now that the weather had turned warm. She ignored it. The silk sticking to her arms was far worse than the feel of hair on her skin, and the knowledge that the silk was her own willing gesture of kindness and love made her sick. Never, not since she could remember, had she given a gift to a person over the age of ten, and now she had a long planned, long worked on kimono between her fingers, standing on the balls of her feet in preparation of breaking her good name.

She knocked on the thin wooden door and hardened her face, prepared for whatever girlish, annoying, teary-eyed thing Allen did when he saw the fruits of her (and his master's) labor.

And she wasn't going to say one fucking word about Marian.

There was a quiet sound of irritation and an exclamation of horror before something thumped; it gave her a moment to wonder what on Earth was going on in there before the door slowly, squeaking, came open.

"Kanda, I told you to wait a—_uwa! Haha! Okaasan!_ What a—a—a surprise!" The British boy took the door from three-fourths open to nine-tenths closed in less than a second, right eye peering from behind the semidarkness that did not hide his blush. The room behind him was almost lightless, filled with spider-leg shadows and butterfly lights; whatever source of illumination Allen had chosen to use seemed to be sputtering or flickering like flame. She tried not to care. "Did you… erm… need something?"

Hiroko leveled a glare at him, narrowed eyes as cold as ice. It was a hard expression to hold when he was looking so very much like a child with his hand in a cookie jar. "Che! No. Here's your… kimono that I started when I heard about… the two of you." She proffered the garment, trying to seem indifferent to his expression. "Hemmed."

Allen's face took on a distinctly different emotion besides horror. He smiled, eyes soft and feminine as she had feared. "Thank you, Hiroko." He reached out with one hand, naked as far as she could see, and plucked the garment from her sticky arms. "It really is lovely."

"I can help you put it on if you—"

"That's alright; I think I can figure it out!" Allen forced a grin.

"The obi is folded inside. If you can't tie it, Yuu will know how."

"Thank you." He repeated, not knowing what words to use. "Very much."

"Don't mention it."

* * *

Tyki smiled at the way Lavi giggled under his hands, grinning, shy in a way that the Noah had never seen him. He felt love struck, dumb, but he didn't mind the feeling; it lit a gentle fire in his heart that seeped out of his hands and warmed his embrace, curled the edges of his lips like leaves too close to a flame. Even though he had said they might divest themselves at his lover's will, he found that neither of them minded not following through with the action. Instead they kissed and caressed in a way that made him wonder how things might have gone differently if both of them were entirely human.

The redhead didn't give him a chance to think about it for long. His arms pulled the Noah against him so the older man was forced to look down at him expectantly, a single eyebrow cocked in an expression of curiosity.

"Tyki." The name sounded so very pleasant through smiling lips. "How come I don't mind that we've been making out for forty-five minutes and neither of us has lost any clothes?"

The Portuguese man grinned wider. "Well, Lavi," His fingers danced a slow line down the apprentice's cheek to his throat, teasing, until he found the curve of his collar bone. Eyes lingering, he leaned in, letting his mouth follow the path his fingertips had paved. The redhead shivered at the touch. He kept at it, not answering, until he felt a palm slide languidly up his side, shifting him closer. When he withdrew the hand stayed there, fisting in the fabric of his shirt.

"Well what, Ty-chan?"

"I forget, what were we talking about?"

"Me. Clothes. Off. Now."

The Noah laughed heartily, lips sailing down the front of his lover's chest. "I may have a better idea, if you'll have it." He didn't pay attention to the little sound of disappointment that got him, only paused at the low collar of his lover's shirt, breathing on his skin. For a moment he laid his lips on that warm, soft flesh, and let his eyes falls shut, enjoying the press on his face and a delicate touch of fingers in his hair. The sigh that hissed from his nostrils was not just out of physical contentment, it was out of psychological ease as well. "Would you like to hear it? Or are you set on losing your garments now?"

Lavi harrumphed at him, chest muscles tightening at the tickle of breath against them. _"Please_ do not tell me you're thinking about romance."

"No, no." Tyki reassured him. His eyes flicked upward, catching the pleasant gleam of yearning his Lavi's gaze. "I was thinking that we might do something one might label as _dangerous_, given our situation."

"Clothes coming off now."

"_Lavi…"_

"What?"

"If you would like to take off your clothes for a walk down to the basement, so be it. I won't stop you. I might actually enjoy the show."

Lavi's eyebrows pressed together in thought, lips flattened into a line. "The only thing in that part of the tower is Helveska, and the floor above that is training rooms."

"I know."

"So what are you thinking?"

The Noah smiled, white teeth flashing behind his lips. "Wouldn't you rather I show you?"

* * *

Kanda trained. For an hour and a half he stood behind their sad, sick little dwelling place and dismembered countless imaginary people, flinging himself at them with an abandon that left him pleasantly taxed by the end of it. Vaguely his chest hurt, but it was nothing the spring-like air could not help to remedy.

And the air really was spring like. He could focus far better now than he could in Japan because, mostly, it was not raining like it would have been in England. He did not have to think about there. He only had to think about _now_.

But, thinking about now it seemed, made him feel as if he had forgotten something.

It hit him perhaps two minutes later, at the sound of the front door opening and shutting. His eyes popped open and his sword faltered, he sheathed it mid motion and turned for the inn, sprinting for their room. An hour. He was supposed to have waited for an hour. He could only hope that Allen forgave his forgetfulness.

His boots beat a thunderous rhythm of the dirt packed floor from the moment he came inside all the way down the hall to their door. He did not stop there, either. With his hair flung out behind him like a blue-black cape, half-open jacket slipping from his left shoulder, he threw open the door to their room and stopped, teetering on his feet at the room that greeted him. The thin layer of sweat that his exercises had produced felt as a sheet of ice against his back, tickling like something from a nightmare.

The dirt floor was bare, newly swept, the rickety furniture covered in half-drowning candles, sputtering with the breeze from his entrance. And there, offset but the abundant orange light, was Allen, sprawled on his side on the bed, half-secured kimono draped about his sleeping form like an image from a distant dream, pools of silk folding around his limbs in waves and ripples. Sleeping ever so soundly the young British man appeared almost delicate, breakable, and the lazy way he turned his head against the pillows only increased the illusion. When his roll was complete, Kanda caught a glimpse of white beneath the wrinkled fabric of that beautiful silk: the bare, smooth skin of his lover's thigh.

The door closed silently, but he didn't remember pushing it.

Wordlessly, his sword slipping from his fingers by the door, he walked passed the ornately decorated desk, eyeing the different things that Allen had done to their little crappy room. The curtains were closed, bed sheets of semi-transparent fabric hanging from whatever notches that could not fit candles, a dark sprinkling of playing cards marked the place where Allen had hurriedly stashed his belongings under the foot of the bed, and the obviousness only served to make the air seem sweeter. Where his lover had gotten the candles, the material, the kimono – he could only guess, but he honestly didn't care.

He shirked off his coat and left it next to the playing cards, sinking down on the gently swathed mattress without a sound. His right hand, which felt oddly numb, reached out to trace the curve of Allen's exposed knee, and trail a slow line upward. At first there was no response to his fingertips, just a slight increase in breathing, but that changed the moment he leaned close enough to kiss the British boy firmly on the lips. The mouth against his broke into a soft smile, almost amused. He did not need to speak to know what the hand against his chest was doing, but he still did, quietly, when their lips hard parted.

"Sorry I'm late."

"It's ok. I fell asleep."

The Japanese man let his right hand climb higher, ruffling the fabric on his lover's leg, and grinned almost lecherously from the corner of his mouth, the expression still not quite fitting. In the dancing lights Allen might have thought the shadows gave his countenance and enduring goofy quality, but he wasn't about to say it out loud. It would ruin the moment, the afternoon, and any chance he had of making this all worth remembering.

Kanda's left hand smoothed the British boy's hair while he spoke. "Moyashi-kun," He met the offered kiss for a split second before he went on. "If I didn't know better, I would say that you're trying to seduce me."

"I already have."

"Che." He sank lower, bearing down on the smaller man, and a tiny flutter of anticipation sprang to life in his chest. His left hand slid away from his lover to stop his slow tilting, upper body raised over Allen's.

"Happy anniversary, Yuu."

"If this is what we do for six months, what will we do for a year?"

Allen laughed lightly, hooking his fingers in the leather of his lover's belt. Those words struck a dissonant chord in his heart – if Kanda continued to fight they would only have three years, after all – but he ignored them, choosing instead to smile. He knew that Kanda would see through his façade but did not care; the two could ignore it together without ruining this. "It'll be your turn so… maybe you'll come up with something." His left hand stayed on the leather while his right slipped to Kanda's shirt, jerking at the cream colored material. "Can we stop talking now?"

Kanda shook his head and his right hand finally found a place that made Allen jump, no more than an inch from his hip. He smiled. "I want to know something first."

"Hm?"

"That song that's been playing in your head all week, it's not going to stop you is it?" The question did not end like one.

"What do you mean?"

"If it never stops, if it just keeps playing where you can hardly hear it. You'll be ok."

Allen reached up with his silk clad arms and yanked Kanda downward with a soft hum of agreement. "It doesn't bother me, not anymore. I noticed a while ago that I don't hear it when you're far away, or when you aren't touching me, so I think it's _you_, Love. And it's fine with me if I can _hear_ you like this… it's… kind of romantic."

"You're hearing me?"

"Mmhmm. Every time your skin hits mine it changes a little, the sound I mean, but it's _you_. I can't explain it. Maybe… if you were closer… I could sing it for you."

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"Your voice lends itself more to screaming."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying you would sing like sandpaper."

"So? I can still hold a tune, thank you."

"The tone and timbre are the problem, not the tune."

"Since when are you a musical protégé?"

"Che. Marie and I grew up in the same unit, I'm not stupid."

"Oh… well… I could… still rasp it out."

"Save it for when I go deaf."

"Pretty is mean to me!!"

Kanda's eyes narrowed dangerously at the words, his fingers pausing against Allen's thigh as if surprised. After a moment he just shook his head and leaned down enough kiss the pair of slightly parted lips that angled to meet him. He used that contact to turn them slowly against the mattress until he was slumped on his side in the middle of the bed, his hand slipping to a place far more intimate than it had been previously, the body next him responding with a pleasant tremble. Leather hissed for a moment against his pants before his belt fell away, and his hair slipped free of its already falling tie, spraying out on the white pillow case like the bristles of a pressed paintbrush., satin against linen.

The swaying of the lights almost hypnotized him, lending an air of closeness that the room otherwise would have lacked. Before he could even comprehend the change he found himself stripped of his shirt, a panting mouth pressed to his throat with a whine. He realized that he didn't particularly care which part he played this time, or how long it took them to get there, he only cared that his right hand had found the surface of Allen's stomach, working his kimono open from the inside.

"God, I want you." The words were out of his mouth and into his lover's ears before he could stop them. There was a tiny giggle into his skin before the white haired Exorcist pulled away with a smile. He could not hide his blush at all, no matter how he tried.

"Love… you should say things like that more often."

"Che."

Allen lifted himself onto his left arm and used his right to work at Kanda's pants buttons; he felt the badly tied obi he wore unravel from around his waist. "You should. It makes me feel less like I'm the only one thinking it… Kanda…" With the name he leaned down enough to kiss his lover, his right hand distracted from its progress at the lower front by an assault of fingers on his palm, almost tickling. He gripped them for a moment before shifting forward with a sigh. His knee slipped between Kanda's, quickly, and he rocked onto it, bringing himself half over the larger man, and continued to bring their mouths together when they fell away. Shaking, gasping, and flushed, he finally dragged their mouths apart in an attempt to shrug off his only garment regardless of his lover's lack of nudity.

A hand stopped him.

For a moment Kanda stared up at his lover's confused expression and fought with himself. Everything was so perfect, so wonderful; he didn't want to change it with a single second of kinking thinking. "Leave it." He said regardless of his fears, "It looks good on you."

Allen smiled down at him with a blush so deep it might have made him seem virginal. "It might get in the way."

"Not if you're behind me."

The British boy reeled back and then rocked forward, as red as a beet and feeling it. His mouth flopped open but no words came until he closed it and swallowed. "I can't hold you like you hold me. You're too tall. My face would be smashed into your back the whole time. And… I'd hate to get something on my—"

"Allen."

He realized then that his eyes had wandered away from his lover's, focusing on the fabric he had at some point gripped between his fingers. _Since when do I act like a blushing girl?_ "Hm?" _Maybe he hasn't noticed that I'm not looking at him…_

"Look at me."

_Damn._

The pair of silver eyes that met Kanda's gaze was fraught with something like expectant fear, maybe hope, and a dash of something daring. Trust. There was still trust there, and it gave him the courage he needed to speak his mind. "You did before. When I caught you humming in Sweden. You can do it again." His left hand caught Allen's chin and tugged him down a little, though not close enough to touch anymore than they were. "I don't think you realize how much I've wanted to see you in one of those… you may have to wear it again so I can take the obi and—"

"Love, I'm blushing as it is. Please, give me a moment to recover."

His lover laughed. "This is why I didn't tell you my… ideas."

"Eh?" Allen blinked at him with round eyes, his blush fading a little. He was unsure if he had heard those words right. "Because I blush, Love?"

"Che. Because you blush so badly you can't function."

"I won't blush anymore, just tell me. Does it have to do with the obi?"

Kanda did something then Allen could not remember him doing – he bit his lip in thought. "_Ah…_ there's more too it than that. It takes a lot of trust, for both of us. I… never really thought too much about who would do what but…" He could feel he too had a pink rouge to his cheeks, though not as darkly as Allen had up until only a moment ago. "You could…"

"Speak faster or I'll go back to kissing you."

Kanda let his eyes fall shut. "Blindfold me." The muscles against his left thigh tensed and a hiss of breath sounded just above his fingers, cooler than the air around him. In the darkness behind his eyes he didn't have to see the odd look Allen's was giving him, he only felt his slight shiver. He didn't need his eyes for this, they didn't show him anything, and not using them heighted every sense that still remained and started a daring little thrill in his mind. He splayed his fingers over the curve of Allen's lips in an attempt to ascertain his expression. Blank. Not even a frown. "It's a good start."

"Why would you want that, Love?" The vibration of air on his fingertips made the older Exorcist breathe more hurriedly. "You won't see me… or the kimono…or the – are you shaking? Is that… what closing your eyes does for you?"

Kanda lifted the corner of his mouth in a crooked grin. "Che. You've never thought about what you don't see by seeing. Meditate, damn it, then you might understand why I'd want it." He cracked an eye and his expression became suddenly serious, though there was an overtone of yearning in his voice that negated it a thousand times over. "It's fine if you say no – your pigheadedness has made us both ne—"

"I'm _not_ pigheaded. You're the one who made the bet."

"And you're the one who hates to lose."

"It's not like I _made_ you make the bet."

"Really? Then why was it you were calling me—"

"Shut up." Allen sank down against the Japanese man, questing lips claiming the older Exorcist's mouth almost desperately. For a long, tantalizing moment, his hands wandered reverently to Kanda's shoulders, pressing him more firmly against the mattress, barely clad knee sliding forward. Kanda's right hand slipped once more to his hip and rocked him, dragging them together. Allen's lips parted in a startled moan, fingers shaking against his lover's skin, their kiss broken. He took the opportunity to speak. "Next time? We're so…"

Kanda nodded. "I can show you then. Now…" He lifted himself into Allen, a harsh pant seeping from his lips. "I don't care how, I just—" His air left in a rush, a hand having found the inside of his still clothed thigh. He jerked the British boy down against him, or tried, shaking limbs a bit too weak to manage direct contact; his lover got the message and moved in a line down his chest, nipping at the bare skin there.

Allen squeezed with his right hand and moved up again before his lips could find the hollow of his lover's navel, knowing that if they did they would travel lower still and end this all before it had started. He wanted it to last longer than that after so long without this, without leading, but he found himself too desperate to drag it out over hours like he wanted. Without his knowledge his fingers moved from thigh to buttons without loosening them, just touching through the fabric, and the man beneath him gave a growl of appreciation at it. It was too much to resist for long, too much to force himself to ignore. Between the seemingly tuneless song humming away in the back of his mind and Kanda's wordless plea, he could little more than force his breath to come more slowly, nearly consumed with need.

"Kanda," He realized with the word that he had started to pant and paused to gain some breath. The attempt failed when his lover rolled his hips upward, slightly bent knee pressing into his groin. He spoke hurriedly, rather than giving up to the urge to simply tear of Kanda's pants and move right along. That wasn't how his lover liked things, as he had learned. "Take off your boots."

"Che."

"A kimono I can handle; boots are clunky."

"Get off my hips, Moyashi."

Allen smirked at his mistake. "No, I think it will be more fun for you to take them off while I'm sitting on you."

Kanda rolled his eyes but, to Allen's surprise, didn't argue. He pushed himself to sitting and bent his knees, forcing his more or less naked lover flush against his lower half, legs awkwardly interwoven. One handedly Kanda tore at the fastens on his boots one at a time, working them off without paying heed to the brush of Allen's hair against the side of his face. The boy was breathing hotly into his ear, most likely unaware of how it made him shiver. His hands threatened to stop what they were doing when his lover purposely arched into him, the heated flesh of his chest a touch he did not want to lose. He took the opportunity to hook his left arm around Allen's back – other hand still prying his shoes off – and pulled them tighter, hips rolling of their own volition. The hand that had been wandering the outside of his pants dove inside of them without further prompting, whatever shyness Allen had seemed to possess cast aside in that moment. By the time his right boot thumped from the foot of the bed, he did not care about the left, only about where he could place his mouth on Allen's throat and how he could feel more of him, how he could turn the situation to his liking.

It was easier thought of than he might have envisioned.

Allen almost protested when he found himself flat on his back at the foot of the bed, Kanda's breeches pressed harshly against his bare skin. Instead he wound his legs around his lover's back and choked out a needy, half broken word, his left hand clawing at the curtain of hair the draped around them. "Y-yuu…"

"I know…" Kanda rasped back, pressing his open mouth into the warm flesh of Allen's throat, feeling him tremble. His own arms refused to hold him away for more than a moment, so he used what time he had to rid himself of his final boot. Hungrily he nuzzled his face into the turn of Allen's shoulder, shifting his kimono with the motion, and kissed lovingly up to the boy's lips. He caught the glimmer of need in Allen's eyes and guided them backward, having to hold his lover's shaking body close. When he hit the mattress it occurred to him that Allen was not responding as he should have, simply holding on as if pulling away would leave him suffocating. Worry blossomed in Kanda's chest just beside his need, coxing his hands to Allen's shoulders.

"Y-yuu…"

"Allen?" His voice came out raspier than planned.

"Are you… done moving?"

"Is something wrong?"

The silver hair beside his neck shook back and forth. "No… but… I can _hear_ you, Love, and it's so…" He pulled back enough to smile down at his lover, faces inches apart. "I think… I can… it's beautiful, and _sad_… I feel like I know everything about you. I can't _think_ of it, I can't think of anything but… what I wish and…" He cupped the sides of Kanda's face and kissed him, lingeringly, before pulling back, his grin undiminished. "I wish you were naked."

"You could have said that sooner, Moyashi."

"Sorry." He answered, his hands pulled at his lover's last remaining garment until it came open, then moved his hands to either hip and began to pull, dragging the material down Kanda's hips at a rate that obviously bothered the samurai. By the time they reached his knees Allen smirked at him, bending his head until their forehead's touched. "Oi, Kanda…" His voice was little more than a whisper.

"Yes, Allen?"

"Will you be honest with me for a moment?"

"Che."

His lips moved forward, barely catching Kanda's nose. "If I _am_ going insane, if this… is the prelude to something darker… will we find something to fix me while we find something to fix you?" As he asked his right hand drifted to the mark on Kanda's chest, larger than he remember, and traced the darkened lines with his index finger.

"No." Kanda said back softly. "In all likelihood, you're not going insane, so we won't have to. And I…" _Che. Honesty._ "I'll die before I find that man. No, don't look at me like that. You wanted honesty. I don't want to talk about this now."

"Love…"

"Stop." He held the smaller man against him, not letting is forehead move away. "I love you too much to let you pull away when I tell you what I think will happen. Just because I expect it doesn't mean that I accept it. We're not talking about this now. Right now, if you don't quit it, I'm going to pin you down, tie you up, and _make_ you quit it. Understand?"

"But Kanda—"

"Che. If the next words out of your mouth aren't a suggestion that my pants come the rest of the way off, it's over."

Allen's smile became suddenly sad, his eyes soft. Tenderly his right hand trailed to the fabric between his lover's knees and pulled, relieving him of the obstructing material. He did not need to admit that Kanda was right to make it true – he needed only to push him higher on the pillows and touch the curves of his hips with hands shaking, and kiss him with lips that wanted to twitch with tears. He didn't let them. Instead he comforted himself with knowing that here, in this moment, he could say that only the skin against his own mattered anymore.

"I love you."

"I know, Moyashi."

"Do you mind if… I cry in the middle of this?"

"Why would you do that?"

Allen didn't take that as a no. He kissed the corner of his lover's mouth without speaking before he fell lower, biting none too gently on the skin over Kanda's Adam's apple, his collar bones, the bend in the center of his chest. By the time his eyes had come level with the dark hollow of Kanda's navel, he had fallen back into the tune in his mind, his body moving in ways that he normally would not have thought of. His tongue played only for a moment against the heated surface of his lover's stomach before he returned to his mouth, delving into it with a hungry moan. He was unsurprised to find his ferocity returned at once. Fire danced from every nerve in his skin, bathed him in chills, made his lungs burn. And he loved every second of it.

Kanda's hips lifted invitingly, his arms dragging him down, warm skin showing like bronzed gold in the candlelight. Allen couldn't resist the desire to lean into him. It was almost too much; his hands trembled as he reached for the nightstand, questing for that familiar bottle, so much that the kimono that still hung halfway on his arms moved as if caught in the wind. Fighting the shaking did not help, it only served to make him look frail.

By the time the older man saw what Allen was holding, he couldn't remember why they had slowed to a crawl in the first place. With his fingers tangled in Allen hair, panting at his throat, he could not think more than the few words that fell unhindered from his lips, each one less clear than the last. Though he did not comprehend what all of it meant, he knew they were words of endearment and encouragement. He knew that he meant every single one of them.

"Turn, Love." Allen whispered into Kanda's ear. "Or I have to take off the silk."

"_Chigao."_

Allen smiled from the corner of his mouth. "It's what you wanted."

Kanda leaned back before shaking his head, eyes shut. His expression was perfectly uncertain. "Che. I'd rather… see you… _onag—_if you don't…"

"I understand." Allen shrugged off the kimono and tossed it to the end of the bed, far away from them. It would remain within reaching distance, if he wanted it later. He opened the bottle of oil and blinked at the suddenly silent quality to his mind, the stillness of his hands. This moment, he knew, belonged to no one but him, and somehow that muted the song in his mind. "I want to see you too."

He felt tired. Exhausted. It wouldn't stop him.

"All-en…" Kanda wrapped his arms around the British boy's shoulders so the limbs made something of a comfortable dome around them, a protective umbrella that withheld the rain of candlelight, casting them both in darker shades of gold and red. His fingers twisted in Allen's hair so that neither could pull away; Allen's right hand fell between them regardless, slicked digits moving from memory. His hand shook for a different reason now. "I love you, too."

"I know, Love." He almost laughed. "You don't have to say it for me to know."

"Che. I should." Kanda spoke to his collar rather than his face, cheek pressed to Allen's neck, heated skin enjoying the contact more than a little. It made him sigh, feeling so close to the younger man after being pushed away for so long; the overwhelming urge to thank his lover filled him, but he didn't say it; he wouldn't have known how to explain it.

Allen lifted his lover's right leg to his side and slipped a finger forward, a not quite pleasant sound keening from his lover's lips. "It's alright if you don't, Kanda." He whispered, laying his mouth on the turn of Kanda's jaw. "It makes when you do say it mean more to me. Like Christmas. If Christmas were everyday… it wouldn't be as good, would it?"

"Idiot."

"Pigheaded and an idiot; you're full of compliments today."

"Che." His open mouth clapped shut, his arms tightened against Allen's shoulder. The shaking that had wracked him previously returned full force, made only more intense by the knowledge that – regardless of whatever words they had shared – he felt as if the only things in the room were Allen and soft yellow light. The hair between his fingers anchored him in place when his body made to pull away from a larger intrusion. He lost the battle with his hips but the pillows behind him stopped too much movement – Allen followed his retreat with a number of weak kisses into the side of his jaw.

"Are you alright?" The question seemed stupid given the sound growling from the back of Kanda's throat.

His answer was a grunt and a gentle nod of his head, words escaping him. In the time it took for him to find his voice again, his left hand drew a slow, tingling line to his lover's groin, seeking the warmth between his legs. For a long moment neither of them moved, only breathing, until Allen pulled away, his wet fingers falling to the sheets beside them. Kanda mumbled something the meaning of which Allen could not even guess at, but he didn't ask him to repeat it; his left hand was too busy helping his right wet the surface of his erection for his mouth to function properly. The hand on him, the fingers of which were oddly cold, gave a squeeze, the palm that remained in his hair falling to the side of his face. "Moyashi-kun, promise me something."

"What?" Allen purposely placed himself between Kanda's thighs and rocked forward, pressing into the tight, warm, slick place he had prepared. He slumped forward with a ragged moan, face pressed to his lover's shoulder, the knees that pressed into his bruised ribs made him shutter. "Ow…"

"Never let me make a vow of celibacy again."

The British boy laughed, right hand on the bone of his lover's hip, left hooked behind his neck, his face did not move from its spot on Kanda's shoulder. "Gladly. Kanda… try not to break my ribs."

"Heh. Gladly." The words prompted his lover to move, rocking him into the cheap wooden bed frame with a force that made the oak groan. Kanda fought to keep his face from tilting away, instead holding Allen's silver eyes with as much intensity as he could without outright glaring at him. His emotions, and his physical enjoyment, were evident in how his mouth fell open, breath coming in heavy gasps and sighs. Allen's pelvis rolled against him and he rose to meet it, the slap of skin sending a long absent tingle up his back and across his shoulder. He ground out Allen's name, but found himself silenced by the press of an open, needy mouth pressed against his own, kissing without the will to close. They shared air for a moment; Allen's eyes closed as he pulled back and thrust forward at a pace that made him groan out of frustration. It was Kanda's expression, and his delicate whimpers of yearning, coupled with the clasp of his hands on Allen's skin, made the lack of satisfaction easier to bear, the gradual build far simpler to ignore.

Kanda couldn't fight it; he shut his eyes and dragged Allen's hips downward silently demanding that they move faster. His throat didn't work. His lips only kissed because he didn't know what else to do with them, lost as to their purpose.

He wanted to say something, but the words eluded him.

"Love… I'm…" Allen's face nuzzled into his neck, almost as if he didn't want it to be seen. "More?"

"_Yes…"_ His legs were too tight on Allen's ribs too be comfortable, shaking with strain, but he couldn't stop himself, not anymore. "You're so… you're…I…_ Hn!_" His back arched from the mattress, a moan of pure pleasure breaking through his lips. He bucked madly, slamming his hips with a recklessness that would undoubtedly wear him out and leave him sore. He did not care. He cared that even as they were, that hot shaft of muscle filling him, he did not feel close enough to Allen.

The British boy gave himself over to the other man's rhythm regardless of the fact that breathing made his chest ache. The tears that had long filled his eyes spilled onto Kanda's pillow and across his hair, staining both with droplets of silver, unnoticed by his lover. His sobs were lost in the gasps that seeped from his half parted lips, broken sounds disguised as whines of pleasure. He buried his face between his own arm and Kanda's neck and sent a wordless prayer that Kanda wouldn't feel the tears, that they would stop before he could not hold out any longer. Praying was in vein, he knew, but the words still ran through his mind, following the minor line of Kanda's skin.

They held on as if lost in a storm, incapable of anything else. It was unclear to either of them how long it lasted, only how close they were to the end.

Without warning Kanda made a voiceless sound and tensed almost painfully against his lover before his body contracted in a breathless movement of intended release. Given another moment he would have explained his sudden urgency, his moment of panic, but Allen moved exactly as he had a moment before, seeming not to care, and he lost himself in the movement. His neck hurt from Allen's hand, his chest felt tight from sinking against the pillows, his legs were cramping, the fire across the flesh of his abdomen just moments away from being painful, and yet, in that final instant, he felt as if it couldn't have been better. The flames ran out of him in a rushing wave and he tilted back against the pillows, incapable of coherent thought.

Allen followed him at once, sudden shocks riddling up his arms and down his spine. He would have enjoyed the warmth in his heart, the feeling of utter safety and love, but it was too much for him with nothing but the harsh sound of breathing to accompany them. He couldn't hold on to the pleasure or the pain; it all felt distant. It all felt wrong. His face hurt.

**B…k…l…k…a…c—**

He could hear the melody, rising in the back of his head.

"Moyashi?"

**Is…c…l…tr…l…v…h…r—**

_I know those words. Why do I know those words? Where did I learn it?_

"Moyashi-kun?"

**H—s…ips…r…omthi…sy…f—**

_That's not my voice._

"Allen." There was a hand in his hair that made him jump, a hiss of air filling his lungs. With both arms he hugged his lover, suddenly aware that his tears had run dry on his cheeks. He tilted his head into Kanda's neck, pressing his face into the smooth skin there.

"I feel tired." He tried to explain – and it wasn't a lie.

"The song?"

**Th—ur—st…fa…an—**

"_Don't_ make me think about it."

Kanda turned his head enough to lay his head on the curve of Allen's neck, just to support his weight. He spoke softly, knowing too much volume would send the words vibrating down his lover's spine. "I'm sorry."

Allen shook his head a little, but didn't look at him.

"If it helps…" Kanda's arms crossed against Allen's bare back. "We don't have to celebrate again. The numbers don't matter anyways." He felt Allen nod this time, and smiled at it. No more anniversaries, no counting, no hoping for another day, no stupid presents – it would be an illusion, but it would make them both happier. And he wouldn't have to orchestrate a romantic evening when he would rather spend it like any other, perhaps slightly more alone. "Would you like to sleep?"

With hands wet with renewed tears, the white haired Exorcist pushed himself away enough to make himself more comfortable, then settled his head where it had been a moment before. The song, with its half formed words, made him tired like no amount of physicality could. "I'm still getting you something for your birthday."

"Che."

"I am."

"I don't want anything."

"Right."

"I don't."

"This way, you see, it's even. I _don't_ want to celebrate anniversaries and you _don't_ want to celebrate your birthday."

"That doesn't have any logic at all. You just get what you want."

"Trust me. I'm smarter than you, Kanda."

Kanda's fingers suddenly moved against Allen's ribs in a vicious, bruising tickle. The force of his attack sent them rolling across the bed, the British boy's tearstained face thrown back in violent laughter. Kanda did not pause or stop at the sight of it; instead choosing to pause only when he found himself pressing his thrashing, gasping lover to the bed frame. "If you were smarter," He said with a glare. "You'd stop calling me _Kanda._"

"You're tickling—s-stop it! Kan—Yuu!" Allen found himself snorting, the fingers on his tired, bruised ribcage far more demanding than any melancholy or morose thought he could have conjured. He shrugged off the lingering sadness easier than he thought. "I called you—Yuu so—st-stop! I can't brea—"

"One more time."

"Yuu, Yuu, Yuu, Yuu!"

Kanda laughed, amused by the little chant beyond reason. "Good." He kissed Allen gently, fingers playing teasingly on his chest, too light to tickle, to hard to be innocent. The contact, though slight, was enough to bring a tiny blush to Allen's checks. "How tired are you?" His words were a tiny whisper, more air than voice.

"Tired enough, why?" Allen answered with a yawn.

"I have something for you, but you have to stay awake while I go get it."

"You didn't bring it with you?"

"I was late; it wasn't on my mind."

"Pretty is forgetful."

"Pretty is going to maim you if you don't stop it."

"Be nice, Yuu. It's not like I'm calling you ugly."

"Che. You just call me a woman instead."

"You called me _kireina_ once."

"That can mean clean."

"And _pretty_!"

"It doesn't have the same feminine aesthetic!"

"_You_ have a feminine aesthetic!"

"Shut up, Old Man!"

"Straight edged fringe!"

"Tiny bean!"

"Woman!"

"Child!"

"Pedophile!"

"Heterosexual!"

Allen blinked up at Kanda for a moment and a pair of sapphire eyes blinked down, unreadable. Quietly, after much mental blankness and a terrible moment of staring, Allen let out a tiny snicker. His lover smiled at him, a smile that was not withheld or restrained, and only pleasantly crooked. It made him giggle more loudly. "Yuu, you're ridiculous."

"Che. Shut up." Kanda growled at him, pressing a bit more with his palms. He knew the entire exchange was stupid, especially his last insult, but he still smiled from it. It reminded him of their first mission and the times after, when he hated the young man just as much as he loved him now.

"Love?"

"Hm?"

"Maybe I should just… sleep…" He mumbled, letting his arms fall. "Here. With you. All warm and satisfied." He yawned again, then blinked at Kanda with a gentle, dreamy expression, sighed. "The song stopped, for a little. And you're comfy. Do you think you could just… give it to me later?" Allen stiffened at the brush of a mouth against his throat. "Not _that_, Ka-lo-uu."

"Che. Fine, Moyashi. Sleep."

"What'll you do?"

"Be here." He said at once. "You know that."

Allen nodded, his smile unwavering. _I love…_

**My love.**

* * *

"Supervisor! Supervisor! _Komui!_"

"Lollipop…"

"Komui Lee! Get up! It's urgent!"

"Sure you can lick it. Hmm…"

"Komui!"

"Share?"

"Lenalee had sex with an epilep— "

"Lenal— " Komui rolled unceremoniously from the couch and landed on his hands and knees, logic hitting him almost has hard as the tile. His beret slipped over his glasses and the fingers that pinched his right ear almost made him face-plant, long fingernails digging in his skin. He fumbled for his hat, stumbling over his feet as he was dragged blindly away from his sleeping place. "Wha-wha-who—" His hat came up at last, letting him see the dark haired woman who was now guiding him down the hall by the ear. "Yumeko-chan! What's going—"

"Shut the fuck up and walk, you piece of shit." _Oh, I sound like my mother._ She blushed at her own words, and turned back to him with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, you sleep hard. I've been trying to get you up for hours and—"

He jerked his head away from her hand, lengthening his stride to walk beside her. They were headed for the elevator, it seemed, but he didn't argue. "Never mind that, what's going on?"

"I came to talk to you about a thought I had, but I need to think it over before I say anything. And then… while I was waiting for you to wake up, I wandered down to see if I could train, blow off some steam, you know? And when I got there…" They stepped onto the platform and she hit the buttons for the second to last floor, her fingers shaking. "I don't even know what to think about it."

"What is it?"

"It's Tyki."

"What?!" He almost reached for the stop button but didn't, not with how she shook her head. "What's going on?"

"He hasn't killed anyone." She said flatly. "But… you'll just have to see…"

He swallowed thickly and waited for the elevator to fall.

Not far bellow, Lavi gritted his teeth to a blast of air that sent him sailing for the far wall, shirt billowing with his speed. The hammer in his hands shook as it dragged across the floor, trying to slow his movement.

"Wood Seal." He said lowly, hoping that his lover wouldn't hear him. "Roots Entwining Heaven and Earth." It had been far too long since he had tried to control that power. The gentle tendril of air he meant to catch himself with hit him in the back as hard as the wall would have, throwing him forward. A flurry of dust went before him, blinding his eye, and an unseen hand caught the turn of his shoulder, tossing him back again. Curses filled his mouth as he raised his weapon again, preparing for the one thing he hadn't thought himself ready for.

The door opened.

He looked.

A hand shot through his back and caught his right wrist, jarring it with enough force to wrest his hammer from his fingers. He gasped, or tried to, the shared space in his chest tingled in a way that made the reaction oddly slow. The torso behind him pressed a bit tighter than it should have, slowing his movement until they came to halt, his feet still, hammer ten meters away, killing fingers pressed to his throat. His free left hand reached up to touch them even as his face turned to look up at the Noah who held him.

Komui stepped off the elevator, having seen most of the ordeal from above, and stared on in shocked silence.

"My win again, Lavi." Tyki said the words just loudly enough for the scientist to hear, his lips brushing the apprentice Bookman's ear. The redhead shivered. "What do I get this time? Your belt?" His voice fell lower; Komui couldn't catch it. "Your pants?"

"Ty-chan…" Lavi whined the name and – much to Komui and Yumeko's befuddlement – simply pulled his right hand free and reached behind him, tangling his fingers in the Noah's hair. The smile he wore was entirely too gentle, too happy, too _normal_ for what he had been through and what they had walked in on. The hungry way he yanked the Noah into a kiss was far too casual for the arm that protruded sickeningly through the surface of his chest. "I'd say yes but…" His left eye moved toward the door and his smile became shy. "We have company."

Tyki's hand withdrew from Lavi's body and instead hooked around his hips, working the smaller man into a backward embrace. He turned to the two intruders and raised a darkly colored eyebrow, his expression curious, and curled his lover against him as if in defense. Lavi smiled at it, knowing that the arms were indeed more of a statement of his safety than a proclamation of ownership. "Were we perhaps too noisy for your like?" The Noah suggested. "Or did I set off an evil alarm without knowing it?"

Lavi elbowed him in the ribs – and smirked when the hit connected.

Komui fought for words, mouth opening and closing like that of a fish. After a time he turned to Yumeko and motioned vigorously with his hands as if he might mime what he meant to say. When the attempt failed he spoke. "Were they – are they – they're not – why would—"

"Verbs, Komui." Lavi suggested with a nod. "But the answer is most likely yes."

"You made it sound like they were killing each other!" The Supervisor blurted at last, fists at his sides. He looked between the Japanese woman and the intertwined pair, before at last settling for Lavi and Tyki. "And if you _aren't_ killing each other, what _are_ you doing!? The two of you! You're a Noah and an Exorcist! You could seriously hurt each other! And _you _could loser your mind and—" He stopped himself realizing that, at some point, he had grown concerned for _both_ of them, not just the Exorcist he had started out protecting. He took a deep breath, killing the desire to restate everything so that Tyki was not included, and barreled on, accepting the fact that he was. "And do far more damage than the Vatican would be willing to pay for. I do not know what you were thinking but it obviously wasn't about—"

"Safety." Tyki interrupted. "When Lavi has recovered from whatever phobia or syndrome that he might have developed you _will_ put him back in the field – and I will not be there to chase away my kin. This is my attempt at assuring his return." His arms tightened; the hand Lavi had in his hair slid to his neck. Komui blinked at him, not completely understanding. "I have told you before; I will not hurt him unless he asks me."

"Ooh, don't say it like that; you make me sound worse than I am." Lavi protested, eyes on his feet. He was still smiling though, regardless of the faked shyness.

"Innocence does not change that." Tyki finished and his expression became somewhat harsh. His chin came to rest on the top of Lavi's head, the gesture almost childish, his arms hooked a bit higher on his lover's body, circling his shoulders. The redhead clasped his hands on Tyki's forearms in response. "I think you misunderstand something about me, both of you. Wanting and doing are different, very different, but not with this. I want to defend him. I want to keep him safe. So I do. I want to kill you, Yumeko, but I do not. If I did, I would not be defending him." The hand on the Noah's arm gave a squeeze. "You needn't worry yourselves about me."

Lavi saw that Komui's mouth was coming open and instinctually stopped him, blinding smile plastered once again on his face. "I'm tired anyways, so we can call it a day! C'mon Ty-chan, I owe you my pants." He tugged a little on his lover's arms and was pleasantly surprised when they came loose, sliding down his shoulders. Turning, he gripped Tyki's left hand in his right, and began to drag. "Just need my hammer and we… can… Tyki, walk…"

The Noah let his feet move one step, then stopped, waiting for Komui to decide what words he meant say.

"Be careful." The Chinese man said at last. "Both of you."

Tyki smiled at him, his fingers closed on Lavi's and he took a step following the apprentice Bookman, feet light. "Thank you, Supervisor. I am glad we finally understand each other."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**I hope you liked it! Sorry it was so long! 8D**

**Also… this is unbeta'd…**

**And I'm off to my home town to see my gramma, who is sick. I may not be back for a few days, please be patient!**

**Reviews are love. :)**

**-- Nia**


	92. Happiness and Misfortune

**Niamh returns from the grave! –Twilight Zone theme here-**

**Not really. I was gone for a number of reasons – first and foremost being we moved a town over. My grandma (aka mother-figure) died, my sister had her car stolen, and really it's just been a terrible time for writing anything aside from angsty blogs on how horrible life can be sometimes.**

**And ironically, I think this is about the happiest chapter I have ever written. 8-**

**Now, I can only hope that my beta logs on in the next few minutes after I post to yell at me for my terrible spelling and homophone confusion. 8D**

**Disclaimer of D'joyousness: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Komui would make that angsty face more often. Over Lavi. Because that's **_**hawt**_**.**

**Warnings: The usual men touching each other. And cursing.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Happiness and Misfortune

Hiroko's arms were wrapped tightly around her third bag of belongings, sill unable to let it go. As soon as she discovered that all of her expensive sheets and kimonos were missing, she had gone mad searching for them – and finding them in the that shitty little room covered in spooge and wax had mad her _very_ disappointed. And angry. For the second time she had openly attacked her son's man-wife, only this time a hurried, glaring apology from her son stopped her from killing him.

And the stupid little limey had been out like a light. She had too much honor to murder someone in their sleep.

Later that day she had lost the urge to hurt entirely; all it took was her stupid, adorable son to do the unspeakable act of being lame. In front of her and Marian and Hitori and the blonde wench, Yuu had made himself into a romantic cheese factory. With his hair pulled back into a high pony, feminine face set in a determined expression; he had thrown aside all sense of dignity and given is lover a small but beautifully arranged bouquet of spring flowers. She would have kicked him. She would have gutted him. She would have done a lot of things.

And then Allen had to go and make that idiot dumbstruck face and kiss Yuu like there was no tomorrow.

Her arms clung a little more tightly and she laid her head against the side of her bag, closing her eyes. She wanted this train ride to be over. She wanted to be home. And above all, she wanted to be a hundred thousand million miles away from General Cross Marian – he was starting to smell even better and the thought sent chills creeping up her spine and into the back of her skull, blocking off her logic. In the time it had taken to travel from Japan to Europe, she had slept next to him, kissed him twice, and now started to like his smell. Things were going down hill. If she didn't see some sparkling Asian man meat in the next few days, her head was going to implode and she'd give in out of sheer womanhood. A sigh shook her shoulders.

"We should hurry." The subject of her thoughts said from across from her. Why did they share a train compartment anyway? It wasn't like she wanted to be near him. "Things are happening faster than I wanted."

"Didn't you want to stay as far away from the Goddamn Order as you possibly could?" She questioned without looking at him. She knew what she would see. She knew she would like what she saw. She knew she would blush. She hated it.

Cross growled mannishly. "What I want doesn't matter. It's Allen." His voice willed her to look at him, but the Japanese woman shut her eyes to the world. "Never mind."

Hiroko could not help but turn her face toward him. "You're… worried about him? Are you – General Cross Marian – showing that you have a heart?" She questioned with a smirk. He didn't look at her; the masked side of his face presented without emotion. It did not matter, however, if he did not look; she knew him well enough to know what he was trying to hide. They were the same in at least that way. "You can't help it, no matter how much you try, Marian. He's like your kid. Doesn't matter what the fuck you say, you care."

Slowly, without looking, he nodded. "I wish I didn't."

* * *

Allen lay sprawled across the seat with his head in Kanda's lap, sleeping as if he hadn't in days. Kanda didn't mind having him so close, or having his leg touched whenever a fretful dream took his lover, but he found it hard to settle himself entirely. There was something innately wrong with the situation – something he could not name – that filled his head with a hundred thoughts the moment he tried to clear it. Before long he gave up on it and simply pulled Allen up enough to lie down beside him, curling close, _cuddling_. The British Exorcist did not wake, only followed Kanda's guiding arms until the two were wound together comfortably, the smaller boy's face tucked beneath his lover's chin. Kanda smiled at his contentedness, amused by his eagerness, and closed his eyes in the hope that sleep, if not mediation, would come easy.

"Love." The word turned term of endearment sounded into his throat and he hummed at it. Allen's trembling hands pressed into the fabric of shirt for a moment, then fell away, clamped between them. "How long have I slept today?" He questioned a bit more softly.

"Not long enough." Kanda said softly. "We have our own compartment, and a very long time until we get to London. Go to sleep. Now."

"Story?"

"Che."

"C'mon. I promise to at least pretend to go back to sleep afterward." Allen insisted, looking up with pleading eyes. Kanda pretended rather obviously not to see them. "You can cuddle as much as you like when you're done. I swear."

The older man rolled his eyes, and sighed. He felt really very stupid when Allen suggested that he tell stories about his past – but he didn't argue anymore. He had a number of good memories to use, a few thousand probably, but sharing them always made him wonder which was most important. He didn't want to tell the best one first – but he didn't want it last either. The last had a probability of not being told at all. "I'll tell you about… the time I did something smart by doing something stupid."

He could feel Allen's frown.

"I was eighteen, and I had been given a mission with this stupid, naïve, idiotic young man. Stupid and selfless child." He rolled his eyes at the groan his description got him. "As stupid and annoying as he was, I didn't want that man to die, not in front of me. But one night, in the cold snowy land of Sweden, I didn't turn to look what I was cutting in a battle, and almost killed him. It was that time I realized that as much as a hated his willingness to die and his hurry to trust, I cared about him." He paused, the corners of his lips rising. "Che. I had known before but… I never knew how much."

"You can't tell me a story about me, Love. It's not a story at all."

"Fine."

"Wow. You didn't argue."

"When I was fifteen, I fell in a well on a mission and stayed there for a week before anyone found me." He said plainly, shaking his head. A shudder went up his spine and air hissed into his lungs, the memory obviously unpleasant. Allen snuggled closer. "I'll never do something that stupid again." Kanda muttered into Allen's silver hair, breathing him in, eyes closed. It seemed odd to him that he might be calmed by the retelling of one of his darker memories, but it worked that way for him this time. Things felt less wrong, if only marginally. He yawned.

"You've done a lot of stupid things, haven't you Kanda?"

"Che. Yes. I have."

"Admitting it makes you smarter."

"Hn."

"We sleep a lot." Allen commented gently, not complaining, and sighed once more into Kanda, enjoying their closeness. He was tired of travel. Even if they had paid an extra penny to ensure that they all got some relative alone time, he simply did not want to move anymore. He wanted a massive meal, a warm bed, and a big snuggly blanket regardless of the growing warmth. Not that England would be warm at any point this year.

Kanda didn't respond to the comment, not directly. "I love sleeping with you."

Allen giggled. "You know, I think that's a half-truth. You just love me, whatever I'm doing gets limelove."

"Limelove?"

"Like limelight, only… not."

Kanda made a sound that might have been amused or disgusted and placed his left hand firmly over Allen's face. The British Exorcist threw out a number of curious questions, all of which were ignored, until the side of his head found Kanda's chest, and the palm across his nose fell instead to his lips. He only thought then, no longer even caring about the music, about what Kanda might be thinking by holding him so close. Over the time they had spent together he had learned to understand what went on in the back of his lover's mind, at least for the most part, and now was no exception. That hand, warm against his skin and gentle in a way that made him feel safe, could have meant two things; in this case he expected the more innocent.

"Stop talking, right?" He mumbled into the hand over his mouth. He felt rather than saw Kanda smile at the idea, and grinned back lopsidedly for a moment before dragging the hand away from his face to hold it. Silence had always been golden to the samurai, not so much to Allen, but the world was never truly soundless for the younger Exorcist anymore; when he closed his mouth he could hear the sound of Kanda's melody, distinguishable though he could not say he could clearly sing it if someone asked. It didn't bother him. But it made him tired.

"Moyashi-kun?" The Japanese man asked the name regardless of his attempt to keep the younger man quiet. Allen tilted his face accordingly, lips parted in invitation, fingers clamping on the ones in his hands. The tongue that momentarily passed into his mouth brought a gentle, appreciative hum from his throat and the palm that curved around his neck made him smile. There was something wonderfully reassuring about that hand and the press of lips on his, the brush of a booted foot against his own; he laughed lightly when the older man pulled away, then leaned up again, kissing his lips without pause. Kanda took the assault in stride, a small, curious smile blossoming across his lips. It lasted maybe ten minutes between the two of them, neither quite willing to give the other the last kiss, until Kanda flopped uncaringly onto his side and refused to react anymore. He grinned sheepishly at Allen's continued attempts to cajole him into kissing and the like, satisfied with his own self control. When a hand slipped into his shirt he cocked a curious eyebrow at his lover, mystified. "What _are_ you doing?"

Allen mumbled, eyes on the buttons he had yet to touch. "Your mouth isn't kissing back. No use staying there…"

"Che."

"What?"

"Maybe _Whore-chan_ is a good name for you."

"Sure. Pretty."

"Let. It. Go."

"Sorry, I can't hear you. I'm entranced by your ni—"

"Moyashi!" Kanda threw himself back against the seat, attempting to avoid the icy fingers that tickled his chest. When he struck the hands kept coming, teasing, freezing, stealing away his reason. With a muffled curse he turned against Allen, gripping his wrists in an effort to rid himself of those cold caresses; the laugh it got him only made his actions that much more desperate. "Cold fing—"

"It's fine, Love. I'll just lick them." Allen opened his mouth and started forward, left hand jerking at the fabric of Kanda's clothes.

"Allen! No talking does not mean _lick_ me. Quit it!"

"Just a few more inches…"

"Baka!"

"This would be easier if you weren't pushing my hands away."

"We are _not_ doing this on a train."

"Ip thom'on 'oms im, lee cim lathe." Allen said despite his tongue. He could tell by the way Kanda looked at him that his words were completely garbled, but he didn't particularly care. With a growl of aggressive need he launched himself at the older Exorcist and smashed his face on the hard surface of his chest, painfully aware of fingers biting into his upper arms and a thousand words of negation sounding in his ears. Ignoring all of it led his mouth to the less than half exposed plane of his lover's chest with a mouth that was too eager. Kanda's arms turned to jelly in a matter of slow, hungry moments.

There was a light 'che' that Allen hummed at, glad to be left to his task in silence.

When Allen deemed his deed finished, he pulled away and tucked Kanda's shirt down to his waist with a smile. If that was enough, if Kanda secretly wanted him to go on, he could have guesses, but such things were what made teasing fun. With an expression far too much like something he might wear during a poker game he turned around and snuggled into his lover's chest. An arm draped around his shoulders and a warm, flushed face tucked itself into the curve of his neck; he could almost hear Kanda's growl in the song in his head – they shared a chord.

The white haired boy giggled.

"You fucking tease."

"Yuu, don't curse."

"What the hell am I supposed to do? _Cuddle_ with you?"

"Exactly."

"Che." His arms tightened, bangs tickling the curve of Allen's ear. "If I didn't love you…"

"Can't rape the willing."

"I swear, when we get home—"

"Is this a vow of celibacy? I'll have to tear off your clothes right now if it is."

"No it's not." Kanda bit out harshly. "It's a vow of revenge."

"Hm. Those never work out well for anyone." Allen shrugged into him, turning his head enough for his lover to see the puppy-like expression he wore. "Besides, it's not like I did anything you didn't want me to."

Kanda said a number of Japanese words that Allen had never heard before and tilted his head. Within a number of seconds Allen found his ear captured, gentle teeth and hot breath playing up and down the shell of it. His throat made a sound of like and annoyance both, his left hand moved enough to pull Kanda closer, hooking in his hair. The Japanese Exorcist didn't pull away at the encouragement; he only moved to place his mouth on Allen's. The kiss was equal parts give and take; Allen found it impossible to fight the urge to deepen the contact, and soon found himself moaning for more.

_I'm whipped._ Kanda thought with a smile. _But so is he._ His left hand moved from its place on his lover's chest to his face, tracing the shape of his right eye. It took the greater part of a minute for him to disconnect himself from Allen's lips, and even then his fingers continued their slow memorization of that bone.

"Don't stop, Love." Allen murmured at Kanda, and gave a little tug on his hair. Turning proved that Kanda had closed his eyes to the kisses, mouth open, tongue playing gently behind his teeth. The expression sent his younger lover into a slow, shaking exploration of his neck, lips as shy as they might have been the first time. The thought made him smile.

"If we do this and someone walks in…"

"We'll wave! We'll wave!" Allen answered in a panting whisper.

Kanda letting out a chortle. "Fine. Moya—Allen—Baka! Whose _turn_ is it you horny little—_umf!_" There was suddenly a cold hand up his shirt again and a mouth pressed against his own, too hot and obsequious to be ignored. Words failed him as he shifted against the seat, pushing his torso into a slightly more upright position against the back. Allen followed him fluidly, feeling every curve and line of his chest until the two were reclined together, his head tilted at an awkward angle to continue at his lips. The silver haired boy pulled away but his hands kept working, at his lover's clothes, vaguely aware that his own were loosening accordingly. He watched opened mouthed as Kanda's flushed face and lust hazed eyes turned to him and drew into a warm, understanding smile.

"Thank you, Love." He breathed, sinking from the seat so his knees rested on the floor, bumping a bit more violently than they would have on the cushions. He did not mind. With fingers that were cold enough to make Kanda shiver, he started on the fastener of his belt, wetting his lips, ignoring the hands that made to shoved off his shirt. He was halfway finished when the unspeakable happened – with his shoulders exposed to the light, the smooth skin of Kanda's stomach seeming pale next to the skin of Allen's left hand – someone slid their door open.

Allen paused with his tongue hanging from his mouth, not quite on Kanda's skin. The two of them looked up as one, eyes round, and horror stricken. After a moment Allen raised his left hand from Kanda's flesh and gave a slow, deliberate wave. "Hi, Hito."

"_Kon! Baka ototo!"_

"Sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't – it's not – I hope…" The Japanese boy let his shoulders fall and closed his eyes to the spectacle before him, dark hair hanging like a loose fitting shroud around his shoulders. "I'll knock next time Yuu-nii, right now… I need your help. I don't what the hell I'm supposed to do and I…" He looked up and he didn't seem to be seeing either of them, his eyes were far too distant, gray irises fogged over with worry and fear. That expression alone was enough to make Allen's blood run cold. No one made that face unless something was truly wrong, and even then they usually didn't make it at people they knew were attempting to commit sexual acts in the next few seconds. It didn't work out that way. Hitori had always been so easily flustered that—

"Moyashi," Kanda whispered the name as if Hitori wouldn't hear him. "Get off the floor."

"Love I—"

"Che. Get up." Kanda insisted, pinching his shoulders. The pressure made Allen do as he was told, even if he would rather stay where he was, between his lover's knees, and the two of them fumbled into a more suitable position on the seat. Kanda buttoned his pants again, much to Allen's dislike. The Japanese man looked up at his brother and jerked Allen purposely against him, kissing his surprised lips with a recklessness that Hitori did not seem to notice. With a sweeping tongue and a closing of his lips, Kanda promised that this was not the end of their encounter – or their touching. Allen moan softly at the caress, fingers tangling themselves in the fabric of his lover's wrinkled shirt. Pulling away left him breathless.

Allen settled against Kanda's chest, but Hitori didn't give a damn. The kid could suck his brother's cock in front of him – it didn't matter as long as he said what he needed to say.

"Can I…" He didn't finish asking; instead he assumed he knew the answer. On hurried sandaled feet Hitori stepped into the compartment and slid the door shut behind him, moving to take up the seat across from the snuggling couple with a sigh. The cushions were descent, second class, a disgusting shade of yellowish green that clashed horribly with the dark blue of the floor. He tried to think about the colors – and not the two pairs of eyes that turned slowly to his down cast face.

"Che." Yuu turned his eyes toward the window – Hitori didn't need to see it to know it happened. "What?"

Hitori wet his lower lip with his tongue and closed his eyes. "'Kaasan is gonna kill me."

Yuu didn't answer. He didn't look. He waited. Allen felt that he shouldn't have been there – not with things so quiet.

"Sable." Hitori said simply. "She… we were _so _very stupid and she…"

"Dumped you?"

"No! You fucking idiot brother!" Hitori yelled for no reason, clenching his hands on the cushion to either side of his knees. His tearstained face turned up at them, fear and anger his expression, his bangs stuck like climbing vines in the wetness across his cheeks. He tore at them, pushing them out of the way with a growl. "You don't know! You don't know what we did! What _I_ did to _her!_ And you're just sitting there… with your… your… I can't—" His gray eyes found Allen's wide, frightened silver ones and he fell silent, a wave of calm coming over him. He swallowed and sank against the seat, wiping his eyes. "You must think I'm a woman…"

"Talk." Yuu blurted. Allen wished he would be nicer.

Hitori breathed in a slow breath and sighed it out again before his face went to the side, his eyes meeting his brother's in the reflection there. Yuu didn't focus on his face, but he could still see. "It's been… about nine weeks since you got your memory back, right brother?" He asked, not needing confirmation. He shook his head. "Yeah, nine weeks. That was the first time that we… Sable and I… _hoo…_" He was going to start hyperventilating if he didn't try not to. "We slept together. She took off our clothes and I just let her have at me." _Ok, that was a lie._ "Or something and… and…"

"Good job."

"Fucking Yuu-nii-corn! That's not… thank you. But…" Hitori paused, seeming to think. "It wasn't like that. It was… slow and warm and… I don't know. I never new that boobs would—"

"Che. Go on, Hito."

"Hm!" Suddenly and violently he threw himself back against the seat, hair fanning out around him and down his shoulders. He growled again. "We're having a baby."

"What?"

"Did you not hear me?"

"No. I thought you said you were having a baby."

"That's because I did."

"Oh." Kanda continued to stare out the window for a moment, not seeming to understand. Hitori looked at him with one eye, watching the gears slowly turn behind his face, complexion paling. In a blur of hair and loosened clothes the older threw himself at his sibling, dislodging his lover, arms extended to strangle. He was lecturing even before his fingers dug into the fabric of the seat cushion where Hitori's neck had been. "What the hell do you mean?! Having a baby?! You and that – that – that – _woman_?! You're having a little—"

"Nephew!" Hitori chimed from behind him. "Or niece! Look, I've been freaking out too and I—" He dodged again, slipping under Kanda's right arm to his side, agile in a way that his brother could not remember seeing him. Yuu growled. "Just wanted your support because 'Kaasan is gonna beat me to death, and if that happens, I want someone to be there for—" He didn't make it, Yuu's hand closed on his throat and smashed him against the wall, not quite choking off his air. He spoke faster, attempting to stop the murderous intent pouring from his older sibling. "Sabe and our… child because – ow – it'll be hard if 'Kaasan… kills… dizzy… breathe…" From the corner of his eye he caught a flash of white. Allen had taken a hold of Yuu's pant leg.

"Let him talk." Allen suggested from the floor. Kanda che'd at him, but pulled his hand back, drawing it into a fist at his side. "How do you _know_ she's pregnant?"

"I didn't ask for the gory details, but it's pretty obvious." Hitori grumbled, rubbing at his throat. "She's gained about five pounds. And she _cried_ today. _Cried_. Because I _killed a spider._" He looked up at Yuu with round, red rimmed eyes, and blinked. Kanda had the distinct feeling that Hitori was about to say something very, very stupid. "It's hard and I… we're not… ready but… It'll be ok. And… I just wanted to be sure that you won't help 'Kaasan kill me. And you won't…" His eyes had become teary again, but he didn't wipe them. He let his weakness and uncertainty fall from his eyes without a thought about it. Kanda wasn't sure if he felt sick or sad. "Make Sable raise it alone if I…"

"You idiot." Yuu's right hand pulled his younger brother against him, holding his shoulders gently. It did not take anymore prompting for Hitori to hug him back, sobbing. It didn't take a genius to know that it wasn't something Hitori was ready for, but he wouldn't say it. Neither of them would say it. Yuu would do what he had done when they were younger and just be there, quiet, and Hitori would lean on him, the same as it had been when Yumeko picked on them both. "Don't even think about it. Don't even tell Okaasan. It's none of her business anyway."

Allen watched from his place on the floor, silently amazed. It reminded him a little of himself and Lavi – how the older boy comforted him when he needed it in a way that made him feel safe without making him feel tense or too close or like anything else was wanted in return – but there was something distinctly different here. Lavi cracked a joke, Kanda soothed. Somehow, that seemed entirely wrong. Kanda was supposed to hit people, not hug them.

"I know, but I'm still her kid, you know? And you had to find some fucking cute little boy – sorry Allen – to _marry_ first, so now she's gonna be so ridiculously pissed at me that she'll make me cut my hair so she can braid a rope to hang me with." Hitori sobbed, taking a handful of his brother's shirt in his hand. "I wouldn't have this problem if you weren't gay."

"Che. If I weren't gay, I wouldn't be taken."

"_Exactly._"

Allen suppressed the urge to laugh. Kanda, his Kanda, the Kanda who had claimed always to be nothing like a woman, had just openly labeled himself as _gay_. He didn't really feel like mocking him for it, not with his arms wound lovingly around the man's knee, face pressed to the fabric of his trousers. He snuggled a little closer, contented, and Kanda shook his leg – obviously less than pleased with Allen's sudden show of affection – but he ignored it. He was a part of the hug, even if he wasn't a part of the hug.

"Aside from the age thing though, and the mother thing," Hitori mumbled. "I think I'll be ok. It's just… a lot, you know? But at the same time… I don't regret it. And that makes me _stupid._ If I could go back in time and tell myself something before we… slept together, I'd tell me not to be on the bottom because it fucks up my hair – that's it." He laughed awkwardly at that, messing with his locks with one hand. It was a strange way of being hugged, with his one arm on his head, the other touching his brother's shirt, but it still comforted him. When Yuu pulled him flush he stammered in surprise then fell silent, understanding the unspoken words.

_You better be ok. I don't have time to help you._

"Thanks, Nii-san."

"Che." Kanda pushed the boy away, glaring at him. His expression softened slowly, becoming a bit less angry, almost happy. "A nephew?"

"Or a niece." Hitori added with a little smile. "It could be fun for you. You can babysit." He nodded vigorously at how Yuu shook his head, growing more enthusiastic as Kanda became dejected. Allen did not want to imagine his lover babysitting – the baby would sit and die before it was taken care of, he was sure. "Don't look at me like I just asked you to eat Mugen Yuu-nii, it'll be a baby. The worst it can do is throw up on you."

"Ew."

"Thanks, Nee-chan, you help lots."

Kanda moved back slowly, Allen clamoring up beside him, until the two found their seat once again, the smaller settling against his larger lover's chest, Hitori watched the two fold together a little, seeming to almost melt into a single form against the seat. It had never crossed his mind that the two _fit_ like that. He had always thought that the two were too different, too distinctly _male_ to fit like puzzle pieces, but looking now made him wonder if maybe he had been blind to it before, when his life wasn't falling apart.

"Is something wrong, Hitori?" Allen asked from Yuu's side, not seeming to notice that his fingers were twining in his lover's. Hitori shook his head with a half silent laugh.

"No. Thank you. And I think I've finally decided something."

Allen raised an eyebrow.

"Even if you are both guys, and even if you're British, and even if it's awkward and unpredictable, and even though I will _always_ remember those _horrible_ sounds the two of you broadcast for the world when you doing it…" He paused, finally pulling his hands out of his hair with a sigh. "You go together. It's… _cute._"

"Hito-to."

"Hm?"

"Get out."

* * *

"_A youth one day in a garden fair  
A __rose__ found withered and dying,  
And all for love, ah! love in vain  
This __rose__ was sadly sighing—"_

"Do sing something less depressing, dear. It might be mostly sunny but you're making my heart cloud."

"_Heart of my heart, I love you,  
Life would be naught without you;  
Light of my life, my darling,  
I love you, I love you.  
I can forget you never,  
From you I ne'er can sever.  
Say you'll be mine for ever,  
I love you…"_

"Heart of my heart, I'll rip _out_ your heart, if you don't silence your mouth for my pleasure."

"Oh, poemy."

"Thank you."

"_Oh, sweet wild rose of a summer day,  
Thy love has all been in vain;  
Loved by a maid, then cast away,  
I echo thy refrain."_

"Lavi!"

"Ok, ok, ok! The chorus goes again and it's over. I won't sing it!"

"Thank you. Now lie still."

"Right."

Tyki lay on a jacket – which he had painstakingly picked the Black Order's emblem from the front of for reasons he didn't completely understand himself – on the flat surface of the tower roof, looking up at the fogged orb of the sun through closed eyelids. Lavi's head rested on his stomach, turned up at the light, bobbing when the younger man needed to remind him to stroke at his hair. Tyki would take up rhythm again, letting his fingers trail across Lavi's headband and then across the top of his head, pausing at the bottom and the crest. It made him feel oddly content to just sit in silence and play with his lover's hair, staring close-eyed into the light.

"Heart of my hear—"

"I'll beat you if you stop."

"Yay!" Lavi giggled at his own terrible enthusiasm and rolled against his lover, arms pillowed on the Noah's stomach, back to the sun. He sighed when the hand on his head kept moving the way he wanted. "You know… I never thought I'd see the day that those words would make me happy." He mumbled, spreading himself slowly over Tyki's torso, horizontally. When his half-gloved hands found the stone on the opposite side of his lover's body he paused, groaning, and sighed. "You're ribs are boney."

"That's fine, I'll just let you fall through them."

"Be nice."

"You don't particularly _like_ nice, do you dear?"

"Not really. I like touching you though…"

"Hm. I'll have to remember that if we fight."

"Meany."

"In the meantime, however," Tyki sat up, propping his torso on his elbows so he might look down at his lover and smile, oddly innocent despite the leer to his eyes. Lavi looked up at him and returned the expression, features dancing in the sunlight. "Are you hungry? You're looking at me as if I might be tasty."

"Ty-chan. The other white meat. Or dark meat. Depending on the day." Lavi mumbled, laying his mouth on his lover's clothed stomach, open and smiling. The heat from Tyki's sun-warmed body made him feel almost tired, and the expression the Noah wore made him feel almost careless, and the way it all fit together made him feel happy. Since the two of them had discovered their mutual like of violence, and acted on it, there had been very little unhappiness between them. The comment might have induced biting or teasing or something of the like, but Tyki simply pushed himself higher, arms extended, and drew the younger man into an embrace. Lavi turned his face up for a gentle, lingering touch of lips, just to feel that they were there.

Tyki pulled away with a slow, gentle smile, and curled his arms around Lavi's shoulders, humming. "I love you." He muttered, kissing the younger man's forehead.

"I should call you meat more often…" Lavi chuckled, readjusting them so he could clamor more effectively between his lover's knees and return the embrace. He tangled his fingers in the back of his lover's shirt and grinned at him. There was no way for his expression to be mistaken, especially sitting firmly on the Noah's lap like he was. "It gets an admission of affection, that's worth something." He half teased, turning his face up at his lover without moving closer. Tyki's expression demanded that he return the words but he didn't, deciding to go with something less formal. "You're my favorite Noah." He grinned with all of his teeth at the words and Tyki frowned at him, which only made him smile wider. When he found himself lying on his back against the stone of the roof, his lover looking down at him with a serious expression, he threw his legs to either side of Tyki's hips and dragged him down into a hug that had more to do with his the angle of his pelvis than the strength of his arms.

"You love me." Tyki growled at him.

"Really? I thought that was a given."

"Aren't givens restated at the start of a solution?"

"Who died and made you smart?"

"Noah did."

"Haha. What a horrible joke."

"Not as bad as the one where I'm your favorite Noah."

"It's true though. If Rhode _ever_ tried to touch my butt, I'd kick her in the face."

"As would I."

"Oh… speaking of my butt…"

"If we do that here everyone will know…"

"It's not like they don't know already."

"It's not like I want your comrades calling me a sodomite anymore than they already do, thank you."

"Pfft. They only say it because they don't think you're going to stay good. They don't know how far we've gone…"

"If they did, I guess it might be a compliment, hm?"

"I guess. If you really think I'm that desirable…"

"Desirable? Oh, yes. _I want._" Tyki cracked a smile, brown eyes proving that the desire had not actually filled him to the point of voicing it. "Want. Want." He rocked forward and laid his face in the crook of his lover's neck breathing into his throat; Lavi turned his head back against the stone roofing and shivered at the slow touch of a tongue on his jaw, stealing his air. He made a tiny sound of a encouragement but Tyki pulled away from his salty skin, shaking off his arms but leaving the legs twined around his middle, almost still but not quite, trembling as if that tiny bit of contact was enough to send him over the edge. Lavi kept a firm hold on his lover's shoulders and followed his retreat until he sat upright in the man's lap, his booted feet folded behind his back.

"What?" He asked, not understanding the sudden withdrawal. The soles of his feet scraped when his lover leaned away on his arms, a strange expression coming over his face.

Tyki shrugged a little, his eyes smiling even if his mouth wasn't. "Play a game with me." He said lowly, dark eyes shimmering like topaz in the sun. For a moment the redhead just held on to him, appreciating the shine of his eyes. He was a bit sore from their last bout of hurting and being hurt, but he doubted that Tyki meant anything along that line of thinking – not when his eyes were that impeccably human coloration. So he smiled and let his arms fall again the surprisingly rough fabric of his lover's shirt and gave a slow, meaningful squeeze.

"What kind of game?" He asked, running his tongue over his lower lip. Tyki's face brightened.

"Well, I was going to suggest poker, being neither of us has read a word since we got here," He jerked his chin at their long abandoned books before he reached out with a steady right hand and hooked a finger in the fabric of Lavi's headband. He pulled it down around his lover's neck. The green material stayed between his fingers as he spoke, toying with it on occasion. "But I can see that you have other things on your mind, don't you…" He yanked the headband forward, bringing Lavi's suddenly flushed face exceedingly close to his. "Dear?"

Lavi's mouth opened before he could stop it and Tyki took the act as an invitation. Lavi smiled at the kiss, quietly amazed by the tenderness of it, and inevitably gave himself over to the touch of a palm to his side. There was a bruise there – made from the impact of a wall during practice – that both of them knew about, and the subtle twinge of pain only made Lavi shiver. He accepted the intrusion of a slow almost shy tongue against his own and slipped both of his hands under the folds of his lover's shirt. It seemed to him that his lover had not expected the reciprocation because he tensed, breaking the kiss with a soft gasp.

"Take off your gloves." The Noah whispered huskily before giving a jerk on the band Lavi now wore around his neck. The redhead snickered, lifting his clothed palms from the older man's chest.

"I didn't realize you had a kinky limit." Lavi muttered as he pulled the cloth from his hands without taking them from inside of his lover's shirt.

The Noah laughed. "That's not the case here. The fabric is a bit rough for my liking." He gave a tug with his hand, bringing their mouths together again before he spoke. "We could go back to the library if you like, and try this standing up…"

"That's alright; I don't think I can make it farther than my room in these pants."

"Oh?"

"Someone will see and send me off to the infirmary because they think I've hurt myself."

"Oh yes. The only means by which Lavi swells is pain."

"Shut up." The redhead finally had his hands bare and he spread them gently over his lover's shoulders, using the place as a lever to tilt them into one another. He brought his mouth to the side of Tyki's jaw, beside his ear, and smiled. "You know, things have been so calm recently, I'm surprised Komui hasn't coming asking me to tell him everything I know about you and the others. It worries me a little. But at the same time, it kind of makes me feel like I'm on an extended vacation and should be enjoying myself, you know?"

Tyki nodded. "Perhaps a honeymoon."

"A month long honeymoon? Jesus."

"What's wrong with that? Surely the honeymoon only ends when you've exhausted every possible place and position in your arsenal."

Lavi pulled away enough to look his lover in the eye and shake his head in amusement. Sometimes, when Tyki said things with a dark vocabulary and a white sense of humor, he wasn't sure what to think of him. "If that's the case, we'll be honeymooning for about six more years."

"We best get on it then. A new location everyday for the rest of the year."

"I'll be so sore…" Lavi whined, making an unpleasant face at the idea. Tyki raised a curious eyebrow.

"Maybe I won't have to throw you into things and poke your bruises." He teased, giving the wound on his lover's side a playful jab. The redhead cringed but didn't protest, a sour look crossing his normally sweet features with a speed that made Tyki smirk; he could very well read that expression as an insistence that he not stop or that he should pull his hands away as fast as possible. He didn't know which was meant. "Shall we head inside? I might do with a snack. Not that kind of snack dear, a _food_ snack. Preferably something a long the lines of a _meal_."

"Meals are not snacks."

Tyki's eyes, for reasons Lavi could not understand, flashed a color closer to gold, glimmering with a hue that stayed constant even when the sun went behind a cloud. His tan face fell into a strange frown in a change that Lavi had not seen happen so rapidly since the first night he had noticed the difference between light and dark. His eyebrows pushed together and the hand that had been on his headband moved to his throat, a thumb pressed to the hollow of his throat.

"Ty-chan?" Lavi whispered the name, tilting his head away from the hand on his neck.

Tyki's eyes remained gold, his expression serious. "I just… had a feeling…" His voice was little more than a breath through his lips. Lavi tensed for a moment before his lover's thumb slipped up to the side of his neck and ran along the turn of his cheek, gentle and soothing though still dangerous. Lavi felt his heart leap in his chest when it curved under the side of his jaw. "I have not had this feeling in a very long time, Lavi, and having it makes me worry."

"What kind of feeling, Tyki?"

"The feeling…" Tyki's fingers took the apprentice Bookman by the chin and leaned him forward, though not far enough to touch. "That I might… that I should… I have not…" He shivered, his fingers pressing Lavi's flesh into his teeth. The redhead made a sound of displeasure, but it did not stop his lover's fingers. "I want to…" He trailed off before pulling his lover into a hurried kiss, almost bruising. The contact wasn't enough for him, however, and soon Lavi found himself once again staring up the sky, suddenly downcast. He gasped at a sudden pain on his side and glanced to see his lover's hand clawing his jacket away, even if it was still hooked on his arms.

"Ty-chan, you've been hot and bothered before, so I don't know what you mean about—"

"It's not me, dear."

Lavi bent his left arm to help his lover remove his garment, then laid perfectly still while the man started on his shirt buttons, pushing them through the wholes one at a time. He licked his lips and swallowed, closing his eyes to the light. He tried to feel the desire in his lover, the way he had learned to, and reached out to it, hunting for what it was that the Noah really wanted. A bolt of arousal shot through him when he tried and he moaned like a whore, reaching out for the man over him and touching the fabric against his chest. There was no fighting a feeling like that – he didn't know how Tyki was still functioning if he truly felt that all the time – so he didn't bother resisting it, his hands wouldn't have listened if he had.

Before he could push Tyki's shirt off his own was open, exposing his skin to the suddenly cold air. He couldn't think beyond the simple desire for more of the man hovering so close to his skin without touching.

"Ty-chan… Ty-chan…Ty…" He couldn't speak beyond the name, not with how his mind was. It was as if a memory of the present were running madly through his head, too quickly to be stopped, too slowly for his liking, and he could only sit back and let it happen. He stammered out words that didn't make much sense to either of them, shaking with a desire that had not yet moved far beyond his brain.

"Hold on to me." Tyki growled at him, dragging his half-naked chest higher. Lavi needed no more prompting. The younger man wrapped his arms tightly around his lover's shoulders and panted into his neck, reveling in the warm scent of smoke and a twinge of something like dust. Tyki smelled like his room. It made Lavi smile. "Don't look."

"What are you—"

"Shhh… just hold on to me, dear. I will do the rest."

Lavi closed his eye and moved himself as close to Tyki as he could, pressing his face into the curve of his lover's shoulder. There was a long moment in which nothing happened before he felt a sudden change in the air. Rain hit them both in an icy sheet, shocking his eye open and tearing a gasp through his lips, his lover drew in a quick breath, a harsh laugh barking from his mouth as the urgency flooded out of him with the sun's heat. Lavi shivered, his loose hair suddenly plastered against his face and neck, the downpour too much to ignore.

"Ty-chan?" He asked, unsure what his lover had been intending.

The Noah pushed him back slowly, breathing out air that they could see the moisture of. His round golden eyes were shaded by his hair, wet and curling more tightly from it. He cracked a strange smile at his lover, showing teeth and tongue in a childish expression of amusement, and pulled away, shoulders shaking with cold. "This is a premature end, isn't it?" He said loudly, the thunder of falling water downing out any number of quieter noises with its intensity. His smile was contagious. He pulled away, exposing his lover's bare skin to more of the rain.

"Don't you love England's weather?" Lavi asked in a half-yell. Tyki made a strange face at him as he reached back to pick up the jacket he had been laying on.

"What about leather?"

"I didn't say anything about leather!"

"Lay on my what?!"

"Stop talking!"

"Sock thing?!"

"Tyki! We should go—" Lightening zipped across the sky accompanied by a clap of thunder so loud it made Lavi's ears ring. He had only seen the weather change so quickly a few times in his life – one of them had been the only time in recent memory that he had seen Yuu dripping wet with something besides blood. He gathered his jacket and gripped his lover's hand, then gave a violent tug in the direction of the nearest door. It didn't matter if they didn't have sound, the Noah would understand what the show of force meant without even thinking about it. They moved slowly, Lavi shivering more violently with every step, until they stumbled and he tripped; a fork of lightning rent the sky into three parts and cast the stones beneath his knees in shades of blue white.

He saw a splash of red under his palm and realized that in his hurry he had forgotten to pick up his gloves. He looked behind him, searching for them, and found that they weren't on the ground where they should have been and his lover had let go of his hand. Panic – a kind that he hadn't felt in a number of weeks – flared in his chest and stilled him. The ground was stone here. It was cold. Very cold. And the more he thought about it, the harder it became to breathe. It was just the same as it had been when Tyki had saved him, the feeling that his lungs were trying too hard, and the touch of painfully icy granite, but the sound was different. The roar of the rain was far less deafening than the silence of a vacuum.

The thunder broke the spell. Tyki watched his lover's head snap up as a clap sounded over his head, close enough to rattle his teeth in his jaw. He had made it to the door, thinking that Lavi had released him on purpose, and now saw that that wasn't the case. The way his lover looked at the blood on his hand and shook from the cold, the way he tilted his head up at the sound of thunder – it was all wrong. The redhead looked to be loosing his mind in the cold.

He moved.

As quickly as his feet could carry him Tyki moved from the slight overhang by the door to his lover's side, hauling him haphazardly toward the entrance. His lover was saying something, softly, but he couldn't hear him. Between the rain and the thunder and the constant shivering of his teeth, there was nothing to be heard but clicks and groans. He opened the door and shut it behind them, surprised to find the hall they stepped into darker than the stormy world outside.

"…different… I ca-ca-can't feel my f-f-f-ingers… th-thunder and… there was—_ah!_" Lavi stopped when he felt a wet arm curl around his shoulders, warmer than his back. The chest near his face suddenly seemed like the most inviting platonic thing since he had discovered hot springs. "Tyki…" His jaw trembled with the name. "What just happened?"

The Noah laughed, running a hand through his lover's hair. "We were enjoying the decently warm weather and it turned into a surprisingly cold spring storm, dear."

"Be-before that. When I went c-crazy." Lavi mumbled, wrapping his arms around his lover's waist. It seemed unfair to him that his lover wasn't shivering as violently as he was, or that he couldn't be the warm one, or that he couldn't see as well in this dark, less used hallway. He didn't complain though, he simply followed his lover's movement as the started down the stairs, his boots squeaking on the steps. His shirt was open, he realized, but he didn't much care about it. The same that he didn't care that his jacket was dragging on the ground.

Tyki shook his head a little, little beads of water shined silver in the dim light before they flew from his curls like miniature shooting stars, shattering in the distance like shards of glass. "For a tiny moment when you told me that a meal is not a snack, I was just astoundingly pleased with being alive." He said plainly. "I haven't felt that way since I stopped acting entirely white or black at any given moment." He sighed at Lavi's silence. "But it changed at once. I just _wanted_ you after that."

"Good thing it rained. W-we'd be out there f-f-f—"

"No more talking for you until we get into a nice warm bathtub, Dear One."

"Are you dark?" Lavi questioned as soon as the words were out of his mouth. The Noah beside him nodded, the motion only hardly clear in the dimness. He knew what that meant. _Very._

* * *

"And then he kicked me out!" Hitori said loudly, lowering himself onto the seat opposite of Sable. It was halfway through the evening, blue-purple light seeping in the window turning his skin a hue between corpse and paper. The blonde across from him smiled at him a little and stood, crossing the space between his seat and hers in as few steps as she could. He silenced himself when she sat beside him, gold hair loose and dangling down her back like a cloak on top of her coat. It made him smile when she grabbed his arm and snuggled into him, green eyes shut to the world.

"I'm glad to hear that your brother thinks you seduced me." She mumbled, tracing a pattern on his arm. "He's less likely to get pissed and do something if he thinks it was you…" Her mouth was on the corner of his _just_ where he _hated_ it, and her right hand curved against the inside of his knee, pulling it a little to the side.

"Sable what are you—"

"Knowing that they think it was you… that makes me feel better about this…"

"What—what—your hand…" He leaned away from the touch of lips on his neck, shivering. They hadn't done things quite the same as they had that one time – for fear that if she wasn't with child she would be if they kept at it – though they had both been without their clothes enough to make up for it. With the delicate, moist air of Sable's breath to his ear, and the light seeping in the compartment window a color that couldn't have been an more dazzling to his eyes, he knew that he would not try to stop her.

Sable's voice was a whisper when she spoke. "It's not like I can get re-pregnant, Hito." She mumbled into his skin, pressing her other palm into his stomach. Her fingers fluttered over his ribs as if counting them, or deciphering a Braille message there, carved into his bones by God, but he ignored it, choosing instead to smile at her and think the words that even now had yet to pass her lips.

"I love you."

"Wonderful."

"So we can do that if you can find a comfortable way to do it on a train."

She was silent for a moment, lost in thought. She spoke a nearly soundless word against him, "Ok…" And guided her lips slowly into his.

Hitori realized, with a gentle brush of his fingers through her hair, that he would never have enough of this. No matter how she refused to say it, or how it hurt, or how much the afterglow faded, or how long it took him to get everything right; he would never get tired of touching. It was good in a way that he could not describe. A form of infinite bonding that always made him incapable of fighting – incapable of anything but saying _yes_.

_It's ok if it takes you a while, Sabe._ He thought when his palm cupped around the side of her waist. _We've got all the time in the world anyways._

* * *

The sun was nearing the downward end of the slope of the sky when Kanda realized that, regardless of it all, despite the fact that Allen had swore the get him something for the occasion, Allen hadn't even told him happy birthday. Neither had his brother. Nor his mom. It was as if the day hadn't happened at all, and now that the sun was setting, it almost made the illusion complete. It would have, if Allen weren't tracing the number _19_ on his thigh as if it meant the world to him.

"Che. Just say it." He mumbled, fingers clamping in Allen's hair. They were done for the day with touching of the kind that left him tired, but his lover still rested his head on the side of his leg, writing beside it. He looked down at the pair of silver eyes that looked up at him with furrowed brows, not watching the fingers that continued to scribble numbers more rapidly.

"Say what?" Allen asked innocently, the expression perfect on his delicate features. Kanda fought down the urge to make their sexual activities not quite over and won – Allen wasn't trying to seduce him with that look, even if it worked that way. Instead his hand gripped a little more tightly, holding Allen's head at the desired angle. "What, Love?"

"Happy birthday, _baka_." He grumbled and gave Allen's head a little jerk upward. "You've been writing nineteen on my leg for an hour."

Allen blinked for a moment, seeming confused. Nineteen? It wasn't the number nineteen bouncing around in the back of his head where the song used to be. That was too big. Fourteen. Fourteen was the number. But Kanda didn't know that. Kanda didn't know about—

"Moyashi?"

"Happy birthday." Allen chimed, stilling his hand.

Kanda didn't even blink at his words, seeming to take them in stride. He believed wholeheartedly that Allen had indeed been writing the number nineteen, and his hesitance had been purposeful. He even, for a moment, thought it was cute. "What… did you get me?" He asked softly, his hand spread out in Allen's hair, giving him leave to lower his head once again to his lap. After a moment Allen's face fell, his eyes shut to their compartment.

"My love, being I haven't been away from you long enough to buy anything." He mumbled with a slow, tired sigh. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Moyashi." Kanda said back, running his fingers through his lover's hair. In the golden light the locks were silver, streaked with red iron, the curse mark on his eye seemed black rather than red, the star over his eye filled rather than drawn. The Japanese Exorcist decided, regardless of how little he said it; he really did appreciate his lover's looks. Allen was on the masculine end of the spectrum, yes, but it wasn't a stretch to call him _pretty_ or even _beautiful_. It just wasn't the same pretty as he would have used for a girl. The lay of Allen's hair, his coloration, his adorable way of looking both sad and hopeful in the same expression. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "Love is enough. I didn't want anything anyway."

"Nu uh." Allen grumbled into him. "I was going to get you handcuffs so we can stop stretching out my belts. And make you a sugarless cake. And sit around in the apron so you'd use the handcuffs." He whined and the irritated quality to his voice made Kanda chuckle. Kanda would have done anything to get out of eating a cake – sugarless or not – and Allen knew it. "You'll just have to wait until we get home. So for now… you just know what you're getting." He offered lamely.

Kanda's hand paused, a number of sappy things to say coming to mind. He didn't pick any of them, choosing instead to let his mouth do what it always did in this sort of situation – shut with a half-scowl. After a moment he pushed Allen away from his leg enough to sink down beside him stiffly. He needed to move sometime in the next few days – really move – but he wouldn't worry about that now. For now he would be content to pull Allen against him and forget his age, because it really didn't matter. He was a dead man walking anyway.

"Yuu?" Allen asked without looking at him. His head pressed reassuringly on the plane of Kanda's stomach, heavy as if he weren't trying to hold it up at all.

"Che. What?"

"I love you." He mumbled at the window. He felt Kanda smile. _Now stop thinking about your own death, I can tell you are._ He thought forcefully. The arms that tugged him closer carried with it a strange feeling of contentment and certainty that left him warm on the inside, as well as awkward. Fingers wove into his and dragged his hand next to his lover's heart.

"Allen," The tone of Kanda's voice made Allen look at him, curious. The sapphire eyes that looked down at him were drinking him in, sucking his soul right out of his body. He felt oddly weak. He felt himself lean forward as if against his will, eyes hooded.

"Yuu…"

"Che," Kanda intoned softly. "If you kiss me… I might…"

"I know, Love." Allen kept leaning upward, head tilted slightly. "But you're so…"

Kanda didn't let him finish. He reached out with his right hand and pressed a finger to Allen's lips, holding him back for a moment. "Thank you, Moyashi. It was… nice of you to act as if you'd forgotten. I wouldn't have—_ha!"_ His finger slipped between Allen's lips and he felt a hurried tongue flick at it before he smirked at his lover and gave slow, thoughtful shake of his head.

"Stop talking." Allen ordered, reaching again for Kanda's mouth.

"Che. Did _you_ seriously just tell _me_ to stop talking? I think we need a moment to look at how _stupid_ that is, Moyashi."

"Kan-da!"

Allen let out a strange howl of glee and annoyance at Kanda's hands, which pushed him against the cold glass of the window. He decided on a moan of appreciation however, when he felt his work from earlier being returned by a hand that did not need to work very hard to get its first job done. He took a firm hold of his lover's shoulder and leaned back, giving him leave to do as he pleased.

"Still want to kiss me?" The Japanese Exorcist asked this his hand firmly placed in the fabric of Allen's pants.

"Mmhmm…" Was the growling response he received. It made him smile a strange, satisfied sort of smile, and he lowered his face to Allen's.

"_Dozo…"_ He whispered.

"Huh?"

Kanda laughed lightly, his breath parting over his lover's face so that his silver lashed eyes fluttered shut. "It means you should do as you wish."

"Oh. Then…"

* * *

The sound, Tyki decided, was not too unlike the one his stomach made when he hadn't had a good meal in three days. It was not, however, coming from anyone's stomach. He sat at the side of Lavi's bed, running his fingers over the fabric of his lover's shirt sleeve, smiling as if mildly concerned. The late afternoon sun was blocked by the fabric of his lover's curtains, casting the room in shades of purple and faded green, the long forgotten prayer candle dyed a gross yellow that made Tyki think of book pressed poppies. Yumeko sat quietly on the floor by the door, playing a dice game with herself, and he simply ignored her. She wasn't a bother when she wasn't trying to be one.

"Urgh…" Lavi groaned with a deep, shuddering sigh, flushed cheeks lifting in an awkward smile. He made the sound again, just in the back of his throat, and rubbed the end of his nose with the back of his hand. "I tol' you I'm fine. Ya don' havta stay wit' me." He made his smile even wider and took a deep breath only to sneeze on his hand with a grimace. He blinked at his fingers until his lover gently, with that half-concerned grin, laid a tissue on it. "Danksh."

"Well, it's my fault that we were caught in the rain." Tyki said with a little tug on the redhead's shirt. "And I should have thought about towels before I… threw you in the tub…" He glanced at the woman by the door before he turned his eyes back to Lavi, his expression becoming a bit more amused. Lavi had never told Tyki that his amused smile was delicate and warming, but it was. The apprentice Bookman grabbed his fingers with the hand that was not cleaning itself on a tissue. "Is there anything I can get you?"

"Iz a cold, Ty-chan. I'm not dyin'."

"Colds do not give you fevers. You have a fever."

"No I don't." Lavi said with a shiver. He was lying, had been since he'd started to feel ill on the stairs. It wasn't as if he had never been sick before, he just usually ignored it and went on anyways – the world didn't stop, the war didn't stop, just because he felt like shit.

"Right. Is there anything I can get you at all? Tea? Another blanket?" Tyki paused at the touch of fingers on his wrist and floundered for a moment when he found himself jerked into Lavi's chest, warm arms wrapped around his ribcage. He chuckled, then sighed into his lover's shirt. "Me?" He asked with a small snicker.

Lavi growled at him. "You jus' stay still an' cuddle wit' me. I'll be fine." He shivered again, and this time Tyki hugged him close because of it. "Tumarrow, when my nose isn't killin' me, we're so doin' it in the liba'ry b'fore I forget."

"Really, dear?" Tyki said. "Well, I guess I'm up for it. If you aren't sick. Though I really must ask you…" He looked up with a curious expression and gave a squeeze with his arms. "Before the thunder crashed, on the roof, you were somewhere else. Where were you?" He laid his chin in the middle of Lavi's chest, and tried to serious despite the rouge to his lover's cheeks and the slight pink quality to his nose. _Adorable,_ He thought happily, **I want to see more.**

Lavi laid his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes with a sigh, thinking about the coldness of the rain. Yumeko perked up by the door, but he pretended not to notice. "D'you wemember when ya ran in an' saved me from those two retards and that not-you?" He felt his lover nod. "Ya rejected th' atmos'pere and it was cold… the stone felt the same. I've thought a lot 'bout what happened b'fore that, and what din't happen, but I haven' really thought 'bout what happened af'erwards." He sniffed hard, much to Tyki's displeasure, and smiled as if satisfied with his nostrils. "I kinda thought about that moment when I didn't know what the hell was going on and I couldn't breathe and the world was just… a blind fold and your hand on my skin. And then the ceiling fell in and it kind of sounded like thunder."

"I see."

Lavi nodded, pulling Tyki closer. "C'mere…"

"Dear, Yumeko—"

"Doesn't give a shit." Lavi and Yumeko said at once, which caused them both to chuckle. It made Tyki frown even as he pushed himself up on his arms and leaned forward, mouth hovering painfully close to his lover's. "Now down…"

Tyki smiled into the kiss, bending himself over his lover enough to make their height difference more obvious. He felt a flurry of desire run through him, starting where a too warm pair of hands met his jaw and spiraling down to stop at the base of his spine, reminding him of a cold dark coil that he hardly felt anymore. For a split second he felt the same as he had on the roof and the same as he had for most of his life – as if breathing was a pleasure. He didn't want anything he didn't have, he didn't desire to feel anything that wasn't there to feel – he let his eyes fall closed, giving a slow, violent tremble. Lavi understood his sudden weakness, somehow, and hummed at him in encouragement.

"I am happy." He whispered when their lips broke apart. The hand that had drifted to his chest gave a tiny, almost nonexistent press to his heart, and he smiled wider. "I am happy just to be here with you. I feel as if…" Fingers stopped the words from coming from his mouth, pushing them closed. He knew. He understood then that Lavi already knew how he felt and approved of it, approved of the entirely white feeling running through him.

"This is how you were… on the train, huh?" Lavi asked softly. "I like this you. I like you happy."

Tyki smiled at him, petting the side of his face with an open palm. "Do you like me this way more than you like me when I hit you?"

Lavi shook his head. "It's not like that. I can't like any part of you any more than I like the rest, that defeats the purpose of loving you. But at the same time, seeing you so… content to be alive it… I don't even know. I just feel like my heart would explode if you were any happier. And it makes me feel like I might cry, but it's a good sort of feeling. Am I making any sense at all?" His hand moved to Tyki's hair, the one he had resting over his lover's heart traveled slowly to his hips. The smile over him, warm and shadowed in the light, did not waver.

"Have you ever really _felt_ happy, dear? Because that is a relatively good description of what it is to be happy for someone else." Tyki's voice was just loud enough for Yumeko to hear it and she glanced up at the two, an odd thought striking her. She had thought sitting in the hall that the two of them were bound together by the _Noah_ in Tyki falling for the apprentice Bookman – the inhumanity turning its back on the Millennium Earl and the Order in order to have the young man for its own. That line of thought made her believe, if only for a moment, that there was a chance Tyki hated them both. Caught in the middle. Death offered freely from both sides. But now, hearing him say those words, hearing him explain a human emotion to an Exorcist, she didn't know what to think of him anymore.

_It's like he's more human than Lavi is sometimes._

"I guess I haven't." The redhead admitted softly. "I never knew feeling for someone else could be better than feeling for myself. Ty-chan," Yumeko watched the apprentice Bookman blink repeatedly, though she couldn't see if he was crying. She did not want to see him cry, even if they were happy tears, but she kept watching all the same. "I think you're more human than I am."

The Noah laughed, pressing his forehead to Lavi's. "I'm not dear. I'm only as human as you have made me."

* * *

Lenalee was smiling. It was a real smile, not on of her forced looks of exasperation, and her hands were very steady placing the tray of coffee on his desk. She looked pleased, content, and oddly _happy_. He couldn't remember the last time that she had seemed entirely _happy_.

"What happened?" Komui asked as he brought his coffee cup to his lips and took a long satisfying drink of her wonderful brew. There were only two good coffee makers he knew of besides Jerry, and those were Lenalee and Lavi, and of the two he would have to say that hers was better. Only a little better. Really it was just that his own coffee, as wells as Reever's coffee, were nearly undrinkable. Coffee flavored acid with a dash of grossness, sprinkled liberally with disgusting and vomit-worthy.

His sister's smile brought him away from the cup and back to the conversation. "Allen and Kanda were supposed to be back today, but they're four days behind."

"Oh? And you're smiling?"

"Yes." She nodded, setting the carafe on his desk. "I think they're behind on purpose."

Komui would have taken the time to take another sip but that statement made him miss his lips; hot coffee splashed on his white pants, making him hiss. It was fine though, he needed an excuse to get away from the office anyway. "Why would they do that?" He asked harshly.

"It's Kanda's birthday today. I bet that they did something to be sure he wouldn't have to deal with Jerry and Lavi making a fuss over him." She smiled wider, holding her clipboard to her stomach, and leaned against his desk sideways. Komui growled internally at the expression. "He should know better than that though. I'm sure they'll throw him a party whenever he gets here." She turned her laughing eyes to Komui and he returned the expression, warm and understanding.

"If he is I will have to give him an earful. It would be much easier to find out what Lavi knows about the Noah if I could distract Tyki with another Exorcist. Like Kanda. Lavi doesn't always want to be in the same room with him, so—"

"Don't ruin the day with work, Nii-san." Lenalee chided him gently. "Can't you just be happy that Lavi and Tyki are happy and leave it at that?"

He nodded stiffly, eyes wandering down to his papers. "You're right, Lenalee, I know you are. I have nothing to fret over." He met her smile again, but his was painfully false. She reached out with her clipboard and laid it softly on his head, just lightly enough for him to know it was there. "What?"

"I'm taking aim for when you look at me with that face again." She answered seriously, tilting the board enough to see him beneath it. His smile was real this time, only it was a smile of amusement rather than empathetic bliss. It would do though. "Now drink your coffee. This isn't the time to be moping. We're all going to be together again for the first time in months and we're going to throw Kanda a birthday party he'll hate so much, we might see him smile when it's over. It's a _good_ time for the Order, Nii-san, so stop thinking so hard." She saw a little light in his eyes, a warning that he might hug her or turn to his work, or just cry like a small child all of a sudden. He lifted his coffee cup and hid his face behind it for a long, quiet moment.

"Thank you," He mumbled, turning to her with steamed over glasses. "I'll go back to work now."

**-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Omake! Crosoko!Special -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --**

Kanda sat at the kitchen table at his mother's estate looking at her with eyebrows pressed together in the center of his forehead. The two sitting in front of him and the young men at his sides made him think that somewhere, in the middle of the conversation, he had missed something.

He sat with Allen on his left and Hito on his right, both blinking expectantly. He felt like the odd man out – the only one who wasn't in on the scheme, the one who didn't know what was going on. Allen's hand on his kept him sane.

"I don't think he heard you, Okaasan." Allen whispered from his side, squeezing his fingers. They had been talking about Kanda's father, and – after more talking than he could stand about the old fool – he had tuned them out and thought about other things for a while. Now he kind of regretted it. With eyes glistening with curiosity he blinked at his lover, not understanding.

"Kanda," It was Cross' voice that dragged him away from Allen, turning his face away with a look that could only be tolerant. The general folded his hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward, smiling softly. "November, nineteen years ago, I…"

"Made whoopee." Hiroko said in old woman speech. "With me."

"Che. What the fuck do I care?" Kanda seethed at them. "I should cut your face to ribbons for touching her, but it was too long ago to matter now."

"Yuu-nii-corn can't do math…"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Cross' smile became distinctly more pleasant; his finger tapped a rhythm on the tabletop. Hiroko raised a lip at the sound. "What I meant to say is…" He grinned and threw out his arms in invitation, "Yuu, I am your father."

The table turned to the Japanese Exorcist and waited for the violent response they were all expecting. He stared blankly at the red haired foreigner and bit his lip, seeming to contemplate the likelihood of that statement being anything close to true. It didn't work. His mind could not even will his fingers to his sword.

"_Ne, ne_…" Hito was tugging on his hair hard enough to break the spell over him. He turned with a glare. "Doesn't that make you and your boy-wife adopted half-brothers or something?"

The violence that followed can only be described in a single term:

_Legendary._

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**Oh ho ho ho ho. I'm too lazy to make the omake longer, but hey! There is one, ne? Once again, sorry that this took so long to update. And if I missed your review. Life screws things up sometimes…**

**On a lighter note, the next chapter is… dun dun dun! HEADQUARTERS! And, if you haven't figured it out yet, I have some… stuff planned for that. As such, you can either expect it to be out very, very soon or very, very late. Depending on how well I write the (BEEP) and the (BEEP). :)**

**Reviews are absolutely wonderful.**

**And! If you have an omake idea and would like to see it at the end of a chapter, feel free to suggest something. If it's too long, or the idea turns into a crack fic, it might give me something to post on DA, too. XD**

**Many, many thanks for waiting on my not-so-anticipated-chapter! –Loves-**


	93. Burning Bright

**TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT: No, Cross is NOT Kanda's father in my ficverse. Though it would be funny ass shit if he was! XDDDD**

**Niamh still can't write action.  
Niamh was nervous a lot when she wrote this. I think it shows.  
Niamh will NOW stop talking about me in third person. Yeah. Right when I said NOW.**

**And lastly… um… I'm sorry. This is sad. It had to happen. Don't kill me? I know it sucks. If it helps, I cried when I wrote it.**

**Disclaimer of D'self: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… no Exorcist would have innocence. Oh the punage.**

**WARNINGS: EMO! SAD! GORE! VIOLENCE! PLOT UP THE HIZZY!!**

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Burning Bright

The light was impossibly dim for summer. The cobblestone walk was a bit too wet for June, the clouds a hair too thick, the quality to the air just a bit too muggy with smoke and steam. The wind burned with cigarette and wood smoke, the constant drizzle washed the muck and grime from the streets and sent it spirally toward the sewers, but even that failed to dim Hitori's mood. There was something simple and lovely about walking down the street holding hands, and there was nothing, not a damned thing, that could keep him from enjoying it. It was fucking cold but that didn't matter, it wasn't snow – he hated snow – and it wasn't sunny – so he wouldn't burn. England was good.

"Sabe."

"Hito."

He looked at her and smiled, eyes dancing in the overcast light. "Is it odd that I'm excited?" He asked quietly, and his hand gave a tiny, loving squeeze.

Sable laughed without sound. "No. Ever since you saw an akuma you have wanted to save them." She returned the squeeze, and gave his arm a little yank, the better to twine her own around his waist. A tiny sound of amusement seeped passed her lips when Hitori returned the half-embrace, walking a little awkwardly from it but still walking. "You're finally gonna get your chance."

"That's not really what I meant." Hitori kept smiling. "But yeah, that's exciting too. I really want to help you guys, and stay with… you and Nii-chan. But I was talking about Murasaki."

"Ugh. We're not naming this kid _purple_."

"Only if it's a girl?"

"I said no."

"How about Sora for a boy?"

"Are you secretly gay?"

"What?! No!"

"Then stop picking names that are!"

Hitori's expression fell and Allen looked back at them, raising a silver eyebrow curiously. He didn't understand how the two of them could argue so quietly, and over a subject that didn't seem as important to Hitori as it was to Sable. As he watched Hitori made a childish face at Sable and she made it right back, though he couldn't tell if either meant it.

"Aiko?"

"You and the _ko_ names…"

"Pick. Ki or ko?"

"_Neither."_

Allen chuckled, but his amusement did not last long. Kanda's fingers closed on his and he looked, surprised by the sudden public show of affection. "Che." The Japanese man intoned, dragging him closer. Allen smiled up at him – not that they're height difference was enough for him to have to tilt his head any more – and tugged his hand.

"Something wrong, Love?" He asked quietly, steering them closer. His lover stopped walking and careened into him with a little _oof_. The Japanese man caught him around the waist and kissed him fiercely, drawing from him a startled grunt that turned slowly into a muffling hum of curiosity. Pulling away left him blinking in thought at his lover, not understanding what was meant by the sudden touch, though he didn't ask, he simply stood there while Sable and Hitori went around them, bickering on.

"Fine what the hell kind of sounds _do_ you like?"

"German sounds. And sounds that don't happen to be ki or ko."

"So you want our kid to be name _Voldiwertlag Limpendort_?"

"Where in the nine circles of Hades would you get that idea?!"

"It's German sounding."

"No. Names like Vilhelm."

"Isn't that Hungarian?"

"Don't split hairs."

"And isn't it just William said funny?"

"Spelled differently."

"But it's still William."

"So?"

"Kanda Vilhelm sounds like a disease."

"You sound like a disease."

They passed out of immediate earshot and Allen was left looking up at Kanda wordlessly, wondering if he should expect to be let go. The taller man leaned down again, captured the mouth of the smaller, and closed his eyes. When he withdrew for a second time it was with a tiny, almost invisible lift to his lips.

"Wha—"

"I love you." Kanda said simply. "I said that I would say it more." His hand pressed Allen a little closer, close enough, and at such an angle, that two passing woman made eyes at them, attempting to determine if the long haired boy with the blonde girl had a sister. Allen turned an innocent smile at them but found his face jerked back again by his chin. "Now stop looking away from me." Kanda whispered and, while Allen was trying to comprehend what he could possibly mean, kissed him with a hunger that promised much to come. He reveled in the younger man's slight tremble, smiled at the touch of a shy hand on his stomach, but voiced his pleasure only when a small, warm hand reached up under his tied hair to touch the back of his neck.

"You should stop that, you'll get shot." An all too familiar voice growled from behind Kanda. The British Exorcist, in a moment of bravery and uncharacteristic uncaring, lifted his right hand at his guardian in a mimed a gesture of less than innocent significance. The general laughed, truly laughed, before he walked away with his hair hanging down around his face like a well worn cape of soft red velvet. _I never thought I would see the day when Allen Walker made fun of me for not getting any,_ He thought with a strange grin.

The white haired young man separated them with a small groan and panted up at his lover for a moment, not letting him go. Arms curled behind him and he leaned into the embrace with a large, almost childish smile, his eyes closed to the scent of his lover as well as his heat. "I love you too. My possessive, pretty, happy, cold Kanda."

"Che." The Japanese Exorcist laid a hand on Allen's shoulder and tilted his chin onto the top of Allen's head. "We're almost home." He mumbled. _I'll have to hide from Lavi and Jerry for a while_.

"Do you want to go down to the big communal bath and soak with me when we get there? After we eat?" Allen asked into his jacket. Kanda nodded wordlessly, watching the others turn around a corner out of sight.

They stood that way for a long moment, neither doing more than breathing in the other's arms, until Allen rocked slowly forward, a hum in the back of his throat. Kanda smiled at him, knowing what the British boy was doing, and closed his eyes as well, listening to the gentle minor melody that he made. It was the same song, oddly, that Allen had hummed when he thought he was alone that day in Sweden, only now it had grown on him, and they both understood it despite the fact that he had never said the words aloud. Kanda did not understand why hearing it made him feel as if he belonged, as if he couldn't walk away, like there was nothing more distinctly _him_ in the world besides being where he was. He simply held on to Allen and let himself go, and the world around him faded into little more than a buzzing in the distance, something to be ignored rather than listened to.

He could almost think that he heard it too.

"_Kanda?"_ The name was spoken so only he could hear it, and to the tune that he knew so well. It made it perhaps more intimate than his given name might have been.

"Hm?" It was a minor third down.

Allen didn't speak, only held on more tightly. Kanda didn't draw away, even though his arms hurt. _"They're waiting." _He whispered, just his breath, but he made no move to act on the words, no move to step away. For reasons he could not name he felt impossibly far away from Kanda, while at the same time so close, so very close that he might have moved his fingers through his lover's shirt and touched his soul.

"Let them wait."

They were the words he needed more than anything to hear.

_I haven't told him yet, what I can do with this song._ He thought, pressing his palm on his lover's chest. _That I can feel him, memorize him, keep him even if he's gone. But somehow… I think he knows._

Allen opened his eyes a crack, just because he felt the need to, and looked at his reflection in the sliver cross on Kanda's chest.

The song stopped in his throat. "Who's that?" He asked loudly.

"Who's what?"

"That man behind me."

Kanda shifted. "There's no one behind you."

"I can see him in the reflection in your cross."

"No one's there, Moyashi."

"But I can see him." His arms pushed back, just enough to slip himself from his lover's arms, but he kept his eyes forward; Kanda made a strange sound of discontent and stumbled, more surprised by Allen's movement than he should have been. Allen took no heed of his displeasure and only held onto him so he could peer into the crest on his chest. "Who… why is he…"

**Al-len.**

Kanda fell when Allen let go and turned around with an expression too much like a surprised deer's face. A line of curses left the dark haired man's mouth before he even hit the cobblestones, but swiftly changed languages when a passerby mumbled something about a tramp, which he took to mean both vagabond and woman. _"Makkutaku Moyashi… mizu ga zupon naka ni… boke…_"

"You'll dry, Kanda. Where is he?"

"_Ookii goi."_

"What does that mean? You want me to use bigger words? What kind of complaint is that when I'm trying to find a stalker?"

"Moyashi?"

"I _saw_ him so _where_ did he go?!" Allen turned back to Kanda at the touch of a hand on his, warm skin distracting, and blinked, seeming to understand for the first time that he had knocked his lover down. He smiled awkwardly attempted to laugh at his own mistake, though he was still struggling to recover from the strange not-person he had seen only a moment before. He would think about that later, not when Kanda was looking up at him like he were the most thoughtless person ever born. "Ah… sorry." He reached down, expression unwavering. "I was startled."

"Che." Kanda took his hand and used it to pull himself up, dusting at his jacket behind him. "What the hell by?" He asked, jerking Allen into him again. The shorter Exorcist gave a mild sound of protest, which was ignored, before he found himself turned toward the others, Kanda's chest pressed firmly against his back. "There was no one behind you Moyashi. And now there's just me."

"O-ok… Kanda, you're really close for us being in public." Allen mumbled, looking down at his feet. He staggered as Kanda turned them toward the nearest shop window, toward the right. He gasped.

Kanda felt Allen's back stiffen. "Che. Scared of your own reflection, Moyashi?" He asked with his head over Allen's shoulder. Something was wrong, however, and he felt it when Allen turned his head away to look over his shoulder then looked back at their reflections, his eyes focused a little to the left. "You see something there, don't you?" Kanda asked, suddenly serious. Allen nodded because his mouth was too occupied with gaping to speak. "Akuma?"

"No." Allen shook his head, not letting his eyes waver. "He's like a ghost."

"A ghost." Kanda was incredulous. "Does it have feet?"

"I can't see in the window. What do feet mater?"

"Ghosts don't have feet."

"Maybe not in Japan, but ghosts in England have feet."

"Che."

"And ghosts in Germany wear sheets."

"Right. Forget it. Ghost specialist."

"Mana used to tell me stories."

"Oh, that's why you demand that I tell them to you. Child."

"Pedophile."

"Are we going to stand here and look in the window all day? The woman in the shop is staring at us."

Allen shook his head. "I think I'm ok. I don't think he's anything to worry about… he's just… there. Smiling at me." Allen tore his eyes away from the thing standing behind him and looked up at his lover's refection, amazed by his calm. "You really don't see it?"

"Che. No. If I saw it I—"

"Hey! _Idiot apprentice!"_ That voice was unmistakable. "Are you going to stand there with you man-woman-friend-thing all day?!"

"_BE NICE TO MY BOY-DAUGHTER!"_

Allen looked up at Kanda with something of an apologetic smile before he reached out and touched the side of his face, displacing a fair amount of his bangs. Kanda didn't hear what his mother was raving about, or what Cross was saying back, only the words that formed on his lover's lips. "You don't look like a girl, Yuu. Even if you are pretty." He paused, brushing his lover's hair back a bit further, a small, childish expression coming over his face. It wasn't until he had combed all of his lover's bangs, rather slowly, to the left side of his head that the expression looking down at him became even remotely unamused.

"Mo…yashi." Kanda's gritted teeth made Allen smile wider, his fingers working to undo the strange waterfall of hair he had shaped. "Are you… _playing_ with my _hair_."

"It's soothing."

"Che."

"Idiot apprentice!"

"We're coming!"

"I don't want to hear about it!"

_This, _Allen thought with a shake of his head. _Is one of the strangest homecomings of my life._

* * *

"Ty-chan…"

The bedding was so very soft, Tyki just wanted to stay where he was. He didn't care if it was almost noon. It was close and dark and it smelled like Lavi, and the warmth on his back felt like something from a pleasant dream.

"Ty-chan…"

"Five more minutes."

Lavi was quite for a moment, seeming to think. "I have to pee." The confession got him a slow, tired look from his lover and an even more gradual lift of the arm that held him. Lavi slid from beneath it and out of the bed, his lover's smiling eyes following him and he walked across the room and into the small bathroom. For the first time since Tyki could remember them being together, the redhead did not close the door.

'_I've spent every moment we were apart trying to figure a way to be sure you never miss me again, Lavi. And the only thing I could think of was to never leave you again.'_

'_I'd like to pee on my own sometimes, if that's not too bothersome.'_

The memory made him grin oddly, and the singing feeling of contentedness seared brightly in his chest, a kind of happiness that left him grinning so wide he thought his face would hurt with it. Not long after, Lavi clamored back into bed with him and snuggled close, only to find himself pressed suddenly against the mattress, Tyki looking down at him thoughtfully. He raised an eyebrow curiously and the Noah mirrored the expression a little less innocently. "Did you wash your hands?" Tyki asked in a whisper.

"No." Lavi answered honestly. "Why?"

"Then we can just shower when we're finished." His lover chimed with a slow, lazy grin. Lavi looked even more confused.

"What are we going to do?" Lavi inquired, moving his hands to rest on Tyki's bare chest and spread out, gently. He tilted his head back just a bit, to expose the paler skin of his throat, and gave a tiny, lecherous lift to his lips, obviously thinking along slightly impure lines. "Something dirty?" He asked, and his smile became suddenly impossible to contain, green eye shining.

Tyki lowered himself enough to run his tongue from Lavi's Adam's apple to the turn of his chin, grinning slightly. "Well, if you want. I was thinking we might make love n—_ah!_" Tyki laughed when he felt a hand push him onto his back. Lavi quickly straddled him, slid back, and started on his pants, still grinning. The Noah shook his head. It was one thing to suggest intimacy and have it given and another to suggest and have it offered with vigor. He touched Lavi's bare stomach and held him steady. "I see you're in the mood this morning."

"When am I _not_ in the mood, Ty-chan?"

"Directly after dinner."

"I'm in the mood; I just don't feel like throwing the stuff in my stomach around."

"Directly after counseling."

"Are you kidding? We had fucking hot angry sex two days ago from that!"

"When I argue with you."

"No…" Lavi bent in the middle and pressed a completely fearless hand against his lover's manhood, slightly surprised to find fabric between them. "You're wearing underwear again? Where the hell do you find them? It's not like you're using mine."

Tyki laughed, pushing his hands slowly up Lavi's chest. They paused at his shoulders and gripped, a slow motion against him tensed his arms and he lifted into it, if only a little. He watched the redhead smile and repeat the motion. The innocent quality to his expression was a lie and Tyki knew it, but that didn't make it any less alluring. He bit his lower lip to distract himself before he kept the conversation going. "They were issued to me. It's amazing the things the Order will hand over given the time."

"Mm." Lavi had started a rhythm with his hand and smiled at the rewards he received for his efforts. "How much do we want before breakfast? I'm think I might just…" He slid himself back and gave a tug on Tyki's pants, the gray material rolled down easily and he bent forward, breathing on his lover's stomach. Tyki's hands stopped him, however, by catching the turn of his chin and dragging him up into a kiss. His lips parted ever so slightly, a delicate tingle filled his chest at the teasing touch of a tongue. When Tyki pulled back he slumped forward, elbows on the older man's pillow, and he openly smirked at him, enjoying the warmth of his expression. "So you don't want me to use my mouth on you, Ty-chan? You know it would be fun for both of us…"

"It would be but… I can't tell you that I want anything right now. Just having you with me is good enough." Tyki smiled so widely Lavi could have accused him of being dark. That wasn't the case though, not in the least. He did not know how to word what was going through his mind though, not with Lavi furrowing his brow so fiercely. "Though… do you remember romance, Lavi?"

The redhead nodded, the motion bringing his face just a little closer. "What about it?"

The Noah shifted. The bed squeaked. "I would like – and I mean this as a person who loves you, not a monster – to try that again, only with the bed this time." He smiled a little, crookedly, and touched the side of Lavi's face, ever so gently. The redhead leaned into it. "Candles, food, everything. And then I want to spend a good half of the evening making you forget all of the horror that I have brought you, all of the pain, and simply… Lavi?" He paused at the feel of something wet on his palm and pushed himself up, worry blossoming across his face. "Did I say something?"

Lavi shook his head with a smile. "I'm happy." He mumbled, wiping his eye on the back of his hand. "You just reminded me that I wanted to do something for you, and you told me to bake you a cake but… how does a shitty cake stack up to you doing all of that for me just because? I want you to do it. I do. But I want to give you something back for it." Lavi stopped trying to wipe the tears from his face and simply let them fall, shaking with them. Tyki's arms wound around his back and squeezed – it was enough to make him sob a little harder. "Damn I'm fragile." He mumbled into his lover's tear streaked skin.

"You don't need to do anything for me, or give me anything. You could bring me coffee. Or light my cigarette—"

"Not a chance in hell that I'll light them—"

"Or do exactly what you're doing now and just tell me that you love me." Tyki finished gently. "Those things are worth more to me than a hundred thousand candle light dinners and a million homemade ones."

Lavi sniffed and looked up at him before he pulled himself onto his knees and reached out for an embrace that was given almost too willingly, his lover's arms already pooled around his hips in invitation. He cried loudly after a while, more frustrated with his own shortcomings than anything else. "I love you, Ty-chan. I love you." He whispered when the tears would let him, eye shut to the room. The man who held him only nodded, seeming to understand even when he wasn't saying it. It made him weak. "If I could give you anything… if I could give you anything at all… I would. It feels like… I'm happy to be with you. And it would be enough to just be with you. But at the same time I… want to be more for you. How come…"

Tyki shushed him, rocking in that same habitual way he had since that day in Durnshire, since the day Lavi had first known fear. It occurred to him then that maybe Lavi really had never felt anything, not with all of himself, and the thought was frightening. If the apprentice Bookman had to face it alone, what would come of him? There was no saying from Tyki's perspective. He doubted the end result would be something he would feel comfortable calling human.

"I'll do it, Ty-chan." Lavi choked out the words, blinking the tears out of his eye. "I'll bake you cake. And then we can eat it after we have a romantic dinner. And then you can be all soft and loving, without pain or crying or anything like that. Because I want to show it to you and I want to make you smile." He stopped then, and pulled away to look Tyki in the face, his expression suddenly surprised. "I just had a thought.

"When I said that I liked you happy," He went on, and pressed a hand to the side of his lover's face. "I didn't get it. That's _empathy_ isn't it? But it's not _pity_? I don't _feel bad_ so it's not _sympathy_, but it's still me feeling for you." He smiled, which was strange with how he had been crying only a moment before. "But at the same time, I don't want to make you happy because it makes me happy, I just want you happy."

Tyki chuckled at him and kissed him lightly on the lips, a steady hand came up to cup the side of his face. He wiped the last tear away with his thumb. "Congratulations Lavi, you now understand the basics of platonic love." The Noah grinned and kissed the younger man again, lingeringly. When the touch was returned he smiled at it, softly, and let himself fall once more against the mattress. "I thought you knew that one, but I suppose you didn't. You pretended well, at least." He commented half-sarcastically.

"Well, I felt it, but I never knew what it was."

"Denied it."

"That too."

"Then… what are you going to do now that you know?"

Lavi shrugged and rearranged himself so his legs were sideways in his lover's lap, his arms still wrapped around the Noah's chest. Like that he could lean his head into his lover's neck and breathe him in, just the way he wanted. "I can't be a Bookman because I fell for you, but now I _really_ can't be a Bookman. Especially if I feel that way for other people besides you." He frowned, thoughtful. "I guess I'll talk to Gramps about it. I've been avoiding him long enough. He won't try to switch me if I'm feeling for more than one person, my other me won't know what to do."

"Do you?"

Lavi nodded, slowly. "I love a lot of people, now that I think about it. That doesn't mean I want to sleep with them though."

Tyki smiled at him and leaned back on the pillows, bringing himself nearly horizontal. "In that case… shall we have a go before we see him? Or have you lost all interest in such things as… _hello_…" The last word was directed not at Lavi directly but instead at his hand that had sank between them and once again pressed against Tyki's hardly clad phallus. He smiled. "How shall we do this, Lavi? Are you just going to keep stroking me until we decide?"

Lavi smirked at him crookedly, his motions suddenly more intensive. "I'll hold onto the bed frame," He whispered, every ounce of emotional upheaval cast aside for the moment, "You take me from behind."

"You should blush when you say things like that."

"Oh?" Lavi sank a bit into his lover and increased the pace of his hand, then paused to move his hand behind the fabric, quick and warming.

"Yes." Tyki whispered back, moving to press his lover into the mattress. "You should."

* * *

"_Tadaima…"_

"_Yokudekimashita!"_

"That was kind of apathetic, Whore-chan."

"It's Allen."

"Sabe… what's with the giant face?"

"He's the Gatekeeper. Just wave, everything will be fine."

"You hope."

"What does Nee-san mean, 'you hope?'"

"Sometimes the Gatekeeper is a little… confused."

"Oh."

"He might kill you."

"Don't be a douche." Hiroko swung her sheathed sword so it hit Cross firmly in the backside – not that she was aiming. He looked down at her with a raised eyebrow and she, of all people, winked at him. He blanched. Why did she have to warm up to him _now_ of all times?! It just made life more difficult. With a shaking arm he drew her closer, the others watching with strange, round eyes as he leaned to look at her face.

"Are you giving me leave, Hiro-chan?"

"Che." It was Kanda who answered, the sound of his blade coming from its scabbard singing a sweet note of sword song into Allen's mind. The boy smiled. "Over my corpse she is."

A hammer clicked and the general looked sideways at the young Japanese man, glaring. "That can be arranged, Yuu-baka."

"_SCANNING!"_ The Gatekeeper interrupted, his large yellow eyes opening to shine down on them. Hitori grabbed a hold of Sable's arm and pulled her close, staring up at the strange thing that looked down on him so intently. He thought those eyes might have been living, somehow. _"SAFE!"_ It said after a moment. Kanda and Allen heaved a sigh of relief together, more than satisfied not to be attacked by a robot upon return.

"And now," Sable smiled at Hitori, giving his hand a little pat. "The real fun begins."

* * *

A ragged, needy moan warned Yumeko that now was not the time to bother the two, but Lavi and Tyki were both needed immediately. She sighed and closed her eyes to the sound of skin on skin, the thump of a bed frame on the wall, the harsh cry of a slow building climax. She hit her forehead on her palm – mental images of her darling Kenta filling her mind at it all. She would have to write him in secret and tell him about all of the terrible things she would do to him the next they were close enough.

She knocked.

"_Fuck!"_

"_Dear!"_

"_Finish damn it! Do NOT—ah…!"_

She laughed. Loudly. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth and laughed at them. "They have the worst luck…" She mumbled and took a step closer to the door. "I'll wait!" She called into it, knowing that at least Lavi would be terrified. She wished, in some twisted part of her, that she had the courage to open the door.

* * *

The moment they came in, Komui was there to greet them, all smiles and hugs and handshakes. Hiroko looked up at him with dazzling wide eyes and bowed, her jaw hanging almost to the floor for a moment before she gathered her wits, loosened her yukata and smiled at him as sweetly as she could manage. Cross didn't miss it. He still greeted Komui the way he would his mother, with grins and a clap on the shoulder, but it still made him feel terribly lame. Out done by the nerdiest nerd he knew.

Besides Bak, maybe.

Cross smiled a little when Hitori glared at him and proclaimed that he had been studying akuma. Komui's eyebrows went up under his beret and Hiroko let out a che, his brother's lips turned up a little while Sable almost looked ready to burst into dance. They were all so ready, so happy, so prepared for sleep and rest and talking, they almost leapt when a loud cry of glee sounded from the direction of the Exorcist rooms. Komui stepped to the side in time to see a tall, black clad woman and a shorter red haired young man dashing for them at breakneck speed.

He grinned at it.

"Yuu!" The name, much to Kanda's surprise, wasn't from Lavi – who he would not hug back no matter how dead the guy had been – it was from the slightly faster dark haired woman running for him. He blinked, twice, placing her face in his memory, before his suitcase crashed to the floor beside him. Allen watched as the woman – he was astounded by her height – threw herself at his lover in much the same way Hitori had the first time he had seen Kanda. She rambled on in Japanese, her arms wrapped firmly around his middle, his face pressed to her chest. She didn't seem to care that he didn't respond to the touch, nor did she stop when he fingered the hilt of his sword. Not until she saw that she was being stared at did she pause, and even then only for a moment.

"Who—?"

She started up again. "You're so tall! Thin, but tall! And you're hair! I love it! Gosh, how long as it been, Yuu-sashii? You were still in kabuki when I left… you had to be… but you're so tall! You couldn't play the girl parts Otousan wanted you in if he weren't—Shit! I must be suffocating you." She pulled back suddenly, seeming to notice that he were attempting to pry her away ever so violently, and took him by the shoulders, looking down at him with a broad grin. "You've got the glare down pretty good, and the silence, and the moment you open you're mouth, you'll sound like Okaasan. You're like her taller male clone, I swear. And the little vein on the side of your temple! _Ee!_ It's the same. Say something, before I kiss you."

"Che."

"_Uwa!_ _Kawaii! Ka-wa-ii!"_

"Um… wha…who…" Allen looked up at the two of them and struggled to find words, not understanding half of what was going on. She was so… overbearing and he didn't know who she was. "Er…meh…Lo…eh…"

"Moyashi-chan!" It was Lavi's voice this time as he approached, limping a bit, leaning on his left leg. He waved down Allen's concerned expression but accepted the arm Komui offered him, wincing. He wouldn't admit it but it still bothered him, if only when he stepped too strongly. With a grimace he moved from Komui's arm to Allen's, then tugged the younger boy into an embrace. "How have things been?"

"Alright," Allen said into his shoulder. "A little crazy. What's with your leg?"

"Long story. Better told over food, you know." Lavi grinned and gave Allen's back a little pat. "How's Yuu-chan treatin' you?"

"Don't call me Yuu-chan."

"_Yuu-sachii-chan!"_

"_Dame."_

"We've been really good. It was… kind of like a honeymoon. With a few moments of violence." He chuckled awkwardly and pulled away, though his hands stayed on Lavi's shoulders. There was nothing strange about the continued touch; it was just a way of showing that he had missed him. "You look happy. But pale."

"Says the _albino_ boy."

"I'm not albino, I'm cursed."

"Yeah, yeah. White haired pastey boy then."

"Hey, I'm sixteen. I think I should get 'man' now."

"Sorry, Moyashi, you'll always be _boy_ to me."

"What's Kanda?"

"Woman!"

"Che."

Lavi let go of Allen and turned to the remained of their band, curious about the increased numbers. Allen questioned him as he turned to Sable, smiling.

"Who's… that _person_?"

"Nakamura Yumeko!" The answer came from behind him and Allen looked at her, not sure if she was trying to stand in his personal space of if she just didn't know he had any. Her face was too close to his, her fingers already on his chin, turning it to see him better. "I was Kanda Yumeko, until I found the hunk of my dreams. And it seems to me that the hunk of _your _dreams is my darling little Yuu, hm? You're cute, I'll give you that, but you're not that small. And your hair looks like you normally keep it shorter. And you have that expression like you want to tell me to let go of you but you want to be polite. And you're British. Sixteen or seventeen. About… what? Five foot eight or nine? You haven't been measured in a while, those numbers seem too high. You think it's strange that I can read you but… there's one thing I can't tell between the two of you…"

_Here it comes._

"Who's the seme?"

A wild blush flared across Allen's face and Sable shook her head at it, smirking. "How's your purity?" She asked Lavi with a slight squeeze of her hand in Hitori's.

"It's been purer." He admitted. "Yours?"

"About the same as it was the last time I saw you."

He chuckled. "Who's the little arm candy you go—"

"I'm male, and taken, and straight, don't hit on me." Hitori growled from Sable's side. He turned a bit, exposing their interlocked fingers. Lavi raised an eyebrow.

"That's right, the little brother. Nice, Sabe. Cradle robber."

"Shut up."

"He calls you Sabe," Hito mumbled, curling his arms around Sable's hips defensively, Lavi raised a second eyebrow at how Sable leaned into the boy, even if he was obviously a little short for her. It reminded him of Yuu, before he had his seventeenth year growth spurt of something like two and a half feet. "How come he calls you Sabe?"

"I threw up on him." Sable chimed, looking back at Lavi. "Lavi's nothing to worry about, he's taken if that thought I got a while back serves."

"Good."

"_Baby brother!_" Hitori stiffened at the words and held a little more tightly, Yumeko's sudden show of affection pried him off, at which point he returned her embrace with gusto, though being picked up and twirled made him feel sick and puny. Allen was still looking at her, as was Kanda, both floundering for words to explain their relationship. After a moment they sighed and looked away, if she had lost interest, they wouldn't tell. "And who's the blonde?"

"You're gonna kill me when I tell you."

"Not true."

"Say hello to 'Kaasan first."

""Kaa—" It started as a questioned and ended in a stark stare. Hiroko took a firm hold of Cross' sleeve and jerked him down, ignoring the girl who was looking down at her with great, big, apologetic eyes.

"Show me around Mari." She demanded. _"Now."_

"Over this way…" Cross started, guiding the short Japanese woman away from her daughter – and Komui. They passed into the hall and even then she didn't let go of him; he pretended not to notice.

"Che. What are you doing here, you old hag?" Kanda asked his taller sibling, distracting her. She looked back at him and pointed at the cross on her chest, her head cocked to the side. He made a face of near disgust. "You're kidding."

"Komui-san," Hitori piped up from the other side of his sister and the taller man peered down at him from behind his glasses curiously. Hitori felt oddly small when faced with that gaze, somewhat stupid, but he would endure it because he had to. He had to prove that he hadn't studied akuma and magic and mechanics and chemistry all for nothing. It was his goal. He needed, above all, to make a difference. "Is there any paperwork you would like me to do? Anything I can sign to say I want to work in the laboratory? Something official?" The Chinese man smiled broadly, his glasses sipping down his nose to hide his eyes in a silver glare.

"I'll show you to my office. What was your name?"

"Hitori." He answered, and followed after the scientist on shaking feet. Sable caught his hand and walked beside him, a small smile on her lips.

"I have to tell _him_, at least." She whispered as they came out the entrance hall.

Kanda, Allen, Yumeko, and Lavi were left standing in the entrance, looking at each other expectantly. At length Lavi threw himself at Kanda in a hug that the older Exorcist did not refuse for reasons he did not want to think about. Yumeko laughed at it, covering her mouth with her hand, while Allen looked distractedly toward the hall, not noticing his lover's glom-on. After a moment Kanda began to pry at Lavi's arms, which only made Yumeko laugh harder, but Allen kept staring into the hall, his eyebrows pressed together thoughtfully.

Yumeko took her leave, saying that she needed to pick up her Innocence after its usual check up. She didn't seem to care that neither of them had given her an answer to that ever-pressing question, nor did she seem worried for their eternal souls. She took them in stride, smiling, nodding, touching her brother as if she didn't know that he was glaring at her every time she did, and when she left she even went so far as to leave a small, kiss of familiarity on his cheek. And then she was gone.

A few moments after she had passed him, Tyki leaned around the wall and his yellow-gold eyes met with a pair of silver. He had meant to see if Lavi were coming back soon but the gaze of Allen Walker intercepted him. There was surprise those cursed orbs, a hint of fear, something like hate. He blinked slowly and forced a smile onto his face and then, with a slowness that showed his reluctance like a heart on his sleeve, he stepped out from the shadows and into the light of the hall. He didn't know what the boy would do upon seeing him, a traitor who had killed for the wrong side more than any other, but he hoped the violence would only last for a moment.

Allen moved.

Kanda watched as Allen reached into his sleeve and dragged his sword from it, and stiffened as he went into high alert. Lavi let go of him, watching the transformation for a moment until they both saw what he was headed for at that seemingly impossible breakneck speed. For a moment Kanda didn't understand why all of the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, why his heart felt slow in his chest, why his eyes blinked at a pace that left him feeling sluggish. All he understood was the sudden pressure of Lavi shoving him away.

"Ty-chan!" The redhead screamed the name at the same time that Mugen left its sheath. Kanda was more than surprised when Lavi's hammer thumped into the ground at his feet and the younger Exorcist went speeding away on its handle, moving as if to intercept Allen rather than join him.

Something, Kanda realized, was wrong.

Tyki moved to the side just as Allen got to him, hitting the wall and darted away from it. He backed away from the white haired boy, moving into the larger part of the hall. He was saying something, lifting his hands, looking at Lavi, and then the redhead was between them. The Noah's golden eyes went sudden round with terror as the slow arching blade made for Lavi.

"_No!"_ The word was from the Noah's mouth. He pushed Lavi to the side and the blade swept through him, cutting through his clothes and his chest, dragging a strangled sound of pain from his throat. Lavi came to a halt, his hammer in his hand, boots on the floor, and Kanda came up beside him. Tyki stood for a moment in front of Allen, looking down at himself on shifting feet. With shaking hands he touched his chest and frowned at the lack of blood; he had felt that some part of him had been hacked nearly in two, yet there was no proof of it. There was nothing but the slow tremble of his fingers. _"It hurt."_ He said softly, and looked up at Allen with a strange expression. _"You cut… the dark didn't—"_ He choked on a mouthful of gore than bubbled up from his chest, a string of blood oozing from his lips. He staggered again, but caught himself on the nearby wall. His eyes looked to Lavi, whose knuckles were white on his weapon.

The apprentice Bookman fell. He clenched a hand to his chest, a muffled cry sounded in his throat, so wretched and sudden he might have sounded as if he were dying. Allen didn't look at him, too intent on what he was doing, but Kanda glanced down to see the line of blood hanging from his mouth, the same as Tyki's. He drew back his hammer unsteadily at the same time the British Exorcist drew back his sword, and without even a breath to voice the incantation, he let the fire fly.

Tyki slumped to the ground, eyes shut, and a line of flame-white crosses burned through his soft black shirt. Lavi could his breathing slow and the Noah blinked his eyes open for a moment, looking at him as if through a distant gray fog. He knew the expression on his face because he had seen it before, and he remembered making it himself. Betrayed. Tyki seemed to think he had been betrayed. The irony of Lavi's fire seal made the redhead's stomach roll.

A conflagration of flames engulfed Allen, cutting him off from the Noah he meant to destroy. The seething tendrils of fire ripped a scream of pain and surprise from his lips – a sound that made Kanda's spine tingle with something like fear or heartache, and made him draw back his sword and throw back his left hand. He evoked the second illusion he had learned during his time with Mugen with little more than a deep breath and a downward turn of his eyes. It was a hard feat, to cut fire with an illusion, but Kanda managed. The heat from the dispersing flames threatened to dry his eyes but he went forward at once, surprised to find Allen lying on his back on the stone floor, coughing thickly; his hair was intact, though the edges of his shirt were blackened. He forced himself to sitting and tried to use his sword to push himself up – Kanda sheathed Mugen and stopped him with a hand to the shoulder.

Lavi wanted to move to Tyki. He could see that his lover's eyes and fallen shut and he wanted to crawl to him if he could, but the pain in his chest was so much it left him gasping to roll onto his side and look at Allen and Kanda, the first breathing in quick, panting breaths, the second trying to calm him enough and convince him that he had enough air. Two finders were standing at the start of the hall, blinking.

_I attacked Allen._

"Lavi you idiot!" The white haired Exorcist croaked, and grimaced at the sound of his own voice. It was worse than when he spent the day screaming – he needed water. It also didn't help that he had hummed most of the morning. "Why did you… set me on fire?!"

"Don't call me an idiot…" Lavi growled back from the floor, pushing himself up. "You're the one who attacked Tyki! Don't you know anything?!"

"Yeah! I do! He's Tyki Mikk, a _Noah_, last I checked."

"You should check more often Moyashi-_baka!_ That's my… my… he's… it's not like… I'm in… we're…" He stopped, the words couldn't come out that way. He needed something else. He needed it to sound less like a confession. He needed something open to interpretation. "If you kill him, I'll become a Noah. Smartass!" He said instead, because it was safer for everyone, including the Finders. "He saved me when I was kidnapped! He betrayed them to do it too! How come you have to try and be such a fucking hero?! If you killed him, I'll—" He was yelling, really yelling, and his fists were white knuckled. His heart thundered in his chest and the pulse of it sent lightning spiraling through his body in waves of anger and annoyance – he wanted to _hurt_ something. He wanted to _hit_ something. He wanted so much more.

_No… I can't want these things… I can't…_

**WANT.**

Kanda watched Lavi lurch forward, a muted cry on his lips. The redhead's eye was wide but unseeing; his chest heaving as if he couldn't get air, but the most disturbing thing to see was the way he trembled, as if he couldn't stop himself from moving with the pounding of his heart. He vomited suddenly, food and blood, the display sent one of the Finders running down the hall, but Lavi didn't seem to care that he had got it on his left hand nor that some was dribbling down his chin. He didn't care. He didn't see. There was something wrong.

"Lavi?"

"O _God_…" He whispered, and the sound of it made Allen turn to him, eyes as round as the moon and just as silver. Lavi looked up and wiped his mouth on his jacket sleeve, looking past them. "What did you do?"

They didn't have a chance.

Even if the Finder had gone back for help.

The sound of strange, wet drops made Allen look slowly around to see the fallen Noah. He craned his neck and Kanda turned his face over their shoulders as well. Tyki stood a bit hunched, black eyes on them, with an expression that was neither calm nor angry, as they watched he took a laborious step forward, almost weakly, and the sound of dripping liquid dragged Allen's quicksilver eyes from his face and down to his hands. Crosses, black and pointed like stars, adorned the back of each of his hands, black blood dripping from them. His head tilted back, dark hair falling around his face, and a third cross caught the light, bleeding like the others from just below the hollow of his throat. He opened his mouth as if to scream but no such sound came, only a slow, controlled voice that did not fit his stance.

"_You will not remove me from his side."_ He said, and his whiteless, colorless eyes turned to Allen as if they could see something there that the other's couldn't. _"Nor will you cleave me from this flesh, boy. I may lose my sanity, all of me, but I will still kill you. I will still love… La…v…i…_"

"Che. What is he—"

"I cut you!" Allen's scream stopped Kanda from going on. "The Noah should die! You should be human! You are human. Don't you have a reason to be a Noah anymore! Not if you betrayed them!"

"_You little fool." _Tyki laughed lightly, awkwardly, as if the sound wanted to destroy his reason. _"I damn well have a reason to be as dark as God has made me; you don't even understand what I am! _I_ love him. I _love_ him. Is that not a reason to exist?"_

"Ty-chan…" Lavi swallowed and fought to get his legs under him, failed twice, and finally teetered to his feet. The slow step he took sent him tumbling again, clutching at his chest, a moan forming in his throat. It wasn't good pain. It was pain that made him think his insides were ripping into shreds, starting with his heart. His voice grew louder and he felt himself twitch against the marble floor before he smacked it with his left fist in an effort to distract himself, Yuu looked at him, wide eyed, and the cry broke into a panting rasp. "Why did you… have to… cut him?!" He demanded through gritted teeth, but Allen wasn't looking. Allen wasn't seeing what he had done by hurting the dark. He only looked at Tyki.

Who screamed the same as Lavi did.

Lavi's vision blurred when he first saw the strands of darkness that ripped from his lover's back and curled around him, the length of his hair changing, the line of his clothes. He had felt that form before, in a dream that wasn't his, felt those vine-like whips of shadow curl around him to hold him close, keep him safe. They had pulled him back to reality. But now, sharing the pain of them, he wished that they had never been. Allen was on his feet, sword held out in front of him, and Tyki continued to cry out, the sound echoed in Lavi's own throat. He didn't want this. He didn't want his little brother to fight his lover. He wanted peace.

_**Want**_**.**

_How do you deal with it, Ty-chan? That voice in the back of your head, echoing your ideas in a yell? How do you keep yourself sane? I don't understand. What keeps you from breaking even now? You aren't in control. You have no reason. But you're still in there._

**LOVE.**

_Yeah. I guess that keeps you on this side of sanity._

"Lavi!" The touch of a hand on his shoulder made him gasp and he rolled, lying flat on his back, looking up at the fan vaulted ceilings. He felt sick and cold and the pain wasn't going away, but Yuu's face was over him, looking down with a scowl.

"Yuu-chan…?"

"What's wrong with you? What's your relationship with that… Noah?!" The Japanese man asked in a too-loud voice, his hands tore the fabric of Lavi's shirt in an effort to better assess him. He didn't pause to look at the healing bruises; none of them were very deep or serious looking. There had to be something more. "Lavi, if you fucking faint, I'll take your eyepatch."

"If I told you that… we fell for each other when he tried to break me… what would you say?"

"Che." Kanda's fingers could find nothing wrong. "I'd say you're bottom and you like it."

"Yuu-chan, that's personal…"

"Hn."

"Not even a question though? No chance I'm not?"

"Not even worth asking."

"Crap."

The sound of a gasp made the look up at the hall. Hitori and Komui stood beside each other, both staring at the strange thing that Tyki Mikk had become. Their eyes were so transfixed, so wide with amazement, that when Sable came up beside them she paused to look at their faces before she glanced across the entrance hall. Allen sailed into a wall, propelled by a strange black vine and a ball of purple light. He screamed.

Kanda was on his feet at the sound, Lavi forgotten for the time being, but the redhead followed him to standing, wobbling back a few steps toward Komui. Lavi didn't move when the dust of Allen's impact cleared, too shaken and pained to do more than blink at Tyki. He had Allen by the throat, squeezing two tightly for the boy to cry out, while he held Allen's right arm in his left, his sword uselessly to the side. The cape-like part of his Innocence darted forward and met with those long spirals of darkness that started in Tyki's back; panic flashed in Allen's eyes.

'_Love,'_ There was no voice in the word, no air, only a small movement of lips and a flash of blood-dyed teeth. Tears gathered on the outer corners of Allen's eyes and he kicked, but his foot did nothing. The gray skinned face before him broke into a smile.

"_I want…" _The Noah grinned at him, crookedly. _"To…kill… ki…ill…"_

Kanda ran. Hitori watched his brother fearlessly _draw_ his sword, glimmers of blue light dancing from the edge of the blade, the entire length composed of nonexistent starlight. When he pulled the blade back and a second formed in his left hand Hitori realized that, no matter how his older brother fought it, he did something about him that was innately elegant. Even when he growled in his throat and threw himself at the Noah, even when he screamed obscenities at having his offense undermined, he still had an aura about him that Hitori knew he himself lacked. He didn't like swords. He didn't like violence. And his brother made it all look so beautiful despite it. And every move was perfect. Everything Hitori hadn't mastered – his grip, his stance, his weight, his guard, his through stroke, his preparation – was there. It was the perfect example. He understood. If he had been holding a katana at that moment, he would have known exactly what to do with it by example.

And then Allen was flung upward, his silver eyes shut. He struck the ceiling without sound of voice then fell like a rock toward the floor. Yuu moved it catch him if he could, swords sparking white sparks of friction against those hard tangles of shadow, his defense slowly breaking. With a roar of annoyance he delivered six swift blows, one after another, in the hope that he might have the opportunity to catch his lover before it was too late.

Hitori cried out when the last strike missed its mark and a circle of light formed directly in front of his brother's face.

For a moment time stood still for Komui. The explosion seemed soundless, the burst of light almost dim even though it hurt too look at. Kanda's eyes seemed disbelieving while Tyki's – yes, that was Tyki – smiled at him as if he didn't mean anything by what he was doing, as if it were all just something that entertained him immensely. The sound Kanda made as he flew backward was perhaps the most pained that Komui had heard him produce; the _snap_ he hit the wall with cut it off prematurely. Mugen shot out of his hand with the blast and Komui lost sight of it.

The ceiling, cracked by Allen's impact and shook but Kanda's collision with the wall, began to fall.

"Move!" The cry, to the scientist's surprise, came from right beside him. The short Kanda hit him full in the stomach, displacing him a whole six inches. He didn't know why he needed to move for a moment, and then he felt the cold sting of metal on his side, cutting, and saw a splash for red before warmth hit his face, warm and salty on his lips, against his tongue. He stumbled back and fell, tripped by his own slipper, and looked up at Hitori with nothing but shock and horror on his face, blood splattered glasses rendering him half blind to the sight before him.

"Hi-Hito!" Sable only whispered the name, the noun, the word he so hated, and the Japanese boy fell sideways, the handle of a black katana sticking from his ribcage. Komui continued to blink at the fledgling scientist, the look of strange triumph on his features.

It wasn't his own blood in his mouth.

Kanda couldn't see out of his right eye, couldn't hear for the ringing in his ears, but he could feel that Mugen was missing. Fist sized hunks of stone bounced painfully from his back, falling in a constant rain from the ceiling. Laboriously, holding the right side of his face to feel where his eye had been impeded by a cut, he staggered to his feet and took a confused step, remaining eye scanning the ground for his sword. Two steps and he knew he had broken most of his ribs and his shoulder was out of place, two more and he discovered that he couldn't feel his left arm or his right foot. He hoped that Allen had faired better.

He didn't see Sable throw herself down on the floor and gather his little brother in her arms.

"_Sei…Seiberu…"_

"_You retard!"_ They both spoke in whispers, her heavily accented name not lost on her. Her hands shook gently as she laid him against the stone of the wall and sat beside him, tearing at his shirt to see what the blade had struck. She stopped as soon as she saw, fear clouding her face at the pool of blood forming under him, too fast to be stopped. She bit her bottom lip and looked at his face, at the strange, enduring little smile that played on his lips. "Why are you smiling, Hitori?" She asked softly, fighting the feeling that her hands had lost the blood in them, that her fingers were going without air. She felt too warm in her jacket, but her feet were too cold in her boots.

"_Itakunai."_ He whispered to her, eyes gently focused. _'It doesn't hurt.'_ _"But… cold…"_

"But you know…" She pressed a hand under the place the sword entered his flesh, beside his heart, and used the other hand to cup the side of his face. He closed his eyes to it and breathed gently, enjoying the feel of her hand on him, so warm and inviting. He looked so serene that she couldn't cry at him, not when there were soft metallic tears in the corners of his eyes. She couldn't stand how happy he looked though, like he didn't mind dying. Like he was content. Like it didn't hurt to have the blood running out of his heart and into his chest cavity before it oozed out onto the stone floor. "You know that I don't know a word to heal things, right?" She asked, shaking. "You know that I can't put you back together."

He nodded and his tears spilled down the sides of his face, his gray eyes oddly blue from the red they caused. "I know." He swallowed thickly, as if his tongue were too big for his mouth, but kept smiling. "I'm ok with it." He said softly. The finger running under his eye paused and he looked at Sable's expression, hurt and worried and sick, pained and gentle. He tried to laugh but the sound came out distorted.

"You're dying, Hon."

"I think I can tell."

"But…"

"Hey… I might be dead but… it isn't like I'm… gone, 'kay? Stop looking at me… like your heart… wants to crawl outta you… and get close to me."

"Hito…"

"Sabe…"

"I don't want you to die." She whispered, and the last thing on her mind was how she sounded like a small child, pleading. "I don't want you to leave me here with our kid and your mother."

"Not really… a lot I can do…" He said back slowly. She could feel that his skin was cooler than it had been only a moment before, paler under her hands. "Or promise. But I'll wait. I'll wait for you. Just outside the gate to Heaven." He whispered, and his left hand twitched against the floor. He glared at it, shaking the way it was, and looked up at Sable imploringly. "Promise on my pinky."

Sable shook her head but took his hand all the same, smearing blood on his fingers. "If you're going to die Hito," She leaned forward enough to press her forehead to his and closer her eyes – because then she could pretend that he was alright. She could pretend that he wasn't bleeding to death in her hands. She could pretend that she didn't need words. "Then just go without me. I don't want you to get lost."

"Che. I won't get lost." He bit back. She could have swore that he was trying to get closer to her, but he couldn't move to do it. Sable pressed her lips to his forehead before she spoke.

"If you ask, I'm sure that God will let you leave, Hito. Don't pass up Heaven for me." She whispered. The hand she had on his chest pushed a little so she could feel his warmth, so close and yet so far away, fading. She wanted it to last but she knew that it wouldn't. There was no word she knew to stop time either.

"Then make me an altar. It'll be easier to get back and see you and Murasaki."

She chuckled, despite herself. "You'll never give up, will you?"

"No." He said back. His jaw was trembling, his words so soft she could hardly tell that he was using his voice. "Will you… make me one?"

She nodded awkwardly against his forehead because her mouth wouldn't work anymore, not without crying.

"I'm… gonna go now." He breathed, and he blinked more slowly, his blue lips parted ever so gently. _"Aishiteru…omae ga…_"

She nodded again, the tears pouring from her eyes regardless of her will. She couldn't speak. She fought with herself and won her lips just barely moving. "I won't be far." Her whispered was strained with unshed tears. She looked down at him and took in the small smile on his face, the way he really did seem happy, even though there was so much he didn't have that he wanted. It gave her the strength to smile even though she had lost out to the tears. "I love you, Kanda Hitori. I've just been too afraid to say it."

"I knew." He said back with a hurried, gasping breath in. "I always… knew…so don't… cry."

"Go, Hon." She kissed him, deeply, and pulled away when she felt him losing concentration. He smiled at her again, distantly, and tilted his head a little into her hand, eyes closed. "I love you. I always will." He didn't speak to her, or try to. He simply let the air out of his lungs and went limp, a grin still tugging at the edge of his lips. She could sense his heartbeat like a tiny little spasm in her forehead, and when it stopped she released a breath she didn't know she was holding. The sobs were repressed for the time being, the pain and the fear ignored, because it wasn't the time yet. He hadn't wanted her to fall apart for him. He still didn't.

"_Tchuess."_ It was the only word she had ever said to him in her mother tongue. It was the only word he had known.

Komui watched wordlessly, still seated firmly on his backside where he had fallen, as the blonde woman twisted the katana enough to drag it a few inches out of the boy. He couldn't stop her. He didn't understand. Even though he hadn't known the young man for more than a few minutes he had seen the spark between him and Sable, the little fire of a juvenile love affair. And now it was gone. Evaporated. And yet Sable didn't fold in on herself and destruct. She didn't even sob.

She cut her fingers trying to wrench the blade free, but she didn't cry anymore.

It struck him how weak he was. If it had been Lenalee he wouldn't have been able to rip the weapon from her corpse.

And Kanda hadn't seen any of it.

Instead he found Allen lying in an indenture in the floor, bleeding from the corners of his mouth, his right hand twitching on the handle of his sword. The British Exorcist couldn't push himself from the stone, not alone, so he willed his Innocence to do it for him. He had himself halfway to standing before he saw Kanda, and behind him the Noah that had done so much to them. He tried to speak but the words wouldn't come. He willed his right foot forward; enough blood escaped his chest with the movement to make his vision swim. He wouldn't make it. He couldn't make it.

"Love…" The word made him retch, blood seeping passed his lips. His fingers closed more strongly on his sword and he pulled it back and rocked on his feet, he didn't know if he had the strength to do what he intended. _"Be-hind you!"_ The blade left his grasp, turning end over end in a wide arch as he fell to his knees, too spent to keep himself up anymore. Evocating was all he could do. He watched though, as Kanda raised his left hand and caught his Innocence, awkwardly, the sword larger than what he was used to. Allen smiled when his lover turned to face the coming Noah.

The weight was strange to Kanda, the build too heavy, the handle too long, but he raised Crown Clown to strike all the same, treating it as a two handed katana rather than the hand and a half sword that it was, held behind him in the style that would allow him a single mortal strike. He waited until the creature – it wasn't a person anymore – was close enough to kill and then he swung edge first. Lavi's hammer stopped the blow from landing. The redhead had his right arm bracing his chest, a grimace on his lips, blood streaming from the top of his head. Kanda growled at him, annoyed that his one shoulder was not much help given his wounds. He bit out an insult and leaned into the blow but stopped short when Lavi's eye met his.

The emerald eye was shot through with streams of gold.

"Don't hit him again." The redhead breathed quietly. Kanda felt the handle of the hammer that stopped him shift a little backward, weakly. "I can't… hold on if you do… I can't… stay me…" He swayed on his feet for a moment before he clenched a bit more tightly on his Innocence and leaned forward, his eye bright green. He spoke louder, angrily. "I won't let you make me one of them! And I won't let you take that part of him away! I don't fucking care if you think it's evil! Let me talk t—"

A gunshot rang out so loudly he didn't hear himself finish. Four more followed too swiftly afterward, too fast for a normal gun, and Lavi looked to the side, still standing between Kanda and Tyki. Cross stood with the silver pistol, Judgment, held out before him, a strange look on his face. The blue bullets that he fired were too fast for Lavi to stop, just slow enough for his eyes to guess the line of. The redhead let out a strangled pained scream when they struck Tyki in the side, sending him into the far wall. Larger pieces of ceiling began to fall with the collision, shaken loose. Lavi didn't have time to think about it; he gripped his side and shoved away from Kanda, then turned to run for his lover.

Kanda instinctually sighed in relief at the entrance of a general. He let Allen's sword hang in his hand, dragging on the ground, as he turned away. Allen's eyes had fallen shut, but his chest rose and fell quickly, his lips gently parted.

_Good._

He only got within reach to defend him when is right leg finally gave out on him.

_Bad._

He didn't have the strength to look at the Noah, either. He closed his eyes and thought about what he could fix at the least cost to his life.

Lavi made it to Tyki's side panting, his hammer a size that made holding it at the ready and leaning on it equally easy. Cross held his gun out as he came closer, aiming at Tyki even as Lavi placed himself between the two, glaring at the general. The Noah laid on his side in a pile of rubble, seeming to struggle for air, the strange black garment that covered his lower half tangled around his ankles. Lavi couldn't look at him, not without feeling that _want_ rise in the back of his head and in his heart – the need to save and defend. He knew that most of that desire was his, he would have done what he was doing without having Noah's will acting on him, but it helped. He worried silently if his legs would have given out otherwise. That he would have let Kanda destroy half of what he loved.

A large section ceiling crashed to his right, in his blind spot, and he flinched at it. He was still himself.

He heard the hammer of the gun cock.

"Move." The word was a growl, low and angry, biting. There was too much dust for Lavi to see anything but Cross then, nothing but that dark red hair and the glint of glass under it. There was dust on the fringe of the general's coat, but otherwise he was completely unaffected by the disaster around him. No blood, no gore, no mar of grim, just dust on dust on fabric. "I don't miss, _boy_." He said, and his lips lifted as if to show that the thought of missing amused him.

"I won't move." Lavi said in a voice that was smoother and softer than either of them thought it would be. He was calm, despite everything. The thought that he was calm made him smile. "I won't let you kill him. He didn't do anything wrong here."

Cross made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat and adjusted his aim a little; Lavi noticed the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. It was a different brand than Tyki's. "The ceiling between here and the rooms is destroyed, three stories in up and down. There are countless injured and dozens dead. Did you think this was the only room that was falling apart?" He jerked his head to the side, "Move."

"Allen attacked him! It set him off! You can't kill him for that!"

"What do you care?! He's your enemy."

"He's my lover!"

"As if that counts for anything."

"It does! Shoot me, damn it! I'm not letting you kill him!" The words were out of Lavi's mouth before he could even understand what he was saying. It was true though. He wasn't going to let Tyki die over something like this. He wouldn't let himself become a Noah either. "I _love_ him. I'll die before I let you end that." His voice was quieter, almost broken, but it didn't lose its meaning. Cross flinched at the words.

"Fruitless." He muttered, and set his sights on Lavi's heart.

The boy didn't even have time to raise his hammer.

The sound of the general's name was lost in the gunshot, the last syllable echoing from the walls hollowly. Komui stumbled out of the dusty air with his eyes wide, a bloody hand held to his side. He glanced at Cross and followed the line of his gun to Lavi, lying on the floor with a slowly growing puddle of blood around him, eye staring up at whatever it could find to cling to. He made a choking sound, and a spasm rippled from the base of his spine upward, for a moment his face contorted in pain, his eye flashed gold; Cross cocked Judgment again. He didn't need to shoot Lavi anymore, the apprentice Bookman wasn't getting any air in his lungs or any blood to his brain; it was a mercy shot.

Lavi looked up at him, blood sticking his tongue to the roof of his mouth, tears in the corners of his eyes. He whispered a word, or tried to, but there was nothing in it, just the movement of his lips. It took three times for Cross to see what it was and understand it, and even then he wished he hadn't taken the time.

_Please._

Komui grabbed his arm and screwed his aim up entirely.

Kanda heard Komui yelling but he couldn't make out the words, the random banging sounds of falling ceiling had stopped, as had the gunfire, but that didn't help him with the echo or his ringing ears. He crawled on numb palms to his lover, leaving Allen's transformed arm where it was. Somehow, despite it all, he knew that the fight was over, the killing intent gone from the room, and it was safe to approach the fallen Exorcist. His silver hair was dyed half in crimson, his right arm bent at a strange angle, booted feet limp against the floor. Kanda stopped at his side and touched his forehead with unfeeling fingers and watched Allen crack open unseeing eyes.

"You can deactivate." He said too softly, unsure of the volume of his own voice. "You don't have to hold it anymore."

Allen let out a slow, tired sigh and everything melted back into his arm. Kanda would never get used to that. The British Exorcist couldn't pull himself up and Kanda didn't want to risk hurting him, so the two didn't move from where they were, Kanda's fingers playing on Allen's skin.

"Love…" Allen mumbled against the floor. "Don't… fix me."

"Che."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

Allen shut his eyes again before Sable found them in the clearing haze. She held Mugen, unable to let it go even though she had cut her hands on it, both palms bloodied almost beyond use. She didn't stumble, having grown used to looking through her tears, but she did stop awkwardly in front of Kanda, presenting the blade by its pommel. He looked up at her with his head tilted, he still only had one eye that worked, and frowned, not understanding.

"Che." He picked up his sword and turned it over, looking at it in detail. There was no way for Sable to have bled enough to coat it so thickly. Not from just her hands. "Where was it?" He asked in a voice much quieter than Sable was used to hearing from him.

Sable shook her head and looked at her hands, seeing the blood on them. She spoke gently, watching her tears fall into her hands. _"Heilen."_ She whispered, and the skin of her hands knitted itself together at the sound, leaving them covered in dozens of tiny white and pink scars from Mugen's edge. "_Helien._" She repeated, more loudly. "I knew it all along."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Heilen – German meaning **_**to heal**_**.  
Tchuess – German kind of **_**goodbye.**_

**The title of this chapter is the title of Shinedown song that I listened to a lot during this chapter. The chorus made me think of Tyki a lot, so I'll take a moment to share it with you if you don't mind:**

'**The more the light shines through me,  
I pretend to close my eyes.  
The more the dark consumes me,  
I pretend I'm burning bright.'**

**There's more to it than that, but that's the basics of what made me think 'TYKI'.**

**NIAMH IS SORRY THAT SHE CAN'T WRITE ACTION FOR THE LIFE IN HER.**

**And um… as a side note…  
Don't hate me? I love you?**


	94. The Third Line

**Oh the horror of an update. Uwa.  
I feel sleepy…  
I'm not exactly sure if it's clear or not, but there are four days between the first scene of this chapter (the day Hito died) and the second scene (with Allen). So… sorry that it isn't really obvious, but it's how it turned to. 8(**

**Also, yes. At the start, Allen is a liiiiittle over-thoughtful. It affects the narration a little.**

**Disclaimer of D'kitchen: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… Lenalee would be hella cool. Not that she's in this chapter. Or the one before. Or the one after this one… hm…**

**WARNING!: This chapter contains content that is SEXUAL in nature. HOMOsexual. And stuff. Oh, and LOOK! Something that's a little like HET!**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

The Third Line

He sat up with a suddenness that shocked him, shivers running up and down his spine as if making up for all the times he hadn't felt them. His eyes were well adjusted to his room's light but all the same he blinked about it owlishly, his throat dry, and shook harder, his hands weak as they came up to run through his hair. A horrible feeling had filled him, wetted his eyes and quickened his heart, but now that he thought of it, Uri couldn't name what had ripped him so suddenly from sleep. He didn't feel sick or pained or like anything was a miss. He didn't feel worried. But his eyes were crying and his fingers felt cold on his skin. He closed his eyes and turned enough to place his feet on the wooden floor. "This isn't a Noah thing." He mumbled and pushed himself up, growling. He made quite a bit of noise between the couch he was sleeping on and the kitchen sink, and by the time he had put his empty water glass on the counter, Lloyd was behind him in a pair of boots, wrapped in a snow jacket, and holding a plunger as if it were a weapon. Uri made an unpleasant face at him when he turned away from the stars in the window.

The red of the snow jacket made the swath of bare flesh across Lloyd's chest seem entirely too pale, his always sunken and seemingly sleepless eyes all the more black in the shadows. He reached out with a hand composed of nothing but knuckles and sickles of moonlight and the kitchen was flooded with illumination.

Uri groaned and shaded his eyes to it. The plunger was pointed at his face and waved violently, Lloyd's garment fell open, left to fall because Lloyd had his empty hand on the light switch. The younger sighed at the rubber implement of clog destruction and raised an eyebrow, soft features drawn into a thoughtful smirk. "Do I look like a toilet monster, Lloyd?" He asked through a yawn. The man before him continued to wave his useless weapon as if it would magically turn him into something more to his liking. "I'm going back to sleep and you're in my way."

"No, no, no." Lloyd droned, flicking his plunger every word. "You don't just get up and lumber around like an elephant and wake me up to put on clothes and boots and grab a weapon and then go back to bed. You're going to talk."

"I'm not going to talk."

"You are a freeloader and as such will do as I say."

"Lloyd."

"You're crying, Uri. Don't tell me it's a _Noah Thing_, explain to me what's going on."

The blonde man sighed and glared at his elder over the top of his rubber topped play sword. The brunette was haggard, and naked beneath his coat. "Don't you own a pair of pants you can just throw on when this sort of thing happens? Your pixie cock is making my normal one shrivel in sympathy."

"My _what_?! Don't insult my preposterously large manhood and speak to me, wee brother!"

"Never mind. Go to bed." He waved at the light switch and it turned down for him even though he didn't touch it – something that he was growing used to now that he understood things. The plunger struck him firmly on top of his head and the light came back on. He sighed. "Lloyd."

"Tell me."

"I just turned off the light switch with my _mind_, what makes you think I can't do the same to your _life_?" Uri asked in a tone he hoped was menacing.

Lloyd laughed at him, bouncing the plunger on his head gently. "You know that if I die the whole place goes to the little old lady up the lane and you won't have a bed anymore. You won't kill me because you'll have to spend more time at your—_ehem_—part-time job. _Talk_ Uri. Talk or I'll place that phone call I threatened to a month ago when you _started_ sleeping on my couch." He leveled a look that made his brown eyes dance under the ridges of his eyebrows. His plunger fell and he tugged his jacket closed, but he didn't move aside, he just stood there looking at Uri in his pants and sighed. "Please?"

Uri ruffled his hair in a way that guided his hand down to his face. The tears were drying, but that _feeling_ was still there, all he had to do was talk about it. His feet stuck on the floor when he moved toward his brother and his sigh scattered bread crumbs when he came to the counter. He needed to clean. "I think it's Sable." He mumbled, his face fallen. "I think she lost something dear to her. Or someone. I don't know." He shook his head and looked down at the dirty countertop, his loose hair fell around his eyes and shaded them – Lloyd didn't need to know what he was doing. "She's not like me anymore but… we're still twins. I can still tell."

"When she was here last she didn't say that she had anyone."

Uri didn't look up, not when his eyes were golden. "When I saw her last there was a boy who liked her." He mumbled. "Little cute kid, didn't have an angry bone in him, couldn't hold a grudge more than thirty seconds, didn't know what it was like to kill people or die or what it meant to be helpless. Not a sadist or a masochist or a martyr, just a kid who could get along with anyone as long as they didn't call him a girl." He realized that he was talking to himself but he didn't care, it wasn't really him talking anyway. Somehow, despite it all, he knew it was what Sable meant to say but wouldn't, what she felt. Anger and sadness welled up in his chest and he shook. It didn't make sense. He had _hurt_ that boy, gone through his _mind_, and yet he felt sorry when he thought about him.

"And?"

"And I think he's dead." Uri whispered. "She can't cry over it so…" He was glad for the arm that draped itself over his shoulders, but he didn't lean into it. He just looked down at the counter. "I thought this would stop when we quit sharing…"

Lloyd gave his brother's back a small, unsure little pat. It was hard to comfort the favorite. "Maybe it's karma."

"What the Hell for?!"

"I dunno, Uri." Lloyd said with one of his looks of omnipotence. "Maybe for killing people."

* * *

The glass was clear, but that didn't make it any easier to look through. He wanted to. He wanted to look through it unblinkingly, because every time he closed his eyes he thought about the look that Kanda had given him. It had been a strange expression that had marred his face for what felt like an eternity, a look of pain and rejection, of fear and regret. Allen hadn't understood at first, why his lover would look at him with eyes that seemed soulless without word, or why, when he had taken the samurai's hand it was pulled away from him. He didn't understand why, the night that Kanda had come to see him in the evening in the medical wing; he hadn't brought Mugen with him.

And he didn't understand why he had been arrogant enough to try and say that he understood about Hitori because of Mana.

Mana.

_Mana…_

He tilted forward enough to lean his forehead on the glass, it didn't matter anymore what was on the other side. He wasn't looking at it. He couldn't stand to. He couldn't stand the sight of his own reflection either. He closed his eyes to it all and gripped his casted right arm with his left hand, a slow shaking starting in his shoulders as he did. There was something wrong with him, he was sure, that made him cause his lover's suffering, his brother's death, independent of the hand or will of God. When his eyes cracked open, half seeing, and focused on the black fabric of his shirt he didn't thinking about the heart that was inside of him, beating with life, he thought about how Hitori's wasn't beating anymore and how, in the end, it was his fault. Tyki was wouldn't have done anything if not for him.

He also thought about the redhead on the other side of the glass, who wasn't supposed to have a heart to begin with but had still managed to love the people he had not.

_Mana…_

_Thump_. He had pulled back enough to hit his forehead against the glass a little. He hadn't thought about it, it just happened. The icy stab on his face sent a little ach into the back of his head and down the bridge of his nose, stopped before his teeth. He wanted to do it again, for some reason. More violently. Just pull back and bash his face forward with enough force to break either him or the glass. It didn't matter which broke, only that _something_ did. Only that he felt it.

He couldn't feel anything. Not how things were.

"_Mana…" _

The name left his lips feeling cold and hollow. Mana was dead, just like Hitori. Neither could help anymore. Even if Mana saw or heard or understood, the only thing he had to show for it was an eye that kept him alive as often as it gave him pain, and the feeling in the back of his mind that there was a stirring in his skull. What did that prove?

"You should say something beside his name when you call him." A small voice said beside him, rough but steady. He leapt back from the window to see Sable standing not two feet away, wearing a black button up men's shirt and her issued pants, her hair braided over his right shoulder. He stared for a moment, unable to understand that she had spoken to him because she wasn't looking at him, and blinked. "It would be kind of mean if someone kept saying your name but never told you what they wanted, wouldn't it?" She went on, staring through the glass, thoughtful. He couldn't speak to her when she made that face, even if it weren't at him.

He bit his lip and struggled to open his mouth the way he wanted. "Then… you think he can hear me?" He whispered, and his voice made her turn and look at him with eyes that didn't seem as dark as he expected them. She smiled from the right side of her mouth.

"Of course he can. If the dead couldn't hear you… how would there be Akuma?"

He bit his lip again, hard. If he kept at it that part of his face would get sore, he knew, but she was serious, too serious, too honest for him not to. It made him want to be with Kanda. But where was Kanda? He hadn't been there when Allen was released from the medical ward a few minutes ago. And he obviously wasn't looking in on Lavi. Sable wasn't with him either. And she still had that look about her, that breakability, the part that made him want to tell her about how he kept Mana in his heart. He couldn't stand to. Not after he had tried to tell Kanda.

_Kanda…_

"I shouldn't be here." He said quietly, and took a step toward the hall. His slipper clad feet felt wrong, too light for some reason. "I should be with Kanda. I can't st—"

"He's not here." Sable said at once, bringing his feet to a halt even before they had completely left the floor again. He frowned at her, deeply, and furrowed the silver threads of his eyebrows together in question. She made the face back at him, golden eyebrows knitted tightly. "He asked for a mission three days ago. Komui refused to give him anything long term like he wanted, so he'll be back this afternoon. Didn't he tell you he was going?"

Allen shook his head and took a step away, backward. He wanted to run until he found Kanda and apologize. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to curl up in his lover's arms and hum the song that made him feel like they shared a fraction of the same being, if only for a moment. "No." His voice was a paper thin breath of air bounced off the glass. "Not a word."

* * *

From the moment his vision had gone dark, Lavi thought about that blood colored river in the mountains that were sculpted to keep in the good rather than hold out the ill. When he found himself there he was alone, the sun at the angle he had left it, the air just as heavy with dragonflies and that strange scent of earth. He smiled at it. If he could find a place that was made in a dream there was no way for him to be dead, and that was the most encouraging thought he could remember off the top of his head.

He waited there.

He didn't know how long it was that he sat next to the river with his legs crossed, chin resting on the backs of his fingers while he blinked at the fluttering surface of the water, but it felt like hours. The arms that eventually curled around his chest and pulled him back were soundless, gentle, _warm_, and the mouth that pressed itself to the side of his throat was so hot and moist he moaned at it as he turned to embrace the man to whom it belonged. The gray skin, gold eyes, the hair that was too long and dark did not matter – he would have known the touch of his lover's lips on his skin no matter what body they came from. His arms wound themselves almost too tightly around the ethereal form of his lover's neck and he wordlessly, almost soundlessly buried his face in Tyki's shoulder.

The Noah pulled him so tight he thought he would just sink into him rather than let go. Words did not pass Lavi's lips when he raised his mouth and laid it on his lover's, nor did they move to speak when Tyki slowly, gingerly ran a hand beneath the fabric of his shirt.

"Are you real, Lavi?" Tyki's voice questioned him even as he helped to rid himself of his useless garment, eager to touch rather than speak. He couldn't explain it but somehow he remembered where he was and how he had gotten there, every twitch and blink that he had done to be where he was. And having that memory, knowing what had happened, made his heart ache with the yearning to do something besides make war.

"Yeah." He growled, and pulled Tyki's shirt from within his slacks, bunching it against his stomach. "It's like before… only now, I need… even if it's not really you it's still… _you_ and…after what happened…"

"I did not see what became of you." Tyki whispered, guiding them against the bank. The way he spoke was different, the way he held himself a bit more exact, but there was no mistaking the little smile that came to his lips. "Nothing that would keep you from this, I trust?"

Lavi shook his head and leaned over his lover's form, shading his gray skin from the sun. "Cross shot me." Tyki's fingers brushed the skin of his chest, almost shyly, almost hungrily, as if they had forgotten the feel of him and wanted to remember it slowly. He returned the touch on his lover's hip, astounded by the real quality to his skin. There was no doubt in his mind that this was, in all ways that he could be, Tyki and not a thing he had dreamed into existence. "I was going to die from it, I'm sure, but Komui stopped him from shooting me again. I passed out when the medical team showed." He paused, but his hands roamed over Tyki's skin. There was nothing to be had for his distance. "What happened to you?"

Tyki frowned at him, his wide mouth turned down ever so slightly at the edges, and sighed. He had leaned fully against the dirt bank and now pulled Lavi down with him, his eyes shut to the warmth and smell of the bare chest his lover offered. His lips brushed his lover's cheek and Lavi shivered against him, he wouldn't deny him anything he wanted, not with a response like that.

"I don't remember. Not after I… tried to kill Allen Walker." He tried to ignore the mouth trailing down his throat, breathing too hard to be natural. "Everything hurt." He mumbled. A hand slipped up his shirt and he flattened his palm on Lavi's chest, just to feel the beat of his heart, just to feel _something_ besides how he did. There was no difference anymore, between the light and the dark, but the touch Lavi's skin beneath his palm was the same, if entirely different. "I hurt still."

"Don't talk about it then." Lavi whispered. He pushed himself up enough to look his lover in the face and glance between his eyes, seeming to search for something. "We're both alive. That's all that matters. When I wake up, I don't care where I am or what Komui wants to do, I'll come find you if I can move to do it." He didn't mean to, but his right hand touched Tyki's cheek and he slowly, shaking, pulled himself closer. "Am I nuts to think that we have to be in the same room or I can't sleep right?"

Tyki shook his head slightly, too long hair falling over his shoulders with the motion. Lavi didn't seem to care about its length. "No." His hand found a place on Lavi's ribcage that made the younger man's breathing speed a bit. He smiled and stroked his fingers over it again, amazed by the tiny blush it brought as well. "I'm the same way." He admitted. "Lavi…" He said the name as his lover moved to straddle him, nipping kisses running up the sides of his neck, too fast to be innocent. It wasn't the same kind of touch as it had been, but he still knew it was Lavi, knew that the dark tied them to this place and to each other, even if there was no dark. Lovingly he began to return the touches with more enthusiasm, aware that every one of them increased the redhead's intensity, increased his desperateness. It didn't matter that there were a thousand unanswered questions between them, it didn't matter that the ground was too hard against his spine, nor did it matter that his lover was growling into his chest, wanting it bare. He only cared about the touch of fire that danced across his skin at it all.

"Ty-chan?" The apprentice Bookman said his name – yes, that was his name and he had answered to it, even if it sounded awkward.

"Yes, dear?" He groaned at the kiss that was given in answer, his response to it gentle and slow. He wanted it to last forever it was so wonderful, so good, so stable. He knew that he had thought differently before – as if he had two sides – and Lavi had found the balance between them, but he didn't feel it anymore. There was only one desire in him and a light, warm feeling of enjoyment.

_**I kill what I love but…**_

Lavi stopped suddenly, breathing hard, and wrapped his arms around Tyki's shoulders, buried his fingers in the Noah's hair. Tyki closed his eyes to it, as well the feeling that everything was perfect as long as he had the boy in his arms.

"All done, _Amante?_" He asked in voice that could have been flirtatious. "Shall I roll us down the bank a bit and taste you a little?"

The redhead signaled a nonverbal negative.

"Is something wrong?"

"I feel fuzzy."

"Fuzzy?"

"I think I'm… I think someone is waking me up." Lavi whispered and he held more tightly to Tyki. The Noah returned his hold, thought not strongly enough to squeeze the life out of him. "I don't want to wake up. I wanna stay here with—_shit… it hurts! I don't—"_ His hands clamped suddenly and Tyki pushed him up, looking down at his panic brightened eye. Lavi wasn't lying, there was pain in his eyes and unwillingness, as well as a sort of hope that he couldn't explain. He kissed the younger man hurriedly, cupped the side of his face in his hand. "Wait for me." Lavi said in a rush. "I'll come back when they let me sleep. I'll come here. I swear it I'll—_Ty-chan!"_ The name was his last word to the confused looking Noah, because he was spiraling away into something dark and cool, something that wasn't a dream. He cursed in his head but it wasn't the same anymore. No one would hear him. No one would care.

_I don't want to wake up without you._

* * *

"I nap on that couch, Mrs. Kanda, so you'll have to remove yourself from it at some point."

"No reason we can't share it. I'm not married."

Komui felt his face turn the color of a freshly boiled lobster and he lifted a paper to hide it. What was with her?! She wouldn't leave him alone, she flirted with a recklessness that made him fear for his own innocence, and she acted as if her son's death were not something that needed to be talked about. He would admit that the company was nice, and she knew how to meditate as well as Kanda did, but it was a bit strange to him, the way she didn't seem to feel. Vaguely he was aware that even when she said things, invited him to share the couch, leered at him, cocked an eyebrow as if she found him desirable – there was nothing in her eyes. She lacked that little twinkle, the tingly feeling. It felt like how he imagined it would be to be on the receiving end of one of Cross' invitations.

Because he wouldn't take one from that chain smoking alcoholic reprobate pervert even if he was a woman.

"I have paperwork to do."

"I'm not stopping you."

"Hiroko-san."

"Che! If you don't want to talk then don't talk; let me sit here and look at you." She said loudly, arms crossed against her chest. She looked terribly young like that, her feet didn't reach the floor when she sat back on the couch, and her pout didn't help.

He sighed and put the papers down, leaning back in his chair with a groan. This wasn't his week, if he had been his month before everything fell to pieces. He had more reports to make and asses to cover than he wanted to think about – being stared at was not on his list of priorities. "You should be with yo—"

"_Hiro."_ The sound of her name made the woman turn and Komui stopped talking, dark eyes drawn to the door. He hadn't heard it open nor had he heard the customary growl of warning before Cross spoke, but the general was still there, looking like a dog that had lost its only master. His almost auburn hair fell down the masked side of his face like a mourning veil, though the color was wrong, and his expression was a bit too bright. "Can I… borrow you for a moment?" He asked as if he was unsure. Wonderful acting, Komui was certain. "I promise you don't have to stay with me longer than a few moments." He added, just to be sure that she actually came. When she stood up Komui placed his palms silently together and bowed at the red haired man, showing his thanks so Hiroko couldn't see. Cross had to fight not to laugh at him. It was so _very_ much like Komui to not understand the concept of _comfort sex_.

He held the door open for her but he didn't make himself smile when he closed it. He didn't make himself do anything, it just happened. His left arm came up without him thinking and leaned over her, trapping Hiroko between the door and his chest, leaving him open to a hundred thousand violent acts if she so pleased to commit them. She didn't commit them. She looked up at him with round, wet eyes and frowned in question, her foul mouth tight lipped and twitching. It had taken three days for things to settle a bit, to calm, and she had avoided him like the plague all that time. The same as she avoided her daughter. But now, held between him and cold surface of the door, she couldn't run away from him. He could watch the fight or flight instinct behind her eyes and guess that she was closer to flight. He would stop her though. If she tried to run, he wouldn't let her.

She chose _fight_. "Che! What do you want, Mari-chan?" She rolled back against the door and left her generous lips slightly parted. His tongue flicked behind his teeth at it. "Besides what you want from every wom…" She trailed off when he pulled his arm down and hooked the other behind her, dragging her into an awkward sort of embrace. She wasn't tall enough to be hugged normally, she didn't think, but he managed to pull her face against his chest without making her feel any more awkward than she already did. Words, however, failed her.

"Stop it." He growled at her. She remained as stiff as a board against him.

"Stop what, Mari-chan?"

He was a tiny bit shocked by the hands that brushed up his black jacket and paused at the ruffles of his collar and ran through them, unsteady and shy. He wanted Hiroko to return the embrace but that wasn't how she was. She wouldn't return his affection with affection, she would kick him first. It was a miracle she had ever had children, let alone three. "Pretending that you're alright, Hiro." He whispered, and pressed the palm of his left hand against the top of her head, rocking her into him. Her arms twined around his middle with a slowness that let him know just how much she didn't want to accept his comfort. "Don't think about who I am. Think about what I'm giving you."

"What's that?"

"Warmth."

"Che!"

"Stop it."

"What should I stop this time?"

"Trying to be strong." He held her when she tried to push him back for that. "Cry on me, Hiroko. You haven't since your son died."

"Fuck you." She whispered into him, but her fingers were buried in the fabric of his jacket, her face pressed so close he could feel her voice vibrate through his ribcage.

He shook his head and ran his fingers slowly to the end of her hair and tugged out the tie, then ran his hand through it again, shaking it free. He breathed a little more quickly when she didn't tell him to stop, her feet stepped a little toward him. His heartbeat was uncontrollable, even if he didn't mean to manipulate her, even if just seeing her weak would be enough. "What's stopping you? No one will care if you cry, no one will see. You'll feel better if you cry." What was he saying? He couldn't say that he knew. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that? When something bad happens you have to feel for it, you have to let him go. You have to cry."

"I can't." Her voice said otherwise.

"Yes you can, Hiro. You can cry just like the rest of us. All you have to do is stop trying to be angry." He said softly. She didn't push him away, though he could tell that she was thinking about it, and instead sighed into him softly. He wished that she weren't hunched over so he might press his lips to the side of her face. "Believe me Hiro, when I tell you that I'm not doing this because I want you. I'm doing it because you'll never be happy again if I don't." He ran his hand through her hair again and felt her shutter, a tiny hiccoughing sound in the back of her throat. Gently, encouragingly, he pulled her back enough to sink to his knees and embrace her fully, pressing her head to his shoulder. His eyes stayed away from her face because he knew that she didn't want to be looked at, didn't want him to see her cry. Her fingers tangled in his hair.

"Marian."

He ignored the fact that his name was broken with sobs. "Yes, Hiro?"

"You…smell good." She commented so softly he wasn't sure he heard her. He didn't move to answer her, only let out a little huff of air. He hadn't expected to be complimented by her. Ever. "I've been thinking about it for a while and… you do." She mumbled into his shoulder. "It's making my eyes water."

He laughed. Hard. With a slowness that she could have resisted if she were so inclined, he pulled her back enough to look down at her soft, delicate features, and wipe the tears from her eyes with the thumb of his right hand. "Don't lie about it, Hiro. You know as well as I do that you wouldn't cry from a smell that you like." Without thinking about it he tilted her head enough to press his lips against her cheek, feather light, so his facial hair brushed a bit on the smooth skin of her face, delicate. She didn't pull away, but he didn't do anything else, just let his face wander down to her shoulder. _Am I terrible person for wanting you right now, Hiro?_

"Marian."

"Hm?"

"Did you just kiss me on the cheek?"

"Mm… maybe."

Hiroko touched his hair enough to tug his head around and make him look at her. Her gray eyes held a smile in them, even if they were filled with tears. "All badass qualities, manliness, and the desire to eventually get some aside… I think that you really are good, Marian. Otherwise you wouldn't… wouldn't… _fuck…_" The tears in her eyes escaped again and her hand clamped in his hair, but she didn't throw him away and run. Instead she leaned her face forward and pressed her forehead to his chin, hard. "Look what you started." She whispered. "I'm a fucking salt water factory because of you. It's not just Hito. It's not just you. It's too much together. I can't think worth shit like this. I start wondering if… he could die with that little fucking smile on his face…" She pulled her head up and jerked Cross forward, widening his eyes in surprise.

Without warning she pulled him into a kiss that was long and hard, like everything he had ever wanted from her. This time he had the wits to respond to the touch, and did so softly, unsure what she meant by it, cupping the side of her face in his too large palm, holding her fragile seeming back with his other arm. He didn't understand. He expected her to shove him aside when the kiss was over but he didn't specifically care – the touch was so intimate, so _desperate_ that he had to return it for now, while he could.

She pulled back after a long, silently moment, and pressed his lower lip between her teeth for a second. He kept his eyes closed, heart pounding away in his chest like a rolling bass drum, and waited for the hand on the side of his face to fall away.

"When I think about how you're acting… I… feel…" She paused and started again, more softly. "When I think about Hitori I start wondering if I'm just stupid and lines are meant to be crossed. If the family isn't what matters when my own disobedient son can just _grin_ himself into the afterlife because of some _fucking_ girl he fell in love with." She was crying outright now, her arms shaking with the strain of holding him, and he didn't have the heart to make her stop. Indeed he was wordless, utterly, and couldn't stop her from fisting his hair so strongly it hurt to bend his head for another kiss. It was shorter, needier, and heated; his emotions stirred more by her actions than her words. "Is that how it is, Cross? Have I been stupid?" She was whispering on his lips, trembling, warm tears feeling cold on his fingers. "Is happiness the only thing that matters in the end?"

_Because as much as I hate you, you make me happy._

"No, Hiro. There are other things. Life and love and good wine and good women and war," Cross whispered back, as soft as he could make his voice, lingering. "But if you want to be happy, if you want to be selfish, then do it. Most of us only live once."

She kissed him again, softly, with reverence, and his breath caught at it. There was nothing to be had for his nervousness, nothing to stop the tiny, delicate lifting of his lips.

"I'm not gonna fuck you, Marian."

"Hn." _That's not what I want._

"But I'm going to kiss you until I might want to."

He chuckled, and his thumb slid to her jaw line, paying at the turn of her chin. "I think that's fair, Hiro-chan," He whispered. "As long as I can try my damnedest to make you want me."

"You do that." She answered with a press of her fingers to his lips. "And I might be… happy."

* * *

Kanda felt heavy. He felt as if his whole body were composed of lead, his eyelids especially, and lumbering into the Black Order headquarters did not lift the feeling. He was dead tired, more than dead tired, and the walk from the front door to Komui's office left him feeling as if his arms were just going to drop off of his torso followed by his legs. He didn't even pause when he saw his mother and Cross huddled against the door together – he was too damn tired to think too far outside of his skin. He brushed passed them, walked into the Chinese man's office without a care for what he said, and dropped his report on the desk.

Komui looked up at him and frowned but didn't speak. The Exorcist didn't make a sound, only gave a tiny tilt of his head and walked away again, coldly. It seemed to him that the samurai were walking in a fog, a haze that he had most likely used to block out what had happened, and what had yet to come.

"He's out of the medical wing." Komui called softly, being he knew that Kanda would go to Allen at some point. The Japanese man nodded slightly but didn't thank him. "Lenalee and Crowley have been asked to return with their mission unfinished and will be back in two days." That didn't even get him a grunt. Instead Kanda just opened the door and moved like a ghost into the hall, the slap of his sword on his side the only sound that followed him.

When he came to his door and opened it the lump of his lover on his bed only half surprised him. Wordlessly, knowing that if he moved too violently or loudly he would get himself removed from his own room before he had even had a wink to sleep, he crossed the space to the bed and began to take off his boots. By the time he was barefoot Allen had rolled enough across the mattress to make space for him, though he could not tell if the boy were awake or not. He shrugged off the new jacket Johnny had produced in record time – ruined – and pulled his shirt over his head directly after, leaving it all in a pile at his feet. For a moment he thought about leaving his pants, but decided they weren't clean enough to go into bed with him, and tugged them off, leaving himself bare. He slid himself between the sheets and let out a slow, shaking sigh.

Allen didn't move beside him, nor did his breathing change. He risked it all in laying an arm under the boy's right shoulder and pulling him closer.

"You're an insensitive bastard, BaKanda." A tiny, broken voice said with just enough bite to it to make his hand move back as if burned. The British boy didn't move though, he only lay facing the wall, the covers pulled up by his shoulders. "Leaving me here like that, alone, with this…" He regained his courage and slinked an arm around Allen's waist; his lover stiffened. "D-don't…" Allen whispered, just as Kanda pressed his bare chest against his lover's clothed back.

Kanda didn't speak. He pulled Allen close enough to bury his face in that mass of silver hair. His lover's lip twitched.

_So warm… I could just fall asleep forever._

"Don't try to cuddle with me, BaKanda, I'm _angry_ with you." Allen rolled enough to push his lover back and stopped with his hands pressed to his lover's shoulders. He took in the pallid skin, the sunken eyes, the small cut beneath his lover's left eye, the heavy rise and fall of his chest. He looked at it all and slowly, like water draining from a clogged bath drain, the anger drained from his face – and replaced itself at once with something darker, something that made his eyes flash with emotion. He lurched forward, grabbing at his lover's skin. "What did you do?!"

"Moya—"

"You didn't just go on a mission, you also went on a mission without telling me, and then you got hurt, didn't you?!" Allen realized that he had taken a firm hold of Kanda's wrists and was bearing down on him, but there was naught he could do to stop himself. "Why would you _do_ that, Love?!" His fingers were bruising, Kanda was slipping toward the edge of mattress, but the blank expression he was getting couldn't make him stop. "You could have _died_! Is that what you want? Do you want to just go on a mission and run out of life because you keep taking small wounds and stupid—_Ka!_" His lover rolled against the mattress and attempted to jerk Allen against him, but the boy would have none of it. With a swift lift of his left leg he brought himself over his lover and straddled his hips, pressing him firmly against the bed.

Kanda's eyes blinked up at the white haired boy on his chest and his arms went slack. This wasn't an akuma, or something life threatening; he didn't have the strength to defend himself anymore.

"I can't argue with you right now." He said softly, and he felt the hand on his right wrist loosen enough to allow blood flow. "When I left you were sleeping most of the day, you wouldn't have known if I was there or not for most of the time you were awake. Now stop it, if you keep this up you'll have to have a new cast." He jerked his head toward Allen's right arm and the strange way that he had twisted it, which the British Exorcist seemed to realize was slightly painful. He cringed at it.

"I could hear you, Kanda. I could hear that stupid song that follows you around every time you were in the room with me. But that's not what's wrong. I don't care that you didn't stay by my side every moment of the last four days, I care that you went out to get yourself killed so soon after—" Allen was cut off by a hand leaving his grasp and coming back on his chest, perfectly in the middle, hard. He fell back, having expected to be left to his own to speak, and landed firmly on his back on the bed, between his lover's knees. A thousand tiny words of protest seeped out of his mouth when Kanda caught first one leg and then the other, holding them to his sides, and then tangled his arms in the covers with his feet. Allen stared up at him with an expression too much like a scowl. He didn't like having their roles reversed in this circumstance.

Kanda clamped his hands into fists around Allen's legs to keep them from shaking. "Che. You don't understand me. Fighting is how I handle it."

"Handled what, _BaKa_nda?! Loss?!"

"Pain! Fear!" He answered at once, and threw himself down against the smaller man, turning himself so his hands came down on Allen's, the blankets between them. The bedding was a mess but he didn't care, there were more important things to think about, more important things to see. More important things to say. "I can't feel those things! I can't let myself do something stupid from them! So I kill things. I fucking destroy akuma so I don't have to make them. I get angry. It's all I have. So I requested a mission and when one came through, I took it. Because I knew I would hurt you if I didn't."

"You're an idiot. And insensitive. Let me up."

Kanda didn't move. "You're not listening to me."

"I am listening to you! I don't care _why_ you took the mission! I care why you didn't tell me that you took it!" Allen barked out the words as he swung his left arm as hard as he could, lifting Kanda enough to throw him to the side. He scrambled from under the covers and onto the floor, revealing that he was more or less fully dressed as he slipped from Kanda's hands. When he turned back his lover was moving to follow. "So tell me, Kanda." He stopped him with the words. "Tell me why you didn't say a _thing_ to me and just went off on a mission. Because I honestly can't imagine what you were thinking when you left me here to deal with the mess I made. I don't deserver your help with it, but I'd like to know when I can't find you that you aren't _dead_!" He realized with a start that he was yelling, screaming at Kanda, and his eyes had filled with tears at some point. Because as much as he hated to admit it, Kanda really could die, just like Hitori had, just as suddenly, and by the same sword. He started to shake slightly and he took a step back when Kanda moved toward him.

"I don't… have a seal that tells me when your heart stops." He went on, even though he could see the realization spreading in Kanda's eyes. "I don't have anything. I won't get anything! I'll… we'll… I don't…" His eyes shot at the door and he ran for it, because if Kanda spoke he wouldn't be able to hold on to his anger like he wanted, and then his lover wouldn't regret what he had done. He wanted Kanda to regret it. He wanted so much more. His feet made loud slapping sounds as he ran across the floor, and curses filled the air behind him that he wasn't listening to, because Kanda couldn't understand yet. He wouldn't until the door was closed behind him.

A loud word filled the air behind him and a crash, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor and a groan. By then he had reached the door and had his hand on the knob, still trembling. Slowly, not wanting to, he turned to see what his lover had broken in the rush to stop him. Not that it would stop him. If Kanda wasn't dying, he was going out that door for at least a minute.

Kanda sat on the floor with a sheet corner hanging over his head, the coffee table thrown on its side, everything that had been on it rolling across the floor beside it. He looked up at Allen with eyes that didn't seem to be able to draw the boy into focus and opened his mouth.

No sound came for a long, agonizing moment. "I'm sorry." He said the words in a desperate whisper and he pitched to the side, fingers clawing at the stone of the floor as if it might give him something to hold on to. Allen moved back hurriedly, wiping at his face, and tentatively reached out to the man he had just yelled at so loudly. He felt his anger start to melt and clenched his teeth at it, unwilling to let it go.

A hand like a corpse's took his and gave a swift, hurried tug.

"Kanda?" Allen said the name worriedly; his anger evaporated, and fell to his knees, taking his lover by the shoulders. The eyes that looked at him seemed to want to say something, they blinked repeatedly, glazing over with tears, but no sound passed his lips, no air. Kanda's hand took Allen's and pressed it to the mark over his heart, as if to draw attention to it.

Allen didn't understand the message.

Kanda closed his mouth and his eyes for a moment and sighed, almost coughing. Allen felt a shiver of relief run up and down his spine at the hand that came up and cupped the side of his face so softly it could have been a caress from a dream. He leaned into it, even if he wanted somewhere in him to walk away. _"I'm too tired to fight anymore. I'm sorry."_

Allen's hands left his lover's body to touch the sides of his face, cold, and look into his eyes. He didn't see fear in them, or anger, or anything more than a sort of sadness that wrenched at his heart and started the tears flowing again in his eyes. The older Exorcist leaned forward and laid a breathless, delicate kiss on his lips.

The moment Kanda went limp against him, Allen didn't move. He sat with the naked, unmoving Japanese man pressed into his chest, and blinked, confusion and terror running through him in agonizing waves. The chest against his moved however, slowly, and he sighed at it, glad to feel that tiny bit of life following so freely through his lover. Gingerly he moved them both back to the bed, tucking the sheet around Kanda's hips in an effort to keep personal things from sight, then turned his attention to the fallen coffee table. He wondered how it was that he had run to the door without tripping on it himself. He righted it and placed the fallen lotus right side up on it, careful not too look at the petals for fear of scaring himself, and placed the pad of paper beside it, followed by a fallen book and a pen. He didn't pay much heed to anything but the flower, simply because none of it seemed important, before he went back to look once more at Kanda.

He seemed tired, sleeping, but that his eyes weren't moving beneath his eyelids. Allen decided he best ask someone else's opinion of his state – even if whatever had happened had seemed to have passed – and stood up from the bed, still looking down at his lover with warmth in his eyes.

"I'm still mad at you." He mumbled, and leaned enough to lay his lips on Kanda's forehead. "But I shouldn't be angry with you when I'm really… when it's me who did this to everyone…" He tilted his head down and pressed his cheek to the skin of his lover's face. "I just love you, Kanda Yuu. Can't you understand that?" He whispered and drew away, turning back for the door. He didn't see the older man's hand curl itself in the sheets with his passing.

* * *

"C'mon. Open yer eye, Lavi. I didn' come all th'way from Durnshar t'watch ya die. Open yer eye."

He knew that voice. He knew that accent. He had heard that a long time ago, and the sound had pulled him from sleep in a similar fashion. He swallowed hard, casting off the last lingering tingles of sleep, and winced at a dull throbbing in his chest and the feeling that if he tried to sit up, his lungs would fall out. He dragged his eye open and blinked it half capacity, the dimmed lights of the medical wing not half as painful as he thought they would be. After a few seconds of looking at them a familiar, slightly out of focus face leaned over him, framed in strawberry blonde curls and sprinkled with a liberal serving of freckles.

_Marlette?_ He meant to speak the name, to ask if it was her, but his throat only made sound for the _L_ and his tongue only twitched for the _T_, and even then his mouth hadn't been open. She smiled down at him, crystal clear eyes dancing, and he felt the warmth of a hand pressed against his face.

"'Ow come ever' time I sees ya, yer in a state a kickin' th'bucket, Lavi?" She asked with a smile. He only blinked at her, being there was naught else to do with his mouth rebelling, and tried to lift a questioning eyebrow. Her hand went down the side of his face and paused on his cheek, giving it a little pat. "I did a lotta thinkin' affer I met Lena an' that Crow feller, an' I decided I migh' as well join up fer th'betterment a humanidy an' all tha'. Never know when th'world 's gonna en' unless yer fightin' t'save it." She chuckled and gave his cheek a little pinch, the kind that made the corner of his mouth turn up a little in appreciation. He wondered if, in another life, someone like her had been his mother. "Butta 'nuff abou' me. 'Ow ya feelin'? Blink twice if yer comfy."

He thought about it for a moment and then blinked twice. He couldn't say that the throbbing was that terrible, just a mild reminder that sometime ago he had been shot in the chest with Judgment. He swallowed again before he tried to speak. "Ng…" That hadn't be the sound he wanted. _"Nd…" _That was closer. _"N'day…"_ Marlette blinked at him and pressed her fingers to his lips, holding them closed.

"Don' try t'talk, Lavi. You ain't in no shape t'be openin' her mouth fer nuthin'. Well… maybe wa'er if'n ya wan' some wa'er." She with drew her hand away and reached out where he couldn't see, indeed he didn't even think about turning his head to look, and came back with a glass of water with a straw, a strange sort of grin on her face. "Gettin' fluids through yer veins fer four days just ain't th'same as havin' a drink, righ'?"

He blinked in agreement before he closed his eyes with a slow, pained, shuttering sigh. Four days. He'd been out of it for four days. Had Tyki been out that long? He wanted to ask but didn't want to do it yet, not after she had directly told him not to speak. Instead he parted his lips and she tilted his head, he cringed at the bending of his ribcage, but took the straw into his mouth and took a long pull from it. The cool liquid that filled his mouth made him realize just how thirsty he was and he gulped twice, refilling his mouth even before he could think about it, desperate. When the straw pulled back he almost choked, but swallowed in time to stop himself. With that done he felt tired, but more aware than he had been before.

Marlette touched his forehead again, and leaned in enough to speak into his ear quietly. For a moment he didn't understand why she'd do that but he didn't try to question her, he simply waited. After a moment Marlette cleared her throat and spoke in a whisper, to topic of her seemingly one sided conversation not lost on him. "Tha' should mek ya feel be'er, eh? An' Ty-chan too. I'm takin' care a ya both." He sucked in a little air and she shushed him, stroking at the turn of his brow with her thumb. From afar she must have looked as if she were trying to hear him, or trying to feel the temperature of his skin with her lips. "He's a room over. Tha' Komui guy said 'e'd move ya t'gether when Ty-chan wakes up, but 'e wants ta make sure 'e' won' kill nobody… oi, Lavi… are ya cryin'? Jesus, yer cryin'! Aw, why ya doin' that, I'm givin' ya good news, ya redheaded id-yot. Nuthin' t'cry over!" She brushed the tears from his eye and he blinked it open to look at her, bleary and blurry and tired.

"Yer… happy, aren't ya?"

He lifted his head up and brought it down again in the closest thing he could get to a nod.

"'E ain't any closer t'dying than y'ar. An' nobody dies on the watch a Marlette McGregor."

"…_Ng…rks…"_

"I tol' ya no talkin'. Naw quit it or I'll dope ya up so turrable, ya won' even dream."

His mouth close but his right hand fisted against the bedding to show his dislike of that threat, though she couldn't have understood why. He had so many questions to ask and no way to ask them, and she was just looking at him with that expression that told him shutting up was the very best thing for his health, and he should be happy. He didn't care. If he didn't dream then Tyki wouldn't see him but that wouldn't matter if he saw him in person.

"_Ma…ette…_"

"Shh… if'n you keep tryin' t'talk yer gonna cough and open yer wounds all over again."

He thumped the mattress with his right fist and she gasped at it, she hadn't known that he wanted to be heard so badly. _"If…oo'tell me… t'shu' up… again… Ima kick'oo."_ He ground out. He _hated_ not being able to say what he meant to, but the face she made at him helped to make up for it. Amusement. He hadn't thought she had that expression back in Durnshire. _"Ty-chan… wha'… hap…n…"_

She nodded and sat the glass on the bedside stand before she sank down the bed beside him, turning so she could run a continual hand over his forehead. It was the sort of thing Lavi might have done to a sick child, but he didn't mind it. "Well, from wha' I hear…" Marlette said softly. "Gen'ral Cross Marian shot ya both when he came inta th'hall, not realizin' that Ty-chan's a trai'er. Kina like th'Walker kid, only less… violent. Any'ow, 'tween the sword and the gun, Ty-chan's been out lika light. An' 'is skins all gray an' 'is 'air's all long. 'E said yer name a few times, an' ya said 'is, but I dunno if tha' means 'e'll get be'er ment'ly." She paused to run her hand down to his chest and push lightly, just enough for him to feel that most of the pain was slightly to the right of his heart. "Yer Gen'ral screwed up a buncha yer insides pretty bad, ya had blood aroun' yer he'rt, leakin' in yer lungs – it's a miracle they saved ya, all things considered. Yer man-toy was a bit luckier. Got 'im in th'side, caught a lung, but 'e 'eals like a madman. We can only assume 'e's still outta i' because a th'Innocence." She looked down at Lavi, her eyes having wandered away from him during her explanation, and she raised an eyebrow. He blinked up at her with expectancy in his gaze, waiting for what came next.

"Ya wanna see 'im, don't ya?"

"_Mmhmm."_ He couldn't put enough emotion in the sound.

"Alrigh'. I'll tell th'higher ups wha'ya wan' and see wha' they say. Ima put ya t'sleep now though, cause ya need t'sleep. I'll wake ya agin aroun' dinner an' we can see if yer lover's up, an' I'll git ya somethin' besides wa'er." She waited for a protest, when he curled his fingers in the sheets again, shaking with strain.

"_Don't… let 'em… k…k…ill…"_

"Hush, Lavi. Nobody's gonna kill Ty-chan. Nor ya. Like I said, no one dies when Marlette McGregor's workin'. You close yer little eye an' sleep."

"_Tanksh."_

She moved her hands to where he couldn't see again and seemed to fiddle with something, most likely the IV, but she spoke through it, as if to make the what she was doing seem less creepy to him. "You jus' relax an' let the dreams come. None a what happen' can be blamed on ya, or Ty-chan really, so you jus' ride it out. Take things as th'come. An' if you don' wan' 'em, don' take 'em."

_You know Marlette, you're about the calmest person I've ever met in any given situation._ Lavi thought, but his lips didn't move anymore. He didn't really mind though, not when she was looking down at him with that little smile of encouragement, her clear eyes so soft and warm and soothing. _And that helps a lot_, His mind went on silently. _If there wasn't someone to tell me what happened and calm me down, I'd leap out of this bed and go find him. I think… that you know that. Maybe… if you can tell that about me… you'd make an ok Bookman, Marlette._

"I feel like ya jus' complimented me wit' yer eye, Lavi. Stop it or it'll go t'my head."

He raised the corner of his lip in a strange, crooked smile and closed his gaze to her, relaxing the way she had suggested. The dark didn't drag him away this time; he simply sank into it, content to give in, to heal. Because he knew, as strange as it was, Tyki would be in that darkness. For a split second he wondered if that thought were insane – believing that he really could find his lover in his dreams – but he decided not to worry himself over it; there were other, closer kinds of insanity than believing in the impossible.

* * *

Allen stopped dead in front of Komui's office. He had not expected to ever find his master and Kanda's mother kissing each other with the abandon of horny teenagers, but there they were, next to Komui's door, going at it as if she had finally changed her mind. He was astounded though, that Cross kept his right hand firmly on the side of her face and his left pressed against the wall, curled into a tight fist. Her hands were gradually exploring the inside of his coat, toying with his shirt buttons, drifting a bit across his chest, lingering near his collar bones. Allen felt an overwhelming sense of discomfort and threw himself behind the nearest wall, biting his lower lip. It didn't bother him that this was his General kissing a woman – it bothered him that this was Cross Marian kissing Kanda's mother.

She didn't seem like she minded.

But Cross never had genuine intentions.

He wanted to hit him.

"Marian." The name made Allen glance at them, curious, but the Japanese woman only looked up at the redheaded pervert, her eyes oddly thoughtful. The hand on the side of her face brushed a bit, gently, tenderly, the way Cross would touch Anita, only she lacked the ability to recognize the sincerity behind it. "Why aren't you pushing?"

"Because," Allen couldn't see his expression. "You don't really want me to." He said in a whisper. Hiroko smiled up at him and threw her arms around his neck, drawing a surprised hiss from Cross' lips. "Hiro?"

She just shook her head. "If I don't do this now… will I have another chance to?"

He didn't answer, but his arms curled around her back and crushed her against him.

Allen took off down the hall, realizing that he shouldn't have seen any of that, shouldn't have understood it. Whatever was going on between the two of them didn't need to be interrupted. He headed for the medical wing, because a nurse would be just as likely to know what was wrong with Kanda as Komui would, which took him down the same hall as their room was. He decided to poke his head in on the way; just to be sure things hadn't changed during his detour.

When he eased the door open he caught the sight of an elbow lifted into the air, the hand on the end of it pressed to his lover's eyes. He threw the door open and hurried to his lover's side – he didn't care if he was supposed to be angry, he was still worried.

"Love?" His voice was a tiny little whisper, but it was enough to make the Japanese man lift his head and blink at him. "Are you ok?"

Kanda nodded, a small sigh seeping through his lips. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you I was leaving." He mumbled, letting his head fall against the pillows. His eyes fell shut of their own accord and he opened them at the touch of a hand on his, warm on his half-numb skin, delicate, shy. He looked up at Allen and curled his fingers through his, trembling slightly. "I should have at least tried to."

Allen nodded and tugged a bit on the blankets until his lover moved enough to accommodate him. He sat down on the mattress before he moved to let Kanda embrace him, glad of his presence even though he was mostly cold.

"What happened just now, Love?" Allen whispered before a kiss caught the side of his mouth, the touch a sort of apology of its own kind, soft and soothing and close. He leaned into it, returning it when it was gone, and slipped his right arm under his lover's left and down his bare back. For a moment he wanted to be naked, not to do anything, just to be close, and the thought almost made him want to smile. His lover made a soft sound of contentment and he pressed his mouth on his throat, open, and his eyes shut; the scent of akuma blood and the taste of sweat was fresh on Kanda's skin. He soon forgot that he had asked a question and not gotten an answer; he was too drawn into the gentle way Kanda shivered under his hands.

"_Chotto…"_

"English."

"Wait." Kanda pushed him back a little, shifting his shoulders until he could capture Allen's mouth with a hunger that made the smaller man groan. At once the white haired Exorcist leaned into the mattress and surrendered, showing his willingness with a little hum of a yearning and a bend of his knee. His fingers wound into Kanda's hair and a tiny growl sounded above him, though he could not tell if it was a warning or encouragement. When the kiss broke his felt hurried breath on his face, too fast for the little they had done, and a hand on the inside of his shirt, delicately touching his skin. A sudden fear clenched in his chest and he frowned at it, giving a tiny, terrified intake of breath.

"Kanda…"

"I can't do this right now." The Japanese man said softly, but his cool hand stayed where it was. "I want to, I really do, but I haven't slept in four days." He pressed his face into the curve of Allen's neck and nibbled lightly on his earlobe, warm breath contrasting with the temperature of the rest of him. His actions didn't match his words in Allen's opinion. "It hurts to think it but…" He didn't finish the thought and instead suddenly yanked his lover against him, which brought a startled sound to the British boy's lips. His arms were so tight Allen had a hard time rolling to see his face. Timidly Allen returned the hug, not understanding, just curved his arms around his lover's chest.

"What hurts to think about, Love?"

Kanda hardly even whispered his answer. "I'm glad it wasn't you."

"What?"

"Mugen." He said more into the pillow than anything else. "I'm glad… you weren't the one that died that day." He didn't let go when Allen stiffened, nor did he give pause to let the younger man speak. "And it wasn't your fault. I know you think it was, it's how you are." His hand ran slowly up and down Allen's stomach, soothing, and Allen sighed at it, sighed at those words in his ears, and closed his tear filled eyes to them. The fear and guilt from only a moment before eased a little, and he turned his face enough to press his lips on Kanda's forehead. "I love you, Allen Walker."

Allen hummed back, a small smile spreading across his lips. "I love you too, Kanda. You can go to sleep now, and we can shower when you get up. Or bathe." He whispered. "And then… maybe we should see how Lavi's doing."

"Che."

"Hm?"

Kanda sighed tiredly, already on the edge of sleep. "I won't go with you… it's his fault… Hito-to…"

Allen made to reply but he was too late. His lover was sleeping, his arms loosening as he relaxed into his warmth, into his comfort. Allen sighed. He wouldn't be able to convince his _lover_ that everything was just as much his fault as it was Lavi's, if not more so, while he was sleeping. So he snuggled a bit closer and closed his eyes. Even if sleep didn't come, even if he passed the evening hungry, he would stay. He needed to.

* * *

Tyki waited for what felt like an hour for Lavi to come back, though he was a bit worried his lover had been an illusion from the start. When the redhead did return to him, smiling, bright, and refreshed, he pushed himself up and offered his arms in greeting, and smiled when the Exorcist hugged him without hesitating. It was all he wanted.

_**I love him.**_

"How are things in the waking world, _Amante?_" He asked the question without having to think about it, without having to understand why the last word applied to this young man and only him. It was a strange feeling, the understanding that went through him, the feeling of wholeness that he didn't remember. Regardless of it he still felt that he had lost a part of himself somewhere but wouldn't miss it. It worried him a little. "Not too unpleasant, I hope."

Lavi made a soft negative and looked up at his lover with a wide grin before pushing himself to his tiptoes to brush noses. The Noah chuckled. "Remember Marlette?"

"Pretty redheaded woman from Durnshire?"

"Hey…"

"Ehem… who pales in comparison to you, dear."

"Right. She's an Order nurse now. And she didn't seem too worried about either of us." He tilted his head back enough to kiss his lover's lips gently, just enough for him to feel it. "But she needs you to wake up and show that you aren't fully evil, because we can't sleep in the same room until you do." He pressed his hands to Tyki's shirt and tugged on it, bringing them flush. He couldn't explain that action, he just wanted to feel more of the Noah, and see his face a little more closely. "You don't have to yet though. I want to be with you for a little."

Tyki looked down at him with perfectly gold eyes and made perhaps the most human expression Lavi had seen on him, a smile that was neither entirely happy nor entirely sad. "I will stay with you if you want." His face turned down a bit and his arms grew tighter, but his expression didn't change, not even when Lavi fell from his toes and hooked his arms under his lover's arms did the look go away. "You seem happy." He commented softly.

"I am happy. We're both alive."

Tyki gave him a squeeze. "Shall we take up where we left off?"

"Questions first."

"Alright."

Lavi paused when he felt his lover pull away but only smiled when he realized it was to kiss at his neck and still shirtless chest, slowly and hungrily, but not enough to distract him from speaking. "You're… different now, aren't you?" He asked vaguely. Tyki made an affirmative sound, but didn't lift his lips enough to answer. Lavi didn't let it bother him. "You're… kind of stuck dark then?"

"No…" The word was a subtle vibration on his collar bone. "I only have one voice anymore."

"Hm?"

"The white, the black, the gray… none of it applies anymore. There is only me now. I don't know if I am any more or less of something than I was before, but I am not what I was. I am… what I am, I suppose." He stopped his mouth and straightened enough to look down at his lover, his face split into a crooked smile. He touched Lavi's cheek gently, taking more care than he might have before. "I still love you."

Lavi nodded and pressed a hand to his lover's chest, over his heart. "So… you still feel human?"

"What does _human_ feel like?"

"I… don't know."

Tyki shook his head, but the amusement was still there, just under the surface of his frown. "If that's what it feel like then yes, I feel perfectly human."

"I don't care." Lavi mumbled, and fisted his hand on Tyki's shirt. "Human or Noah or ball of lint, you're still mine and I still love you. Same as always." His head tilted to the touch of lips on his skin, going down his neck again. He closed his eyes and sighed at it, gently, shaking, and tensed at the brush of a palm across the right side of his chest, purposely touching his nerves. He felt the old rush of need come back to him, just as intense as before, and moaned softly, the touch of teeth on his neck timed with it perfectly.

Tyki pulled back and Lavi tried to follow, much to his lover's entertainment. The Noah bent enough to whisper into the Exorcist's ear, low and warm and just as real feeling as he would have been if the two hadn't been dreaming. "It will be a long time before we can truly touch each other again, Lavi. Would you like to do that now?" He asked, and the fingers of his left hand trailed a slow, agonizing line from the hollow of Lavi's throat to the button of his pants. The redhead laid his face on his shoulder in response, his hands on Tyki's upper arms.

"Please." He said it in a way he hoped did not sound at all as desperate as he felt.

"Alright, dear." The Noah slipped his fingers into the band of his pants and tugged, letting the warm digits wander a bit. Even in a dream the warmth within was enough to make him smile. "Let us see what we can do, hm?"

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Annnnnnd, Niamh is a true jerk for ending it there. But hey! It's either stop now or write a chapter so long, I can't edit it in one night. So… stop there.**

**If you guys insist, I shall put the lemon in next chapter. I promise. 8D  
Also, please tell me what you think of Cross and Hiroko…**

**I noticed today that I passed 100k hits. Like… a long time ago. I totally forgot to thank everyone for reading when it happened so…. THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH FOR READING AND REVIEWING!! YOU GUYS ROCK MY SOCKS!**

**Ehem. See ya next chapter!**


	95. Unforgiven

**Oh TFL. It makes me cry a lot this days. I know that this chapter is a little… meh, and the lack of serious smut makes it even MORE meh. Meh…er… but there's not a lot I can do about it. If I kept myself from posting any longer to try and make it prettier than it is, I would risk NOT updating before I go to convention, and that's a long time to not update.**

**I WILL BE GONE THIS WEEKEND, SO CHAPTER 96 WILL NOT BE OUT UNTIL AT LEAST TUESDAY.** _**I think.**_

**I am sorry for the not-so-great chapter.**

**Disclaimer of D'British: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… There would be more random crazy side characters.**

**WARNINGS: YAOI. As if you didn't know that.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Unforgiven

It was his stomach that woke him. The sound of it shook his whole ribcage and thus the bed, which in turn made the man beside him groan in annoyance. He chuckled awkwardly and attempted to ignore it for a little, but the act failed as soon as his pillow was yanked from under his head and smashed over his lover's. He had to laugh then, just because Kanda was adorable with a pillow over his head like a child hiding from the tick of a clock. The samurai cracked an eye at him and rolled away, cursing under his breath.

Allen pulled his pillow back and leaned over his lover before his body could produce another sound beside his voice. "I'll eat something and be back, ok?" He whispered, and pressed his lips to the soft flesh beneath his lover's ear. It made him smile when Kanda reached up and laid a hand on the top of his head, eyes still closed.

"Have a vegetable. Or ten." The Japanese man mumbled. "No sugar. You won't sleep."

"Who are you and why do you care what I eat?"

"Che. I'd like to _sleep_ with you. Not sleep while you watch me. Go eat." He gave Allen's head a little pat and sighed, his tired face drawn into an expression of longing. The British boy bent to kiss him lightly on the lips and the man groaned at it, content to take the little show of affection, and let his fingers slip slowly from the silver locks they had tangled themselves in. He looked up at Allen with a nostalgic expression, the corner of his mouth lifted in an awkward smile.

"What?" Allen questioned softly.

Kanda shook his head but his face did not change. "Go get food. I have a story when you get back."

"Really?!" He was far too excited.

"Che. Grab me something so I don't fall asleep talking."

"Still tired?"

He nodded.

"Ok. Don't go back to sleep, alright?" Allen said a little more loudly than he had spoken before, and he pressed a hand to his lover's shoulder as if the action would share a bit of his wakefulness with him. His eyes were terribly bright to Kanda, too soft, and he nodded his head without thinking too hard about what he was agreeing to. Allen slinked off of the bed and paused with his feet on the floor, looking back at his lover with an expression that was too kind to be entirely true, too deep and old looking. Grandparents made that face, not lovers. "Love."

"Hm?"

"I've been thinking a lot and… I had a crazy dream and…"

"Spit it out."

"Can I ask you something serious?"

"Is that not a serious question?"

Allen sighed. "If…anything ever happens where… I die… will you do me a favor?"

Kanda raised an eyebrow. Where was this coming from?

"Bury your coat with me." He said it in a whisper and Kanda caught the glimmer of tears in the corners of his eyes, glinting as if he had been holding them in for a long very time. He bit his tongue before he tried to respond, but Allen was too quick for him. The British boy stood up and pretended to yawn while he wiped the moisture from his face. "Well! I'm just getting hungrier! I'll be back soon, I promise." He made for the door as quickly as his feet would carry him.

Kanda reached out and took his lover's pillow again so he could bury his face in it, the soft linen still warm against his eyelids, Allen scented and soft. _"Baka koibito."_ He mumbled into it. "All Exorcists are cremated. You should know that."

* * *

They had found a place slightly removed from the grassy bank, behind a low stand of reeds, a place that they could see and hear the water from but were shaded from the summery light. It was perfect in Lavi's mind, all that he could have asked for, down to the slight give of the bent reeds against his back. Every so often it would bother him that this was a dream and Tyki was looking at him with eyes too dark and happy to be normal, but he shrugged it off every time. There was something innately _right_ about what they were doing, something _good_ that outweighed the worry in his heart, the fear. It raised a line of goosebumps on his spine.

The Noah above him looked at him as if he mind was not in his actions, his motions slow and lingering, the press of his lips and his teeth timid in a way that Lavi could never remember them being. He felt, when his lover kissed him firmly on the lips, holding his head to the contact, that Tyki was remembering all the times that had come before, all of the things they had done and all of the things they hadn't. It made him slightly sad.

Because no matter what they did here, it would still only be here.

When the kiss broke he wanted more, but his lover didn't give it to him. Instead he pulled back far enough to return his fingertips to the center of Lavi's chest, cool digits caressing the same line they had before, only this time pausing to pull at the fastens of his pants. Lavi lay back and let his arms fall gently into the grass on either side of his head, a movement that gave Tyki leave to do as he pleased. The Noah chuckled at it, low and soft, before he leaned forward to press his hands into the redhead's. Lavi closed his fingers on the backs of Tyki's palms and shivered at the golden, smiling eyes that looked down at him.

"I love you more than anything, don't I?" Tyki whispered down at him, softly, and gave his hands a little squeeze. Lavi nodded at him, thoughtfully. "But I hurt you. I did things to you that you liked as much as I did, to keep me whole. I wanted to, but I didn't want to, and you encouraged me. And somehow, between it all, I found a place just to be, didn't I?" He leaned closer, placing more weight on Lavi's hands, until he was looking so closely at Lavi that the redhead tilted his face back as if expecting a kiss. It wasn't given. "And no matter what you want from me, no matter what you wish of me, I will give you it because I want to see you happy… like the time you laughed at my kisses or the time you cried at my cooking. I want you like that, even if I break you." He paused to bring his knees up on either side of Lavi's thighs.

"Then you're the same even if you are different." Lavi said, tugging with his hands. "Do you want to talk about what's different, or fuck me?"

"Neither, dear." The Noah laughed, tilting his head so his hair fell down around them both. "I want to make love to you like I promised."

"Ty-chan."

"Slowly. So you can feel every inch of me, and me of you."

"Ty-chan."

"And you'll never forget how much I love you."

Lavi sighed and turned his head to the side, blind eye up, before he gave a subtle lift to his hips. The motion brought Tyki forward enough for him to feel the man's breath on the plane of his face. "Would you _please_ just let romance die this once? Marlette said that she would wake me up for dinner, so it's not like we have all day."

"Maybe she'll hear you moaning for me and decide not to wake you."

"Let's not risk it."

Tyki chuckled. "I'm sure that you'll be asleep before I wake again, anyway. Those bullets did a number on me. If I could get near you I might wake, but as things are there is no reason for me to rouse myself unless I have the sudden desire to feel pain. No offense, dear."

"None taken. Now don't change the subject, I want you right now." Lavi half whined, and turned his eye back to his lover, almost pouting. An idea struck him and he pushed himself up a little, reaching out to take Tyki by the shirt collar, and smiled at the look of surprise that got him. He gave a hurried jerk that brought his mouth not an inch from his lover's, but he didn't touch it. The hands that touched his shoulders seemed to want to pull him closer and push him away at once, but they did not do either, too stunned by his movements. "Please, please, please? It's not like either one of us will be sore afterward. And… there's no telling if, when you do wake up, everything will work, you know?"

"You were shot in the chest, Lavi."

"Not like that, nitwit!"

"How am I supposed to know what you mean? That _sounded_ like a personal worry to me, thank you very much."

"It _is_ a personal worry! What if they blame you for all of the dead Finders!"

"I shall casually guide their eyes to the Walker boy."

"Ty-chan, he's Allen fucking Walker. No one is going to care what he did to make you go crazy."

"Sure they will. And if they don't, I will take whatever punishment they give me, short of death."

"What if they _castrate_ you?"

"I suppose I will have to learn to follow."

"Don't be ridiculous!"

Tyki laughed, his arms curled slowly around Lavi's back and he leaned down enough to lay a small kiss on his lips, just strongly enough to tease, and tilted them to the ground again. Lavi's hands where under his shirt in an instant, pulling it away from his body, feeling his skin, hungry and wanting more of him. He returned to his previous touches, moving with a bit more enthusiasm, and grinned into his lover's skin. "Alright…" He mumbled into Lavi's collar bone. "No romance. But if this turns out to be nothing but a fantasy of mine, I'm not telling you about it."

"Why not?" Lavi questioned, ripping at the buttons of Tyki's shirt.

"It will ruin my image."

"Whatever."

"Seriously, dear. I love you for more than what I can do to you, or what you can do for me. Admittedly, I would be sorely disappointed if I never really got to touch you again, but I wouldn't love you any less." He shrugged his shoulders to get the material of his shirt away from them and smiled when Lavi's hands went at once to his belt. The buckle of Lavi's pants was already undone and he slipped the leather from around his lover's waist with his right hand. It kept them equally naked, if nothing else. "In a hurry?"

"I don't know when dinner is and I'll go insane if I don't get to touch you." Lavi groaned and yanked Tyki's pants lower on his hips, annoyed at them. He frowned deeply when he had them just hanging on his lover's hips, a swath of gray fabric still between them. "You need to stop with the underwear. Or at least get ones that aren't… so… old mannish."

"This is a dream, dear. If you don't like my _old man_ underwear, reject them."

The redhead tilted his face to the side thoughtfully, his eye suddenly bright with mischief. For a moment Tyki worried that he shouldn't have said that bit of advice, but his worry melted when he felt skin against his own, warm and smooth on his hips, inviting. He let out a soft sigh at it and leaned down enough to run his lips from the corner of Lavi's to the turn of his shoulder, slowly, hotly, tasting the places he had thought about but never tried. The redhead leaned back and trembled at the touch of lips on his left nipple, his arms bent loosely up to caress his lover's back and sides. Tyki hummed in encouragement, a hand placed on the material of Lavi's still present pants.

"I love you." Lavi whispered to the sky, his hands stopping over his lover's heart. He heard a slight chuckle and the mouth on his chest pulled away, moving instead to the flat expanse of his stomach.

"I love you, Lavi. My _God_, I don't even have words for what you've done to me. I know this isn't real but I honestly don't care. If this you wants me to… I could be talked into practically anything, I'm sure." He kissed at the nearly hairless skin beneath his lover's belly button while his fingers moved to the insides of his still clothed thighs, which he stroked with a slowness that made Lavi growl. There were hands in his hair, jerking him upward, and he followed their guidance to his lover's lips. He willed all of his emotions into the contact and tensed at a knee bent up to the inside of his legs, the fabric abrasive against his suddenly bare legs.

Lavi chuckled into his lips and the kiss broke. "How do you want to do this?" He asked, and gave a lift of his leg. He liked having the ability to just will Tyki's clothes away, it made him feel far more evil than he might have otherwise. "And what are we going to use for lube?!"

"You have no shame."

Lavi grinned at him. "It's not like anyone can hear me. It's just us here. So… _what would you like to do and what are we going to use for lube?!_"

Tyki smiled from the corner of his mouth and hooked a hand beneath Lavi's chin, turning his face up gently. "How about we start with getting you naked… and see how things progress from there?"

* * *

Marlette looked down at the redhead and smiled, unable to help herself. She watched his lips as they formed words in the air, eyes flicking back and forth beneath their lids.

"_You should stop with the underwear."_ She whispered, matching the forms on his lips. With a snort she brought her hand to her face and stepped away, giggling. So he was dreaming – and a good dream by the little clicking moan he made in the back of his throat. She decided, with a second little chuckle, not to wake him yet, because there were more important things than a warm cup of milk.

* * *

"Damn it…" Allen grumbled to himself, wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "I didn't want to cry when I said it… I didn't want to—" He stopped suddenly, realizing that he was speaking aloud, and glanced around him with hurried eyes, expecting to find some finder looking at him as if he was insane, and sighed to himself when he realized the hall was more or less empty, the only person in the hall far, far away at the end of it, leaning on the wall with a food tray between her hands. "Yumeko?" He asked under his breath, but he knew he was still too far away for her to hear. He approached slowly, trying to look as if she didn't have to greet him if she didn't want to as he passed.

She looked up at him and smiled an expression that had no light in it and the lizard on her shoulder gave a loud, annoyed hiss at him. He backed away from it, having not expected the thing to take such a strong dislike to him, and felt his expression fall.

"Herth, be nice." Yumeko mumbled, and lifted a small piece of fish to the basilisk's mouth. "It's just Allen." She reached up and touched the top of Herth's head and gave it a long, delicate stroke, bobbing it a little. The lizard leaned into the touch. "Good boy."

"Herth?" He asked, just because he couldn't stop himself.

She nodded gently. "When I was little, I used to dream about a dragon named Herrutsu, or at least that's how I thought it was said, until I learned English. After that it was always Herth." She made a strange face at him, as if seeing that it was he who she was talking to, and narrowed her eyes in a strange, hurt version of Kanda's glare, her oddly parted hair messing with her eye for a moment until she flicked it out of the way. He blinked down at her, not understanding the sudden violent curl of her upper lip, and gasped when she gave a sound that was almost like a snarl. Something, he knew, had to be wrong with her.

"Are you alright, Yumeko?"

"_You_ don't want to be near me right now."

"I'm…sorry?"

She looked away suddenly, focusing on her Innocence as if it would do something stupid if she weren't watching it. He didn't dare walk away from her, not yet. "I know that… you don't know me but, Yuu-sashii's temper takes after mine, if that gives you an idea." She swallowed hard, as if fighting a scream. "And I _don't_ want to scream at you and yell at you and tell you that this is all your fault, you're already doing that to yourself and it would be irrational of me just to blame one person for Hitori." She paused and pulled the lizard from her shoulder gingerly, placing it in her lap with a sigh. "I want you to know though that… as much as I won't blame you for my baby brother… I do blame you for Lavi and Tyki."

"I—"

"Did what you thought you had to, but you should have noticed that he was just standing there, minding his own business, not jerking out lungs or hurting anyone."

"S… I didn't..." His stomach rumbled. The sound made his spine straighten and he closed his eyes at her, willing away the sudden desire to eat something, and bowed his head. He did not pay attention to the soft sound of surprise that got him, he was too busy trying to fight down the sensation that if he said the wrong thing, she would kill him. "I am sorry for all of the trouble that I have caused and I hope that I can somehow make up for what I've done. But if you think about what I knew, what I've seen, you must think I'd be stupid not to react the way I did. If an akuma walked down this hall right now…" He said softly. "Would you ask it what it wanted before you tried to kill it?"

She was silent for a moment, just looking up at him.

"I don't want you to forgive me for them. I don't want to be forgiven by them." His voice had fallen to a whisper so soft, she wouldn't have known he was crying if not for the tears streaking the sides of his face. A stab of guilt went through her heart but she couldn't explain it – it wasn't as if she really had a reason to feel guilty – and she let herself respond to it even before she could analyze its purpose. She pushed herself up but he didn't look at her. His tears were dripping on the black floor one at a time, fading to gray as they moved farther away from his eyes and seemed to disappear against the stone. "He…said that… a long time ago he said that… Exorcists only ever destroyed things. And Lavi… said that no one is human to him." The tears were coming more rapidly now. "Can people like that, people who you love but don't love people, can they forgive you for taking someone from them that they did love?" He was shaking all over. "Because… if Lavi hurt Kanda… if he changed Kanda… I'd…I'd…

"Please. Don't forgive me. Not for anyone." He looked up at her just as at her right hand touched the side of his face, touching the red of his scar, the turn of his cheek, the tears. He was still under her caress because, deep down, he hoped she would pull it away and slap him.

His stomach growled again and she smiled down at him, which in some ways was worse than being hit. The lizard that she had left at her feet laid a clawed foot on his bare left big toe, almost as cool as the stone beneath their feet. "I am happy that it's you that Yuu-sashii-chan fell for," She admitted. "You're about the only person who could handle him because all of the reasons he has to live for are the same that you have to die for, huh?" Without warning Allen found himself pulled into an awkward, shaking hug.

"Yuu-sashii?"

"Yasahii means sweet or kind, so when we were little, I called him Yuu-sashii because he hated it. When he started acting girl parts when he was… five? I threw on the –chan too. I know he loves me for it." She was petting the back of his head gently, her hands far too big to make the action delicate or womanly.

"Oh." He sniffed at her.

She gave him a little squeeze and the lizard at his feet licked at one of toes, tickling. It occurred to him that he had hardly shook hands with this woman and yet she was perfectly comfortable holding him close, her soap scented dress pressed to his nose, her talcum powder skin against his cheek. Oddly, it made him feel better about everything.

His stomach growled again.

"You're still forgiven." She whispered into his hair. "Think of it as punishment if you have to, I don't care, you're forgiven for your part in Hitori's death. Now buck up, suck it in, straighten your shoulders, and get something in your tummy before you faint, kid. I'm sure Yuu-sashii's about ready to fuck your brains out being you got hurt and everything, and that's never fun when you're that hungry. Alright?" She pulled him back and looked down at him with a wide grin, an expression that was neither like Kanda's lopsided smile nor Hiroko's creepy one, an expression that looked like an entirely different face. He smiled back, though the tears had yet to stop in his eyes.

He nodded. "Then… do you wanna come with me? Ow." He looked down to see Herth gnawing playfully on the skin of his toe, lizard eyes wide and reflecting an oddly human glint of surprise when he pulled his foot back. Yumeko chuckled.

"I already ate." She gave his shoulders a squeeze. "Don't worry about him, it's a love-bite. I promise."

He tried to chuckle.

"Now go get a veggie." She said and turned him down the hall. "You're still growing, so don't let feeling bad make you eat any less than you usually do." She chimed as she pushed him tenderly away, releasing him into the emptiness of the hall. When he turned back to look she was still smiling at him, a sad type smile, with her uneven hair hanging down the sides of her face gently. As he watched her lizard flopped itself on the floor at her feet and slapped its tail as if in farewell, it's head tilted at the same angle as it's accommodator's. He couldn't help but smile at her. Somehow, when he thought about it, she seemed very in tune with the little creature at her feet, and a strange thought struck him.

"Yumeko…-san?"

"Just call me Meko."

"Then… Meko…" He pointed down at Herth and let his curiosity show plainly on his face. "Can I ask you how synced you are?"

"Eh? Oh! We just reached eighty-eight a few days ago. We've been okayed for missions starting next week!" She chimed, and looked down at her Innocence with the love and adoration of a mother looking down at her child. That face, Allen realized, was a lot like Kanda's was for Mugen, though he hid it better. The lizard crouched down and leapt the impossible distance from the floor to her shoulder, which in turn made her giggle like a small child, before she stroked the top of his head with a finger. "We're excited, aren't we boy? We get to help little Yuu protect the world, ne? If we do well, I'll get you some crickets."

"So much for eating…"

Yumeko turned back as if she had forgotten he was there. "Why are you still here? Are you deaf as well as stupid?"

"Sorry. I'll go now." _She's Hiroko's daughter alright…_ Allen thought as he turned away down the hall.

* * *

Lavi arched against his lover, pulling him down with the sort of aggressiveness that he had only started to act on recently, fingernails dragging long red lines across Tyki's skin. The Noah above him was panting, his open mouth warm and moist on the skin of Lavi's neck, and the touch of his palm on the redhead's bare hip made him moan. They were both naked, entirely, but neither felt they should worry about the openness around them, the emptiness to the sky. The apprentice Bookman lifted a leg over his lover's hip and yanked them flush, a growl sounding in the back of throat at the brush of skin on his.

Tyki understood his movements, his sound of frustration, and moved a palm to test a patch of skin on the inside of his lover's thigh, warm and soft and inviting. Breathing deeply he traveled the line of Lavi's jaw to his lips and lingered there, the teasing touch on his leg continuing. The green eye that looked up at him was half hooded, the cheek beneath it dyed a pleasant rouge, and he grinned from the corner of his mouth at it.

"Tyki Mikk." Lavi whispered up at him, his arms still rigid with the desire to be closer. His lover responded to his name by capturing his lips in a kiss and throwing his hips forward, alerting him to the passion that they shared as well as the desperateness they did not. He clung to the older man, dominating the kiss with a brush of his tongue, and lifted a foot from the ground only to bring it back down again in an effort to push closer. The Noah above him bent his knee enough to press ever so lightly against his backside, which forced him to break the kiss to make sound. "More…" He gasped out, saying for the first time the words as they flooded his mind. "Please… Give me… Ty-chan… I want to…please…"

"So desperate already?" Tyki asked into his lips, and made a slow, forceful push of his pelvis. The heat between them, the friction, was enough to make his hands tremble on the fire of his lover's flesh, gently. He pressed his teeth to Lavi's lip for a moment and reveled in the painful cry of enjoyment he got in response, the tightening of Lavi's hands on his skin. The redhead turned away a bit and trembled, his breath coming in hurried waves. "Is something wrong?" He questioned instead of continuing wit his teasing.

Lavi made a negative sound. "It hurts a little… but it's not that bad… you can keep going. Maybe whatever they gave me for pain is wearing off." His grip loosened on Tyki's shoulders and he whined at it, seeming to want his hands their though he couldn't hold them. The Noah frowned at him. "I'll just… take a breather…" He slumped against the ground, the heat running out of him in a wash. He cursed lightly and swallowed hard. "Damn it! I swear I'm never gonna get laid at this rate."

Tyki laughed at him and rolled beside him, pulling the redhead against his chest. "Yes you will, just wait until you are better than you are. No matter how far away we are, we will always be able to find each other in our dreams." Slowly he nestled his face into the turn of Lavi's neck and breathed softly, glad of the line goosebumps his breath produced. "Perhaps we should simply cuddle naked then?" He offered into Lavi's skin.

"Yeah…" Lavi said back to him, pressing a hand to his ribcage. "Though… I'm not sure that I trust… your self-con…Ty-chan…" The redhead turned his head a bit and laid his cold hands on his lover's, dragging his attention away from his neck. The Noah didn't see fear or anguish or agony in the younger man's eyes, only a distant sort of tiredness that made him smile. "I feel sleepy… but I'm sleeping…" He pushed his eyebrows together. "How does that work?"

"To keep this place," Tyki ran a slow hand up the side of Lavi's neck and pressed his palm firmly to the side of his face. The one eye that looked at him flicked from on iris to the other, confused. "To keep you and me in the same place, you have to _think_, Lavi. We're both as aware and rational as we are when we're awake, so maybe this is too much for you. You need real rest, not rest that makes your heart race and your skin tingle." He kissed Lavi's forehead and his lover relaxed a little, leaning against him. He smiled at the way Lavi held on as if to a raft in a storm.

"How will I… find you again?" He yawned, showing his weakness. Tyki kissed him softly at the question but didn't answer. He only pressed his forehead to Lavi's.

_**If I don't tell him, he will worry. It is mean of me to make him worry. He will find me even if I do not tell him how.**_

"Ty-chan?"

_**I want to make him worry because I want to make him suffer. I don't care that it's mean.**_

The Noah smiled.

Lavi understood that expression somehow and didn't ask again. He didn't need to. He could find this place if he needed to, he had twice now, it would be easier a third time. He smiled tiredly. "You're a sadist. I'm going to sleep now." He grumbled, and buried his face in Tyki's skin. "Goodnight…Ty…"

Tyki smiled wider, and breathed in a long breath of Lavi's scent. "Goodnight, my dear. Goodnight."

* * *

The sound of the door closing made Kanda open his eyes, but only enough to be sure it was Allen, come back to be with him. He smiled at the younger Exorcist, then frowned when he saw the large plate of food he carried, far more of it than he thought he would be able to eat in a meal, let alone a snack. He shook his head as he pushed himself up, teetering a bit before he leaned into the metal bed frame.

_Still tired…_

Allen bounded across the empty expanse of room and around the coffee table and the up onto the mattress, aware that Kanda watched him hold the food with eyes that didn't trust his balance. He acted with a bit less enthusiasm when he settled onto the bedding and offered a pair of chopsticks.

"It's steamed rice and unagi. They would have had to get soba from storage or make it by hand and they only had tempura crab left." Allen explained with a smile that didn't hide his red-rimmed eyes. "There's also a cinnamon bun if you're feeling adventurous. And black coffee."

"Black coffee…" Kanda said the words as if he had never heard them. Truthfully he had figured he would get a cup of tea and nothing else, that was what he had hoped for, but his stomach growled at the smell of it all together – but for the sickly sweet scent of cinnamon bun. He took the plate in his left hand and the chopsticks in his right before he began eating ever so slowly, the sheets bunched around his hips, shirtless and feeling far less bare than he should have. He was in the middle of scooping eel and rice into his mouth when Allen slipped into the sheets beside him, sliding low on the pillows to throw an arm around his middle. He didn't really care; it was an enjoyable bit of contact against his skin.

Allen made a little sound of surprise and sat up a little higher. "I totally forgot that you're naked."

"Tch." It was a hard to sound to produce around food. "Glad to see what's on your mind, Moyashi." He mumbled when his mouth was empty. The food went faster than he thought it would, seasoned by hunger, and before long he found his eyes lingering on the cinnamon bun, more out of curiosity than actual desire to eat it. The coffee was balanced precariously on the edge of his plate and he picked it up to take a slow sip, the bitter flavor oddly pleasant to him, even if it wasn't exactly boring. He sighed before he went back to the rice and unagi, placing the cup between his knees.

"Note to self: Kanda likes rice and unagi." Allen mumbled beside him.

"I'm hungry." He corrected, looking down at Allen from the corner of his eyes. The British boy was blinking up at him expectantly, as if he had known speaking would get him an excuse or a story. Kanda let his lips curl a bit showing a little loving sparkle in his eyes that Allen had never thought was that obvious. He smiled up at him. "You could have given me pepper-flavored ice cream and I'd be eating it. Really."

"Then have the cinnamon bun."

"I have limits."

Allen laughed and rolled enough to snake an arm completely around his lover's waist, aware that Kanda tensed a little at the intimate touch but not enough to stop eating. The Japanese man looked at the suggested food thoughtfully and Allen watched him frown at it, wondering if he had talked the man into trying it so easily. A chopstick nudged it for a moment before Kanda lifted it gently and pressed his tongue to a sugary side apprehensively and shivered, a gag so violent it shook him from skull to toes running through him. Allen stifled a sound of amusement at it but couldn't hide his smile.

"Che. Sadist." Kanda grumbled and put the bun down again he waved the plate in Allen's direction until he took it before rolling away to place it on the floor. Kanda took the opportunity to lift the pillows a little so he could recline a bit more against them while he finished the coffee, because he wouldn't make it through his story if he didn't. Allen came back with his flesh hungry arm intent on hooking his hips again, and he let him, the warmth just as welcome as the food had been.

"So what's the story? Something about why you don't like sweets?" Allen inquired as Kanda brought the cup to his lips. His lover made a negative sound and drank deeply, seeming to enjoy the unsweetened brew. "What then?" He prodded, and his fingers took to dancing along Kanda's hip, just because it was there to touch.

He sipped again, leisurely, before he graced Allen with an answer. "I don't like sweets because I don't like sweets. That's the whole story." He said honestly, lowering the cup. He turned it in his hands slowly, a distant memory of a tea ceremony filling his mind, until he shook it away with a small smile. He didn't need to share that story, he hadn't been very old. "You have to promise not to cry." He spoke to the brown liquid in his hands.

"You smiled when you thought of the story earlier. Why would I cry?"

"I'm saving that one. This one might make you cry."

"I'll try not to." Allen was unsure. His arm was a bit too much like a vice on Kanda's hips, though comfortable, and his lover looked down at it for a moment before he loosened his hold. The sound of slurping made him widen his eyes in anticipation. Kanda still didn't seem to see him, only the coffee, only his thoughts.

"When I was… really, really young, I remember…" He trailed off a bit, seeming to mull over what he was thinking of, and licked his bottom lip a bit. Allen's hand began to rub a little more swiftly on his skin. "My father. Vaguely. But I don't remember his face. I remember him doing things with my hair and showing me how to hold a fan, I remember him telling my mother that where my sister was a girl with a pretty face, I was a boy with a woman's grace."

"Love…"

"Che. I'm not insulted by it." He shook his head, slowly. A tiny little smile came to his lips, gentle in a way that Allen wasn't used to, and he continued to look at his brown refection in his caffeinated drink, distantly. This story, Allen realized slowly, wasn't really for him. "But I was the oldest boy, I couldn't learn something like _acting_, it wasn't in the _Kanda_ name."

"Isn't it written 'God rice field?'"

"Not the point."

"Ok."

"The point is that I learned sword fighting because my mother wanted me to, and from that it was discovered that I was an Exorcist, chosen by God, eventually going to die young, all of that. If my father had had his way, I wouldn't have even touched a katana to begin with." He took a drink as if the action kept him talking. "So Hitori was 'Tousan's dream child." He went on softly. "Second born son, third child, beautiful enough to play a woman, didn't like violence even when he was three… but… by the time he was actually old enough to show interest in kabuki, I was dying because of my Innocence. My father cursed me, left, I joined the Order, my brother became the oldest son."

"So…"

"He quit acting and started kendo. I didn't even help him the way I said I would." Kanda mumbled, looking at his coffee again. He was blinking at it, rapidly, but his eyes only shined with tears without loosing them. Allen tugged on him a bit and he shifted back on the bedding, getting closer to his lover. After a short fight with himself over it, the British Exorcist grabbed the mug from him and haphazardly placed it on the nightstand so he could lift himself into a full body hug. Kanda didn't complain at it. "Should I… feel bad about that?" He asked no one. Breath on his chest cued him to wrap an arm around his lover's back, pulling him close.

Allen shook his head a little, a negative in the back of his throat. "I don't think Hitori would have liked acting any more than he liked sword fighting. Neither of them would be very… entertaining to his brain, I don't think."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome." Allen chimed automatically. It didn't occur to him until it was out of his mouth that he had just insulted his lover, and even then it only made him smile sleepily from the corner of his mouth. "So your mother is basically a female samurai and your father was a kabuki actor who fished as a hobby?"

"Don't even go there."

"Was he pretty?"

"Stop talking."

"I mean, your mother is pretty, your sister is pretty, you're… pre...t...ty…"

"Che." Kanda rolled forcibly over so his chest was pressed to Allen's face and wrapped his arms around the pillows, pinning the smaller man beneath him. He ignored the growl of protest that sounded under him and simply held on, aware that Allen could not be comfortable under his weight. "Goodnight." He reached to extinguish the light.

Allen spoke to his chest, half-smothered by it, fingers clawing gently at his lover's skin. "Sor-ry, Pretty. Can't help it… kinda just—would you get off? I can't exactly breathe with your naked… oh… you're naked…"

"Shut up. You annoy me. Moyash—don't _touch_ that! What are you thinking!?"

"Mmm… naked Kanda… best midnight snack…_ever._"

"Moya…Moya…_ah_…." Kanda's arms loosened and he pushed himself away, goosebumps singing up his arms and down his spine, breath hitching. He moved away from the expert hand on his stomach, drawing a sheet between them. Allen made a strange sound of disappointment as he pulled the boy's hands away by the wrists, looking up at him with hopeful eyes, and smiled. "Not until tomorrow. Today. The time when the sun is in the sky." Kanda growled, pressing Allen against the pillows. He leaned into him all the same, tasting the skin of Allen's throat with his tongue and caressing gently with his lips, eyes half-closed. The _warmth_ of Allen, the memory of three akuma filled days without him, made him want to take back those words and take the time to touch and feel and have what he wanted, what he needed. But the heaviness of his eyelids was working against him.

Allen relaxed into his hold, looking up at him with round, fire-bright eyes that brimmed with understanding and desire, before his expression broke into a strange sort of smile. "Yuu." He said the name as if he had to think about it a little, still unsure of the sound on his lips. "I honestly think, when I look at you, that you're beautiful. And I know you _hate_ the word '_pretty'_, but I think it fits you better than '_tender'_ or '_divine rice field.'_ So… can I… call you that if we're alone? And… I feel like it?"

"No." The word was so automatic; it hit Allen like a kick in the gut.

"Please! It means something to me!"

"Che. Right. I'll start calling you '_short white sprout.'"_

"Um… you already do…"

Kanda glowered at him and sighed, shaking his head. "If it meant something to you, you wouldn't give a damn what I thought about it. So no, don't call me Pretty. Ever. And Moyashi is entirely different. Having you say my name is…I suppose I can't explain it when I'm tired." He lowered his head to the turn of Allen's neck and pulled his arms down enough to embrace the British Exorcist underneath of him. The boy moved his knees and slid up on the pillows a bit, adjusting to their slightly different position until Kanda lay across him with his head turned sideways, pillowed on Allen's stomach, and Allen's arms lay gently around the back of his neck. Kanda sighed. "Every time I hear you say _Yuu_, even if it's accented and not a name I've ever liked, it's still… you calling me something closer than _Kanda. _It's more me than… any nickname will ever be."

"Go to sleep, Yuu."

"Heh."

Allen ran a hand through the back of Kanda's hair, untangling the knots, slowly, gently, lovingly. He smiled at the loosening tension in Kanda's shoulders, his relaxing face, and closed his eyes to the song coming ever so pleasantly from his lover's skin. It made him want to hum. "I love you." He whispered instead, just on his breath. The words returned to him as nothing more than the rise and fall of Kanda's chest.

"_Aa… aishiteru yo. Moya…shi…_" For a brief moment Kanda seemed to think about saying more, his eyes closed. He drew in a deeper breath and laid his palms flat against Allen's skin, closer than before. "Goodnight… Allen."

The British boy smiled from the edge of his mouth and pulled the blankets up closer. "Goodnight, Yuu."

* * *

She had kept her word. She hadn't fucked him. But sitting on the covers of her bed, bringing a cigarette to his lips, Cross Marian could not help but feel defeated. Hiroko lay with one arm unclothed, yukata untied but still shut, right leg bare to her mid thigh in the dim light. He growled at it, all that flesh, and drew in a long drag, annoyed. As he breathed out the smoke she readjusted herself a bit, her right hand buried in his discarded coat.

He hated that _feeling_ in his gut that even if she wanted him to, he wouldn't be able to divest himself knowing the two of them would go their separate ways in the morning.

"_Stay here."_ She grumbled into the pillow, not opening her eyes. He ground his cigarette out on a makeshift ashtray on the nightstand and looked down at her, silently. He lifted an eyelid at him, frowning softly, and he dragged his bootless feet up onto the bed, setting himself comfortably on his own coat. To his surprise she reached out and _cuddled_ with him, her head pressed ever so gently against his shoulder. He curled an arm around the small of her back, fighting off the urge to throw open her yukata, and shivered at the warm touch of her slightly open mouth to the skin of his throat. His hand curled into a fist on her side.

He turned his head a little toward the touch, breathed in hurriedly, and made a short sound of surprise when her hand laid itself forcefully in the middle of his chest. He cleared his throat just as her fingers went sliding down the front of his vest. "What are you doing, Hiro?" He questioned in a voice that seemed too small and weak to belong to General Cross Marian, too heavy and hopeful, too _pure_.

She took a firm hold of his belt and gave a slow, completely non-innocent tug on the leather. "Crossing the line." She whispered into his skin, quick fingers pulling at his clothes with the kind of movements that spoke of experience and certainty, determination and something gentle. He pulled away slightly, tangling his hair on the wood of the bed frame, but stilled when the fabric of his shirt went sliding up over his hips.

"You're fucking with me." He growled in surprise. She laughed under her breath, fingertips on skin.

"Che! If I were fucking with you I'd have peeled off my Goddamn clothes and danced for you then told you to fuck yourself in another room." Hiroko half whined at him, touching the skin of his stomach with her palm. She smiled when he moved away a bit more. "Don't be bashful now, Marian. It doesn't suit you." She breathed across his skin before leaning up to touch the edge of his lips with her own, open, hot, wet, delicious mouth.

Cross shivered. "You _know_ that if you keep this up, I will do something ungentlemanly?"

"Shit, you've never been a gentleman." Her hand was sailing up his bare stomach and paused at the start of his ribs, testing him, teasing him, her eyes watching his hands twitch against the pillows. Her lips met his with a fearlessness that fit her words; the brush of fingernails on his chest brought his hands to her back, pulling her closer. He couldn't stand it, the thought in the back of his head that she would be one of many, a notch on his belt, another woman, another bed, another dirty used thing he would discard when he had taken what he wanted from it.

He pushed her away.

"Hiroko…"

"Lay back and take it like a man, Mari. No choice." She mumbled into his jaw. A hand fisted in his hair that he hadn't known was there and pulled slightly, opening a large expanse of his throat to her. She kissed the side of his face instead, and the press of her chest on his shoulder sent a spiral of warmth to his core that he couldn't explain. It wasn't desire. It was something that made his chest flutter. "Do you get it?" Her lashes laid a line of butterfly kisses on his brow.

He closed his eyes and leaned into her body – agonizingly aware that the only thing that separated her right side from him was the fabric of his clothes – until he held her against him, his head over her shoulder so she could no longer properly pursue his face.

She stiffened. "What?"

"Not with you." He said more to himself than to her. "I won't do something meaningless with you. I don't care if you're grieving."

"Oh, a woman shows interest and Cross Marian grows a heart…"

He grunted. "You think too highly of me, Hiroko." He sighed into her neck, relishing in her scent, her warmth, her closeness. He liked it all, the curve of her hips, her breasts, the turn of her cheeks, but that wasn't enough to overcome the lump of emotion that seemed to have gathered in the middle of his chest. He couldn't explain it, having never felt it before, but he knew it would stop him. Even if she wanted him to, he wouldn't be able to take advantage of her. He felt her return his embrace with loose arms, seeming to understand his dilemma.

"I hate it when you're good." She whispered, and her leg worked between his, which he took as a cue to press there torsos flush. There was something terribly intimate about being so close and yet not being sexual, something that made him clutch her tighter. The irony of the situation struck him suddenly – that he had come here to sooth her, to get what he wanted, and in the end it was really he who needed soothing.

"I'm _not_ good." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

"Then why are you holding me like one of us will break if you let go?"

"I… don't know." He said honestly. "I really don't know."

* * *

The room still felt empty, though not as empty as it might have been before. Her pink flowered bedspread was folded back in preparation, a book on the nightstand in case insomnia struck, and a hand mirror beside it. It was the mirror that tugged her tired green eyes away from stone of the ceiling, its reflective surface that bothered her. The thought had occurred to her a few hours before that she might use it to see things she wouldn't ever be able to see otherwise, check on her brothers, look for akuma, spy on the Noah…

Look at Hito's child.

Take a peak at heaven.

As if there were reflections of those things somewhere.

Sable lifted the edge of her lavender nightgown and seated herself on the sheets, taking the mirror in hand. Her stomach had a tiny, almost nonexistent pooch to it at that angle, a sort of pre-showing lump that proved what she and Hito had done, their sin, their love, their stupidity. She laid her hand on it, not entirely sure that it felt like hers, and sighed.

"I don't know if you have a gender yet, but… if you're a girl, I'd like to apologize in advance for naming you _purple_." She said in a conversational voice, laying the mirror on the mattress beside her. She couldn't say that she _felt_ anything, any sort of response from inside of her, but filling the room with her voice somehow soothed away the feeling of loneliness. She knew that she wouldn't get away with it if someone caught her, but that didn't stop the urge. "You can blame your dad when you're older. He was stuck on it. I don't know why. He didn't even really _like_ the color purple." She shrugged, then realized how stupid the action ways. "I don't even know if you have ears yet and still… I'm talking to you like you can understand me. Does that make me crazy? Or just… strange?"

Silence answered and she smiled at it. The sound of it was still friendly, not dead. Yet, despite that feeling, her eyes were stinging and she blinked them to rid herself of the tears.

"I don't really care either way." She decided softly.

She flopped down on her bed and lifted the mirror over her face, seeing her sleepy image shine back in the lamplight. With a sigh she tried to make her face neutral, but a strange, sad idea forming in her head made she frown. It was the sort of thought Hitori would have mocked her for. "Hito said he wouldn't go to heaven without me." She spoke loudly, again thinking that she was speaking to her unborn child. "If I tried… do you think I'd see him? I don't know if I would… and I don't know what happens if I try to see something that's not there." She yawned at herself and the expression made her wonder what Hitori had seen that he had liked. She was plain. Blonde and plain. "Oh well…I guess I'll never know if I don't try, hm? So… here goes nothing…

"_Kanda Hitori." _She spoke the name to her Innocence.

She saw her eyes flash green in the mirror for a moment before the image swirled sickeningly, changing until she thought she would throw up from the absurdity of it. It took a long moment but her own face came slowly back into focus and there, beside her, a little shine of something golden and twinkling, shaped vaguely like a grinningly apologetic face even if it didn't exactly have features. She gripped the mirror more tightly at the sight of it, and at the way the strange cloud of essence tilted his head to the side like a child apologizing even as he slipped is hand into the cookie jar. After a time her eyes drew Hitori's face from the mist and she bit her lip at the perfect detail with which her eyes rendered his appearance. She couldn't cry at it, not looking at him.

'_Sorry.'_ His mouth formed the word soundlessly and she almost couldn't make it out. _'I got lost.'_

"Holy…" She rubbed at her eyes for a moment, blinking them, before she looked again at the reflection. The face beside hers laughed when she drew it into focus again, gray eyes shining. "There's no _way_…" Her eyes were starting to fill with tears again, happy and sad both, before she lost sight of him behind the wave of emotion that filled her. She gripped the mirror until her palm hurt and glared at it, glared at the amused expression that blossomed across his face. "You're _dead_, Hito. You shouldn't have a reflection."

He made a hurt face at her. _'Says who?'_ He questioned without sound. He smiled a bit at her and reached down where she couldn't see before bringing his foot up for her to see, grinning like a madman. _'I have feet!'_ He said excitedly.

She couldn't help it. She laughed at him. Her eyes shut with the force of it, sound rolling out of her throat even as she lost out to the tears. She couldn't keep her Innocence activated with that sort of response running through her and lost it after a few moments, bringing the mirror to her chest. "Sorry…" She wheezed at her ceiling. "I just… can't even pretend I just saw your g-ghost, Hito." She wiped at her eyes, desperately, and tried to calm the feelings in her chest. It didn't seem impossible to her, or scary, that Hitori would have lingered by her side, but it made her think that maybe she had lost whatever sanity she had left. "If you are there… and I really think you are… stay until tomorrow, at least. I'll look for you when I'm not this sleepy." When she finished she looked up where she had seen his face and smiled, wondering if he was still there.

"I can't trust my eyes." She said quietly.

_Or my Innocence._

* * *

There was something decidedly strange, he noted, about waking alone. It wasn't that the room was bright, nor was it that he had expected to be locked in a cellar, it was simply that he had thought his actions warranted at least the presence of an armed nurse at his bedside.

A cold shiver went up his spine and he marveled at the sensation. Things _felt_ different.

Slowly, unsure if he would be able to, he pushed himself into a sitting position and glanced around the room with eyes that didn't seem to want to see. His side hurt. His chest ached. His eyes felt fuzzy. The glass on the far side of the room – an indoor window – showed him nothing but blurry gray hallway. He looked down at himself and noted a number of clunky electronic monitors, checking his heart rate, his breathing, most likely a number of other things, a feed of nutrients into his system. He sighed at them. He wouldn't have long, he knew, to find Lavi if they were watching him from afar.

Tyki pulled the little electric sensors from his skin and slowly, shivering, made his way to the edge of the bed. With a slowness that made his arms tremble, he pushed himself to his feet, wobbled for a moment, and leaned back on the bed, breathing deeply. He swallowed thickly and tried again, his heart pounding away in his chest as he did. A loud sound crashed just in front of him and he looked up to see a nurse, blonde hair pulled back in bun, clap her hands to her mouth in horror. He smiled at her, as best as he could smile at least, and waved a hand in her direction.

She ran.

If standing hadn't been difficult, if his feet had listened to him, he would have gone after her, asked if he should have lain down, and been courteous. Instead he took two steps forward, each more painful than the last, and didn't quite catch himself when he made to fall. He half-hopped, half-tripped to the door, cursing when his old man knees hit the floor even has his fingers hooked on the knob. He shook himself a little, trying to calm the sudden tilting of the room, before he used the knob in his hand to wrench himself into something resembling a standing position.

He caught his reflection in the window. His eyes were catlike and golden, his dramatically long hair pulled back against the base of his skull, his skin a shade too gray to be natural. He blinked at himself for a moment, knowing that things were wrong but not knowing what, exactly, was the worst of it. "You look…" He pushed his eyebrows together, widened his eyes, went through a number of other expressions just to see them, and then smiled at himself. Fangs. He had little fangs that he didn't particularly recall having. "Evil." He decided with a little shake of his head. He turned the knob and made a tiny sound of surprise when the door slid open for him.

He stuck his head out first, looked both ways, blinking at the slightly different light. The tray that the nurse had dropped seemed to have been of urine samples or ammonia; the smell threatened to make his eyes water. He started down the hall at a slow amble, keeping a hand on the wall for when his left leg spontaneously gave out on him.

_**You would think a guard would have stayed with me… even a Finder. Komui is going to get himself killed from above at this rate. Idiot.**_

_**Speaking of idiots, I wonder where our dear Lavi is sleeping… just down the hall? I think he should be…**_

His thoughts came to a pleasant halt when he came to another window and glanced inside to see the very redhead he was searching for. There were hurried foot steps coming down the hall, around a corner he couldn't see, and he stepped as lightly as he dared to the redhead's door. His fingers shook slightly as he opened it, and his feet threatened to fail him again when he entered, so he closed the portal and leaned against it, breathing in sighs and gasps that he normally wouldn't need, worn from that tiny walk. The sound of drumming feet past him and he sighed at it, pressing a pained hand against his chest.

He walked from the door to Lavi's bedside and reached out with the arm he didn't have pressed to his heart. He brushed at the younger man's bangs, watching them play against his paper-white skin, and sank to his knees without really meaning to, eyes never leaving that face. He draped half of his upper body across the mattress so he could continue to touch that little place on his lover's forehead, and pulled his left hand away from his body to place it in Lavi's right. It hurt to hold himself up so he didn't. He let himself rest against the bed, a twisted sort of satisfaction turning in his gut.

_**He's so hurt…  
So frail.  
So breakable.  
But it was not me who did this to him.  
It was his own.  
And yet…  
I can still see the beauty in it.**_

_**Because I, too, kill what I love.**_

He realized with a start that there were tears running from his eyes, but he couldn't say one way or another whose they were or what they meant. He closed his eyes to them and pulled Lavi's hand to his lips, breathing his scent – his real scent – and laid a tiny, meaningful kiss on the back of his palm.

_**Amante. But you're more than a lover. You're something deeper than that. You're…**_

"_Mine_."

"Ty…chan?" The sound of his lover's voice made him stand and look down at the boy, though bending hurt terribly. He watched as Lavi slowly pulled his eye open and a crooked sort of smile took his lips. Tyki smiled back at him, and lurched painfully when his left leg tried once more to give out on him. He caught himself on a weak feeling arm, half hovering over his lover. Lavi tried to chuckle at him. "You… dun look… s'good." He breathed softly.

Tyki smiled wider, but didn't allow himself to laugh. "I could say the same to you, dear." He leaned down enough to kiss the younger man firmly on the lips, but drew away quickly. Lavi was not in a good enough state of health to be touched like he was in his dreams. His breathing was slow. His blinks were slow. The curling of his fingers in Tyki's was so weak, the Noah squeezed back without thinking.

"When'd ya… git out?" Lavi asked with a tiny little tilt of his head toward his lover's medical clothes.

The Noah raised an eyebrow at him. "I haven't. I woke up and walked here, first thing."

"Shun't'ov."

"I know… too late now, dear." He pressed his lips to Lavi's forehead, his cheeks, briefly to his lips again. The redhead's smile grew with every touch. "I just could not stand the thought of letting you be down the hall from me, alone… and…" He fell a bit, his eyes half hooded, and he slumped awkwardly against the bed. It was wide enough that his head hit the mattress and so did his hips, holding him up when he found he couldn't hold himself up on his arm anymore. An ironic smile split his face that Lavi grinned at understandingly. "I think we'll both… sleep better with me… here."

Lavi chuckled and moved his hand enough to place it on his lover's head, his eye more than two-thirds shut. "Go t'seep th'n. 'Mui's… lookin' at us." He said with a slight flick of his eye toward the glass. "If'n we're sleepin'…he might… leave us…alone…" He breathed in deeply, his eyelid closed as if he didn't mean it to. Tyki felt the fingers in his hair tangle themselves expertly and let the muscles in his shoulders relax, let his head loll to the side. Lavi breathed out his breath and he felt an impossible tiredness fill him with it, as well as impossible sense of belonging. It was only the second sense that kept him still when the door behind him creaked open.

"I love you." The words were perhaps the mostly plainly state Lavi had uttered in three days.

"I love… you…" Tyki's answer was weaker than the rest.

Komui sighed at the scene before him, Marlette looking over his shoulder on her tiptoes, the blonde who had first seen Tyki rise behind her. He spoke softly to the blonde for a moment before he stepped into the room to get a closer look at the pair, neither of them moving but to breathe. In tandem. Once again the two of them breathed at the same time, fitting a rhythm that made him shake with a feeling that was not quite friendly. Marlette's hand on his shoulder made him glance at her, curious.

"I think," She said the words like a breath of air. "Tha' this is wha' love's s'pose ta look like." She smiled.

He smiled back, though he couldn't say that he meant the expression. It hurt, a little, to have those words thrown in his face. "I believe it is too." He agreed with a tiny shrug of his shoulders. Without further word he worked his coat off and walked determinedly forward with it in his hand, stopping just beside Tyki, and draped the slightly-too-large garment over the Noah's shoulders. Tyki cracked an eye at the sudden wave of warmth across his back and Komui looked down at him with a soft smile, knowing the Noah was too weak to return it.

"Mr. Komui…"

"I don't know what will happen from here, Tyki Mikk." The Chinese man said as if Marlette had not just tried for his attention. "But I swear to you, for his sake, I won't let this fall on either of you. Whatever happens, whatever comes, whatever I have to do to be sure that you both die happy… I will do for you. Because…" _You can have what I never knew I wanted._ "It's how things should be."

Tyki's eyes, golden and inhuman, seemed to peer into his soul for a moment, and then they were blinking shut, words lost in them. It was a strange silent thank you, a passive moment of understanding, an apology like no other. Komui bowed his head to Tyki, wordlessly conveying his own apology that he only half understood. Marlette watched in silence, little thoughts and observations filling her head as she did.

Ty-chan, though obviously different, was the same. Lavi, though thin, was the same. And oblivious to the scientist who leaned over him just a bit longer than most supervisors would have. Most parents. Most siblings. Oblivious to how he seemed to think about leaning closer for a moment before he finally bent nearly double and laid a kiss on the skin of Lavi's forehead.

When Komui turned around, he had the look that said he had forgotten that Marlette was looking.

She stared at him, bouncing the curls of her hair, and smiled at him from the corner of her mouth. She nodded toward Lavi, never letting her expression change. "'E's gotta lotta people who love 'im, eh? Lucky bastard. Th'res' a us ou'ere lookin' fer jus' one 'eart t'steal, an' e's go' a'leas' fou' easy." She chuckled, jerking her chin up at him. He frowned a little, but the expression wasn't as terrible has it had been. "Don' look s'suprised, Misser Mui. 'E's go'yer sisser's, or 'ad las' I checked. 'E's go' Ty-chan's, which ain't no suprise. 'E's go'yers, an' there ain't no lyin' abou' tha' now I've seen ya kissin' 'is fore'ead. An' 'e's 'ad mine since th'time 'e' looked up all bloo'y an' beatin' an' called ou' _strike!_ like I'm some sorta sprin' chickin or a beau'y queen." She shook her head and sighed, her smile genuine. "Ya jus' gotta love id-yots like 'im. Kin't hep it. Ts'nature."

He let her smile affect his expression, just a little, and felt the look mirrored on his face perfectly. "Is he why you're here?"

"Well…" Marlette grinned at Komui suddenly; amusement dancing in her crystalline eyes, and bounced her hair again. He realized that she smiled like Allen smiled; when she wanted to do anything but. "I didn' join fer th'retirement plan, Misser Mui!" She chuckled.

He tensed when she slapped him firmly on the shoulder again, steering him toward the door. "What are you—"

"Ya see, I _work_ th'nigh' shif'. Yar s'pose ta be sleepin' like a normal person. Now git."

"I would much rather—"

"Fu'ction tumorra? Me too. Out ya go…"

He huffed in annoyance when she pushed him out of the door and into the hall. He looked back through the glass, but he didn't see her check either Lavi or Tyki, didn't see her even close the door behind him; he saw Lavi's lips turn up in a silent, dreamy smile. _Sleep well, Lavi._ He thought as he pulled his lip between his teeth. _Rest is all I can give you anymore._

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**I could put another scene here, but I don't think it needs one. It wants to end here. To tell it no… is to write about Lenalee.**

**-snicker-**

**Thanks for R&R! :)**

**And again:  
****I WILL BE GONE THIS WEEKEND, SO CHAPTER 96 WILL NOT BE OUT UNTIL AT LEAST NEXT TUESDAY.**


	96. Home, Melody, Godparents

**OMG. What is this? An UPDATE?! And what's THAT! Fluff? Smex?! What IS THIS!?**

**I was distracted by my LaviYuu fic (I admit it, I'm sorry) and I had some quick planning for this that I needed to figure out, so this chapters is LATE x 56. I know. Please don't kill me…**

**I also went to Yaoi Con and had all soooorts of things to read. I got second in the fiction contest, so I've been reading the books they gave me for that. Terrible that writing means reading means writing slower. :(**

**Disclaimer of D'wonder: I don't own D.Gray-man. If I did… the second installment of the anime would start TOMORROW!**

**WARNINGS: MAN PORN. As in one man making porn with another. SEXUALLY.**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Home, Melody, Godparents

It was raining again, though the temperature had improved a bit since six days ago. The clouds were thick and heavy and the constant downpour served to clear the air a bit, making breathing just that much easier for the tired Vampire. He shifted his burden across his back and rolled his shoulders a bit, trying not to move even as he alleviated the strain in his spine.

A tiny, soft voice came over his shoulder. "I can walk if you need me to."

He shook his head at it, feeling the arms around his neck draw tight, and forced a smile around his teeth. "I'm quite alright carrying you. The canal is just up ahead." He felt the girl nod into his back and gave her right leg a little squeeze with his arm, trying to be comforting. It did not work, he knew, because she flinched at it, a tiny sound of pain in the back of her throat.

He decided to change the subject. "I wonder what was so urgent that your brother would call us back before we weren't finished."

"I don't know." The Chinese girl said softly. "But I hope the level three had nothing to do with it."

Crowley nodded, understanding her concern, and hiked her a little higher on his hips. He decided that in this case Lenalee needed a bit of distracting – she had been thinking about the ambush they had walked into non-stop for a day and a half, and about how much surviving had cost her. On the way home from the pathetic village they had been searching, in a dark, dank alley that Crowley had deemed the most obvious shortcut in all of the squatty little town, they had been found. More level twos than either of them had seen in a single space, and a creature that looked a bit like a medieval knight had lurked in the shadows in waiting, and attacked only when the two of them had least expected it.

He had smelled the akuma, hungered for their blood, but he hadn't voiced his concern for fear of giving away the fact that he had known they were there. And that, coupled with the cloud cover, had almost been there undoing. It was only through vicious fighting and a sudden release of Lenalee's Innocence that the two of them had survived the ensuing battle; her hair and her legs had suffered worst of all from the fall.

And now, when Crowley felt her shiver against his shoulders, he wanted nothing more than to blame himself.

"At least Allen and Kanda could be home by now!" He chimed brightly. A short intake of breath behind him alerted him to the fact that the woman behind him might have found enjoyment or surprise at being reminded. "I wonder if the two of them are still… doing what they were." The words had no malice in them, no threat, but there was obviously a note of disconcertion in his voice. The man, no matter how much previous bedroom experience he had had with a certain blonde akuma, could never bring himself to see the attractive qualities to the strange species commonly known as _men_. He did not find blame in Kanda and Allen, indeed he thought it amusing that the samurai could be pacified by such a seemingly innocent and naïve young man and he thought it fitting that Allen would end up with someone he seemed to loath nearly as much as he hated his Master, but all the same he did not understand how it was that the two could carry on a physical relationship.

Men just were not sexy. Men were not warm and soft and lush. And no matter how feminine the Japanese man's face could appear, the story under his clothes betrayed the lie.

Lenalee made a small sound of humor at his words. "Knowing how the two of them were when they left, I'd think so. You should have seen them at Christmas – I mean, besides that picture. Allen was so annoyed at Kanda… and Kanda just tried to look as if he had not kept Allen tied to a bed while he—"

"I'm sorry, but I don't fancy imagining this."

"Oh, right. I always forget that you never joined the SAUK club."

Crowley chuckled. "I support their happiness; that does not mean I wish to see the means by which it is maintained or described to me in all of its sticky detail."

Lenalee, despite it all, laughed at him with an enthusiasm that she had previously lacked. After a long moment her hands hooked a bit more tightly on his shoulders, showing a renewed strength at his words. "I wonder what Lavi and Ty-chan are doing." She settled her fingers against his shoulders and her head pressed downward, lying tiredly across the side of his back.

"If what we've heard of late is anything to go by, the only thing they're doing is each other."

"Crowley!"

The older man snickered, somehow managing to enjoy the slightly surprised quality to the young woman's voice. "My apologies. Alas, we have arrived, Lenalee. Can you stand long enough to get in without trouble?" He glanced over his shoulder at her and was glad to see that she was smiling at him, brightly, and he smiled back, matching her emotions. It was good so see the expression in her state.

"I'll be fine, Crowley. Thank you."

* * *

Kanda was watching him sleep. As many times as he had sat and watched the slow rise and fall of Allen's chest, as many times as he had counted the flick of his eyelids in his dreams, the pastime never seemed to bore him. With his fingers carding through the young man's hair, that gentle face pressed against his bare chest, he couldn't help but sigh and, slowly, lower his lips to the side of his lover's cheek. The British boy didn't move at the caress, didn't even breathe more quickly, he had been too stressed to sleep deeply, and now that he was there was nothing to be done to wake him.

The Japanese Exorcist was glad that Allen could sleep like a log in his arms. It gave him a moment to just be with the younger man in relative silence, appreciating little more than the warmth that his body gave off.

Even though he had planned on removing their clothes and engaging in sexual activity when he was rested, they hadn't done anything at all for two days. Just held and hugged and kissed when no one was looking. He couldn't explain it. It wasn't as if he didn't want Allen, or that Allen didn't want him, it was as if every time they got close, one of them fell asleep or became distracted, and the other let him.

He kissed again, this time harder, and Allen blinked an eyelid open only to let it fall shut again, the corners of his mouth lifting a little. They shifted together, the British boy's arms falling ever so gently around his chest, bringing them closer, warming his partially clad skin. The two of them hadn't even managed to get his shirt all the way off the previous night before Allen was slumbering in his arms, trembling, fretful dreams wracking his body during the night. Now though, with the midmorning sun peeking in the window, Kanda couldn't say he minded his half open white cotton shirt, or the press of Allen's face against his shoulder.

"Morning." The whisper was a clap of thunder to Allen, but he didn't jump at it.

The silver haired boy hummed back, but didn't as much as move from his place.

Kanda caught Allen's chin in his fingers and tilted it up, bringing their lips together. Allen didn't respond to the touch as much as let him control it, his tongue hardly moved in response, his hands didn't even fist on his lover's chest. He was still out of it. The Japanese man pulled himself away and looked down at his lover, watching his eyes open as if he didn't understand what was going on.

"Moyashi?"

Allen blinked a few times and he lifted a hand to touch the side of Kanda's face. His left hand, long nailed fingers hard and cool on his lover's skin, shook ever so slightly.

"Allen?"

The British Exorcist let his fingers slide into his lover's hair as his eyes wandered the line of his jaw, pausing at his lips.

Kanda used his hold on his lover's chin to force their eyes to meet. "Are you ok?" He asked slowly, and the pair of silver eyes that looked at him blinked as if they didn't know what he was saying.

"No." Allen's response was too quiet for his liking. His fingers curled in Kanda's hair. "My head hurts." He touched his forehead with his right hand, just under his bangs, and his fingers slid across the smooth skin with a quality that might have shown that he wasn't lying, a lack of enthusiasm that made his lover frown. "I feel like I can't think straight."

His lover leaned forward enough to kiss the place Allen's fingers were rubbing. "The song?" The words were a movement against the boy's skin.

Allen nodded, leaning into him a bit, and sighed gently. Kanda accepted his touch greedily, but resisted the urge to kiss his lover – such touches made things worse for Allen when the music wouldn't leave him alone. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to think about something that was, innately, normal. The soft brush of air on his skin distracted him. "Maybe I should tell Komui." Allen mumbled into him.

"Maybe." Kanda half-agreed. "Do you want to do it today?"

Allen shook his head without looking up at him. "I want to see Lavi today."

"Che." There was more venom in the sound than either of them were used to.

"Love…" Allen had yet to say that he thought his lover was stupid for blaming the redhead for his brother's death, but it was obvious that he thought it all the same.

"I won't stop you from seeing him but I'm not going with you."

The British boy looked up at the Japanese man and frowned deeply, silver eyes hard. "Do you really hate him that much, Love?" His voice was little more than a throaty whisper.

For a moment Kanda didn't answer, too intent on looking at those sad silver eyes, the downward quality to Allen's lips. He contemplated lying for a moment, but brushed the idea away almost as soon as he began to think about it seriously. "I don't hate him." He whispered. "I hate what he caused."

Allen shut his mouth. If Kanda could make the distinction between hating Lavi and hating what he had done, there was still hope to be had for the two of them.

* * *

Together, the redhead lying flat on his back, the Noah curled on his side beside him, they slept for nearly two days. Marlette kept the room relatively dark and did what she could to keep them warm, but she knew that Lavi's slight improvement had nothing to do with her work. It was all the evil incarnation sleeping with his arm draped over the apprentice Bookman's wound. How it worked she didn't know, but the two of them shared sleep cycles and nightmares, usually waking briefly at the same time, though Tyki seemed more physically capable of staying so than Lavi was. If one willed it, the other would stay awake or fall asleep with him, and neither voiced even the slightest protest when the other somehow pulled him away from whatever he was doing awake or otherwise. It was perplexing to her, and reminded her of the time in Durnshire that Tyki had been able to rouse the sleeping, feverish redhead when no one else could.

She wasn't there when Lavi cracked open his eye and managed a slow, wide yawn, much livelier than the last time he had woken of his own powers. He was glad of it. Because she wasn't there, he could reach out and lay a hand on Tyki's pressing it to his heart, feeling the Noah in a way he hadn't even been able to in his dreams.

Tyki snuggled closer, pressing his face into the curve of his neck, and Lavi tried to smile at the subtle press of a leg against his own. The Noah sighed into his skin before moving to press his mouth against his lover's jaw. "Don't wake up, I am tired." He grumbled, and the redhead smiled at the raspy quality to his lover's voice. He wanted to turn to the Noah and embrace him, but only managed to squeeze his hand a little more strongly. That got him a soft sound of enjoyment. "How do you feel?"

Lavi coughed to make his throat less dry. "My chest hurts." He produced the words at a volume that might have done a cricket justice. He felt the Noah smile. "Do you think… you can get closer? I'm cold." He went on, even if it were half true. He wasn't exactly cold so much as he wanted Tyki closer, but he couldn't lift himself enough to see if anyone was with them. The excuse sounded better than _please hold me_, though the effect was more or less the same.

The Noah chuckled and pressed himself flush, his hand fell to curve lightly around his lover's ribcage, feeling the bones through the thin fabric of his clothes. Tyki didn't like how frail his lover felt, nor how warm. "I believe you are feverish, Lavi." He whispered into the boy's temple and kissed it, then leaned into him enough to bring his head over Lavi's, chin pressed into his hair. "I should call a nurse to see you, if that is the case, also because we don't know how long we have been sleeping. Not too long, I do not think. I'm still tired." He sighed and his breath ruffled Lavi's hair, the boy turned his head so he could press his face into the warm space created by Tyki's neck. The Noah moved to accommodate him, and pulled his hand from his lover's ribs to touch the back of his head, arm lying bent across his chest. The position drew a contented sigh from Lavi's lips.

"Does it matter if we just go back to sleep?"

Tyki didn't answer. Instead he caressed the side of Lavi's jaw with his thumb, aware of the shaking fingers pressed into the middle of his chest.

"Ty-chan?"

"Hm?"

Lavi's hand pushed at the fabric of his shirt until it was high enough for him to touch the skin of his stomach. It wasn't an erotic contact nor was it platonic. It was curious and unsure and needy. The redhead didn't even know why he wanted it. "How are _you_ feeling?" The warmth of his palm settled against his lover's solar plexus, slightly bent fingers twitching like spider legs against his gray-tan skin.

"I don't know." His lover breathed the words against his scalp, face turning downward. Lavi could feel heated breath spread across the top of his head and shivered. He wanted to kiss and hug and flirt and do all of those wonderful things he used to, but he couldn't; moving his arms was work. "Tired, mostly, I suppose. Guilty." He closed his eyes. "Physically I'm… sore. It is as if my blood hurts." He tried to explain, but only shook his head when he realized how silly that sounded. The boy in his arms sighed at him and he let his thumb move to Lavi's lips; it was almost a kiss without using his mouth.

"It's not your fault." Lavi whispered.

"That doesn't change the fact that people died because of me."

"Just because you're the one that threw Allen and Yuu-chan around doesn't mean it's you that caused it."

"Lavi…"

"I fell for you. I got myself kidnapped. You brought me here because of that. The rest, if it's anyone's fault besides mine, is Komui's." The redhead mumbled almost angrily. When Tyki made a sound of confusion he went on, not wanting to stop before he ran out of energy. "He knew you were good. He knew that you wanted to just live here with me, without taking a side, without fighting anything but your own war, and yet he didn't tell Allen and Kanda and Sable that you were here? He didn't let them know that you're safe? He set us up. I dunno if he did it consciously, but he gave them all leave to kill you on sight by not letting them know what happened."

Tyki made a soft grunt of disbelief. "I bet it slipped his mind."

"Things like that don't slip Komui's mind."

The Noah didn't argue. Instead he let himself relax a little more surely and breathed in a deep, Lavi scented breath. Every time he smelt the younger man it struck him how alive they both were just clinging to the edges of existence. Just breathing. "Whatever the case may be, whatever inevitably caused this to happen… I still broke my word to you. I still killed. And now…" He swallowed hard, and a strange, predatory smile spread across his face. "Nothing keeps me from doing it again. No bond or promise. There's no point to it. My word is worthless."

"Nuh-uh. You didn't want to… or mean to… it wasn't to sate yourself. I think you still kept your vow." Lavi insisted softly. "I just hope that the others see it that way."

Tyki nodded into Lavi's head and remained silent. There was no point in arguing.

"But… if you aren't being stopped by words then… how come you haven't killed anyone yet?"

"Killing someone would make you angry." Tyki said plainly. "I do not want you to be mad at me."

The apprentice Bookman chuckled. "You have the strangest logic sometimes."

"Thank you, dear."

Lavi would have moved his head back to smile up at his lover, would have kissed him on the lips, but the act would have left him too tired to say much else. Instead he leaned forward until his forehead was against the Noah's skin, his eye closed. Like that, touching so much, he could feel a thousand kinds of pleasure just by breathing. He felt a flurry of pain and love and happiness in his chest and giggled, slipping his hand around the side of Tyki's bare ribcage. Somehow his lover seemed to understand his actions and kissed the top of his head to show it.

"Sleep, Ty-chan?" The suggestion carried with it a slight undertone of yearning.

"I may just hold you for a bit, if you don't mind."

"Ok." Lavi yawned slightly. "If I conk out and Marlette comes in, can you ask her to get me something to drink? Maybe something with substance?"

"Hungry?"

"Meh."

Tyki made a tiny sound of agreement. "We'll see what I can do, _Amante_."

* * *

Kanda watched Allen dress himself with a frown on his lips and a hard glare in his eyes, but there was still the slightest hit of desire behind the expression. Two days. And before that three. He hadn't even made Allen mad at him and yet he wasn't having sex on anything like a schedule. True, it hadn't been on his mind when he was gone, but it was now. It was eating at him. Knowing that Allen was fine now and watching his lover pull on a fresh pair pants was almost enough to make him do something exceedingly stupid.

Instead he fluffed the sheets around his hips and mentally cursed himself for not sleeping in at least a pair of underwear.

It didn't help that he was supposed to be paying attention to the lecture Allen was giving him on his rudimentary understanding of fate.

He ran his tongue across the inside of his lower lip and watched Allen's face in the mirror as he tried to untangle his hair using little more than water and his fingertips. His bed-head was horrid. It would get worse if Kanda had his way. That little mouth was frowning ever so softly as it moved to tell him things, those metallic eyes that weren't looking at him but still flicked with annoyance, the slight bags under them, the pink dash to Allen's pale cheeks – he was going to work himself into a state if he kept looking. When his lover finally looked at him he saw a flash of anger before the British Exorcist smiled and turned to face him, one hand on the curve of his hip.

"Kanda." Allen's voice lack any serious threat to it, but it still managed to be annoyed. "Why are you looking at me like I'm meat?"

"Because it's been five or six days. At least."

"So?"

The Japanese man's expression fell. "So I have… things on my mind." He responded vaguely. There was always a moment when Kanda chose to either be vague or be vulgar, and this was a moment he chose the former. He thought it might make up for the lecherous quality to his expression.

It didn't.

"You want sex, huh?" Allen blurted suddenly.

"Che. I'd rather say that I want _you_, Moyashi."

"And you can't think about that _and_ listen to what I tell you at the same time, eh?"

"Not… really…"

"You want to… lead?"

"It _is_ my turn."

"You're going stare at me like that all day if we don't, won't you?"

"Not much I can do about it. I like looking at you."

Allen sighed and crossed the space between them, moving lightly now that the song had faded enough to allow him thought and grace. It had taken the better part of a half an hour, but the white haired teen was back to his old self again. He stood just out of arms reach from his lover and looked down at him head tilted slightly to the side. "Kan… Yuu," He changed his mind and switched to the more intimate name, just because it fit more for the words he had in the back of his mind. "I just want to know if… it's a lust thing… or… what?"

"Che. Baka Moyashi." Kanda reached out and Allen's hand came up to touch it quickly but shyly, as if the action was beyond his physical control. The British boy found himself guided slowly to the side of the bed, a second arm wrapped around his hips so his lover might press his face to the side of his hip. It made him tremble a little, but it wasn't because he didn't like it. Hands pulled his neatly tucked shirt out of his pants and slipped up the back of it; unconsciously he pressed his palms into his lover's half-tangled hair, feeling those warm, hungry fingers sail up the curve of his back. "It's not an emotional breakdown, Allen. I'm not my mother." When he said it he face pressed half into shirt and half into flesh; Allen felt a line of melody blossom in the back of his head at it and twitched his fingers in his lover's hair, lips glided over his right hip and he rocked onto the balls of his feet.

"What is it then?"

"Che. I left you here for four days and three nights and it's been two more since then… I… never said that I…"

"Hm?" Allen prodded.

"Missed… you…" Kanda's arms crossed behind his lover and he tugged the boy forward enough to make him bend one knee against the mattress. "A lot."

Allen chuckled and used Kanda's hair as leverage to tilt his lover's face up at him, dragging his half open mouth away from the triangle of his hipbone. The bed squeaked as he put more weight on it, and a low groan filled his lover's throat as he bent to kiss those gently parted lips, slipping his tongue gingerly behind the barrier of Kanda's teeth. The Japanese man accepted it, allowing Allen to explore every place in his mouth, then returned the gesture with his own tongue, tugging against the back of the British boy's hips with his hands. In the course of that single, heated bit of contact, Allen found himself hauled onto the bed, clothed leg pressing on the sheet between his lover's knees.

When his teeth scraped awkwardly against Kanda's he pulled back, breaking the kiss, but his hands found shoulders and they slipped back, guiding him against the larger man's chest.

"Has it really been six days since we got home?" He asked into a kiss that was all too much Kanda's idea. There were fingers tugging his shirt yet higher, and he touched the center of his lover's chest in response to it.

Kanda growled at him and rolled. Allen almost laughed when he found himself under continuous fire from those slightly swollen lips, his shirt already leaving his shoulders.

"Doesn't matter. It's been too long." The man above him managed after the fabric of Allen's upper garment went sailing away toward the floor. "I want you…" He tapered off, looking down at his lover with an expression that was two parts lust and one part genuine loving affection; his face broke into a smile. The contrast of his reddened lips and sparkling sapphire eyes made the look he gave Allen nearly unreadable, though the mischief was still clear in it.

"What?"

"You going to stay awake this time?"

Allen scoffed. "It's not my fault that I've been tired. Besides, you fell asleep once too."

"Not my fault that you're boring."

Allen childishly stuck out his tongue and his lover grinned at it, working at the fasteners on his pants with a speed that made the smaller man smile. When the material went sliding down his hips and across his thighs he lifted his left arm to wind them around Kanda's neck, drawing them closer. There was a bit of sheet tucked around Kanda's waist, enough to add a little mystery to the situation, and Allen let his right hand slip behind it, tracing a languid line to his lover's arousal.

"Still boring?"

"Che. If you fucking try to tease me I'll tie you up, Moyashi."

"How horrifying."

Kanda lowered his face enough to kiss at the turn of Allen's throat, then across his jaw, and finally over to his lips, the bottom one of which he pulled between his teeth and gave a strong, teasing nibble. A loud whimper filled the room at it, high and keening, and he changed his grip on Allen's hips enough to do it again at a better angle. The body under him arched slightly, and his eyes fluttered open to see a pale and yet blushing face turned up to him, bruised lower lip puffing from abuse. He couldn't help but smile.

The silver eyed boy didn't seem to mind that his face was bruising, however, because he yanked down on Kanda's hair enough to give himself access to the man's earlobe, which he took between his teeth with a savageness that only made Kanda shiver.

It seemed that this time Allen was not going to fall asleep anymore than Kanda was. Allen hummed in the tone of a question and squeezed with his fingers, his palm gliding across the heated flesh against his palm. The movement brought a little puff of air to the side of his face and he moaned through the bit of flesh in his mouth, astounded by the little line of goosebumps the sound produced.

"Moyashi…" The word made Allen release the captured earlobe and fall back against the mattress, panting. The wet kiss that they boy lead them into no longer seemed shy to the man above him, only hungry.

When they fell away with a sigh Allen pressed his left hand to the center of Kanda's chest and let his eyes wander the naked expanse of his boy, pausing every so often. It wasn't until his gaze traveled up the long silky strands of sweat sticky hair on the curve of his lover's neck that he spoke, and even then his eyes kept wandering until they found Kanda's to look into. "You're right…" He breathed softly, continuing his slow, strong movement with his hand. "It has been too long. Can we… please… I… no patience…" He gave a final squeeze to his lover's erected manhood and pulled his hand away, aware that Kanda did not like the lose of friction. He grabbed the sheet that was tangled between them and gave it a tug, exposing a generous amount of hip to his eyes. _"Love…"_ It was a plea that ended in an open mouthed kiss that made him shake with its warmth.

Kanda's left hand pressed into Allen's right shoulder and held him to the mattress while he pulled back to look down at him, blinking at his sudden desire. "I won't make you wait." He said the words as he sank low on the bed, doing what came naturally, moving how his body willed him. He found himself licking a slow pattered down to the hollow of Allen's navel and then back up again, leaving a wet path in his wake. Allen trembled at him. It was too much. He hated to make it go so fast but there was nothing to do for either of them.

Allen's nails bit painfully into the back of Kanda's neck when he tried to pull away.

"Che. Let go." His throat was assaulted by a number of tiny kisses, each one harder than the last, and he pushed harder on his lover to remove him. When he was far enough away to look down at the panting British boy he smirked. Allen's expression was perfectly candid, blushing, needy, animalistic, and grinning boyishly. It was one of the few expressions that, if he saw it on the boy's face when he wasn't naked, he would have worried for his sanity and health. It wasn't that he wasn't used to seeing Allen blush or he wasn't used to seeing Allen make that face of lecherous intent – it was the awkward combination that he wasn't used to. Innocence and naivety were just as evident in it as perversion and lust.

Kanda felt his expression change so one eyebrow lifted over the other.

"Getting our bottle?" Allen inquired in a voice that was twice as husky as it normally was and three times as soft.

"If I don't, you'll kill me."

Allen made a sound of agreement. "Maybe not kill, but I'll bloody kick your ass if you don't. But…" He reached up and cupped the side of Kanda's face, lifting his hips at the same time. The result was a needy sort of loving expression on his face, a hungry sort of glint to his eyes. It was confusing. On many occasions Kanda had seen those eyes cry for love of him and hunger for lust of him, but he had never seen a happy medium between the two. "Will you make me a promise before you do?" He asked airily.

"Anything, Moyashi."

"If you use the last of the oil, you're buying more."

Kanda scowled. "You're a fucking annoying brat sometimes."

Allen grinned at him. "You wouldn't have me any other way, Pretty."

"If I didn't love you…"

"I wouldn't be naked. Not the time, Love. We should…" The contact of lips against Allen's cut him off and his fingers slipped from their place on his lover's skin. He was beginning to shake uncontrollably. _"Mmph…_" The kiss broke. "I love you." It was a confession that he didn't even think about.

The Japanese man let the left side of his mouth lift over his teeth in an awkward show of amusement. "You too." He said back vaguely, and pushed himself up from the bed, reaching for the bedside stand. It took the greater part of a minute for him to find what he was looking for, and Allen simply lay with his hands to either side of his head, staring the entire time. It seemed to Kanda that this time, being the song had faded before they had gotten started, Allen would function without being lost in the melody. He wouldn't have to worry about what might happen if Allen lost his sanity because of their intimacy.

When he came back he realized that they were indeed down to less than two inches of oil. How many had they gone through? He couldn't remember. It didn't matter. Shakily he opened the lid and looked down at Allen to see what he thought of this so soon.

The British boy tilted his hips and moved himself back a bit on the bed, still sideways, still without pillows, tangling himself in the blankets. When he was finished moving he had to roll a bit on his side to see Kanda coat the fingers of his right hand, and it brought a heady moan to his lips. He never thought about how long those fingers were, how talented his lover was with them, he only thought about what they were doing, what they were feeling, and what they made him feel – there had never been anything innately erotic to their lovemaking.

And as soon as he thought it, a violent blush lit his face.

"Something wrong, Moyashi?" Kanda smoothed the liquid across his palm in an effort to get it to the very tips of his fingers. When he was satisfied he placed the bottle beside the bed and came closer, holding his wet fingers so they were in plain sight of his lover.

Allen shook his head a little and reached out to touch the side of his lover's stomach. "I just… kind of thought that… even when we played strip poker we never… forget it." His palm spread across Kanda's skin and he curled his fingers around the side of his ribcage, squeezing. "Touching now? Love? Please? I'm hungry…" The last two words got him a snort of mild indignation. "This and then bath and then food and…" Kanda mounted the bed beside him, one knee pressed between his. "More of this… later… if you want…"

"Stop talking, Moyashi."

"Do you think that someday, we'll be able to just spend the day naked?"

"Che."

"Maybe when… the war is ov—_ngh…_" There were fingers stroking the sensitive place behind his manhood, slipping slowly toward their goal, and a mouth pressed to the side of his, warm and inviting. He lifted his lips to it, gently, but they did not connect; Kanda kept his face just an inch too far away so he could see what he was doing. Allen propped himself on his elbows and bent his knees; he could see the rush of excitement in his lover's face and felt an answering tightness in his muscles to it. A tenseness ran up and down the plain of his stomach and two, wet fingers pressed inside of him – he was astounded that it didn't hurt to take both at once anymore. His head fell back against his shoulders and a long, needy sound fought passed his lips. _"Kan…da…"_ He didn't even know the name was in the moan until he heard his lover laugh at it.

"Too much, Moyashi?" The questioned was asked into his jaw line and a tongue followed it, cleaning the sweat from the side of his neck.

Allen shook his head and touched the skin of Kanda's arms without dropping from his elbows. "No." His fingers glided up to Kanda's shoulders and he used them as a means to keep himself from falling, though his head stayed at the awkward angle at which it had chosen to fall. "It's good…" He breathed softly. _"You're_ good." He added almost as an after thought.

The mouth on his neck released a breathy sound of amusement. "We practiced."

Allen couldn't help but giggle. "Not recently."

"We should make a schedule. Two hours a day, five days a week minimum."

"At that rate neither of us will be walking by Sunday."

Kanda smirked at him and pressed a third finger into his lover, watching him pant at it. "At the rate you're going, I'll be the only sore one." He moved them apart gently, the hands on his shoulders shook slightly at it but wasn't from pain. There was only the light of yearning in Allen's eyes, the glimmer of desire, and behind it a deep affection that made him smile wider. It wasn't a perfect smile – still lopsided and underused – but it still made Allen's blush deepen.

Or it was the fact that his fingers were deep enough to make the British boy arch from the mattress in desperation.

"Kanda…"

"No…"

"Yuu…"

"Good."

"Please." Allen whined at him, tangling his trembling fingers in his lover's mass of hair. The samurai hadn't brushed it this morning and the tie had come undone in the night, so the normally pristine tresses knotted in the British boy's palms. He couldn't say he minded, though he could say he could hold on to it better. The silky bit of contact was cool and contrasted deliciously to the press of warmth to his collarbone. "I want _you_ not… your… hand…" He mumbled the words as if saying them too loudly would somehow embarrass him, growing quieter as he went on. It took all of his will to keep going without blushing himself into an aneurysm. "I want you… in… in…" He tugged his head up and jerked at Kanda's hair so he could bury his face in the turn of the samurai's neck.

To his horror the Japanese man snickered at him. "I get it, Allen. You don't have to say it." With one last breath stealing stroke of his fingers he pulled his hand away and went back to the bottle of oil. It was difficult to reach for it with Allen's arms twined half around his shoulders but he refused to shrug the boy off – the moment was too intimate to destroy. While he poured liquid into his hand, Allen lifted his legs clear to his shoulders, showing his readiness, his certainty, his _need_. It made Kanda pause to see him so eager.

Both of his hands were slick by the time he was satisfied with the level of lubricant on his skin, and his fingers slid when he tried to hold his lover by the turn of each knee. It didn't matter though. Together, the smaller of them biting his lip in determination, they managed to push his legs far enough for the larger man to guide himself forward, his arms falling to Allen's shoulders.

A growl and a whine filled the room. Allen's hands found Kanda's hips between his knees and he jerked them forward, driving a startled sound for them both.

Kanda couldn't lean very far down for fear of straining Allen's legs, but the position gave him a wonderful view of his lover's face, and the emotions playing on it. Allen looked up at him imploringly and the corners of his lips turned up slightly; the expression was not innocent or naïve, it was hungry and amused.

"Hurry. My feet will go numb."

Kanda nodded and drew himself almost completely out of the boy before pressing back in, gently, his mouth open from the sensation. He saw his expression reflected on Allen's face, his quicksilver eyes half hooded. The pace was torturously slow but he wanted it that way, he wanted it to last because the foreplay hadn't, he wanted to make it memorable.

The fingers on his hips danced at his movement and he shifted forward, pressing his lover's shoulders onto the mattress, and growled down at him wordlessly. Their speed did not increase but Allen's expression did – he was teasing that bundle of nerves on the back of his prostate with every lazy movement of his body. He smiled. Allen wouldn't give a damn about his feet going numb if he was making that expression, not for a very long time.

"You're so… _slow_…"

Kanda hardly found the breath to laugh at the complaint. "Aren't I the one who wanted this?"

Allen nodded and tugged suggestively on his lover's hips. "Doesn't mean… you have to be mean… you know I'm…" His breath hitched. "Not patient." He used the force on his shoulders as leverage to lift his hips higher, bringing Kanda back into him just a hair prematurely. He grinned at the glare the act got him.

"And you know I am." He breathed the words and his right hand moved to the heated side of Allen's face, smoothing away his sweat mussed hair. He pulled back and pitched forward, abandoning his desire to be slow and annoying and making it last – because it didn't matter if it lasted if they were both satisfied by the end of it. They could go again. They could go four times. He didn't care. The little pouting quality to his lover's face and the knowledge that neither of them could think beyond the bed they shared prompted him to action. "But…" He dragged out the word as he pulled away and slammed forward again, forcing Allen's hands to close on his skin. He didn't finish his thought, his throat too filled with sound to produce proper words. He couldn't say that he thought Allen minded in the least when he drew back again and rocked forward, connecting with that same place every time he moved forward.

The white haired Exorcist brought his heels into his lover's back in desperation. He groaned out in appreciation when Kanda took the hint and moved without care for pace or suddenness, his only thought on aim and completion. Allen let his hands drift up to his lover's chest and gently touched the skin around his lover's supposed curse mark, simply appreciating its existence. For once he didn't think about how it kept his lover alive or how he would inevitably die from it, he only thought about how he liked the harsh black in contrast to Kanda's surprisingly pale skin.

He whimpered at a slight change of angle and his legs slipped from his lover's shoulders; Kanda moved his arms enough to allow Allen to wrap his legs around the samurai's middle as they pounded onward, not losing a beat. He leaned upward and caught his lover's mouth in a sloppy, open kiss, twining his fingers in those tangled tendrils of ebony hair.

"Yuu…" He spoke to Kanda's lips, but his eyes focused on the pair of gemlike irises that settled on his face. _"My… Love…"_ He didn't know the words that were seeping from his mouth but whatever they were it drove Kanda to kiss him, firmly, driving the will to speak out of him. He gave up and simply pouted, breathing harshly at the man above him.

Kanda shushed him, changing angles again. "Don't listen to it, Moyashi. Just feel. Don't listen."

Listen? Were they lyrics he was saying? He didn't hear them really, he just felt like Kanda was in his head somehow.

"_Fa… fas…mo…"_ He didn't get either word out. He felt as if speaking were too difficult.

Something was wrong with him.

The Japanese Exorcist saw the change in his lover and made to finish them both as fast as he might without ruining their experiences entirely. He was on his knees in a moment, sweat sticking his hair to his back and neck when he tilted, and Allen was looking up at him, silver eyes dancing with tears.

"Moyashi…"

"Fuck me before I forget who I am."

Kanda didn't understand that request exactly, but did as he was asked all the same, dragging himself back before he slammed into his lover, bringing the metal bed frame into the wall. The dots of moisture spilled from Allen's eyes and he clutched at Kanda's skin, meeting his movements with a lift of his backside. His arms curled around the back of his lover's neck and he fish-mouthed in an effort to form words, words that never came, that he never thought. The sensations running through the older man warned him how close Allen was, how desperate, and he lowered his mouth to the boy's ear to whisper into it.

"I don't know what's wrong with you, Allen Walker." It was work to keep his voice steady. "But… I… we have to tell… someone…"

The white haired boy nodded, though he didn't seem to understand what he was agreeing too. "Yuu…" He said the name and his eyes fell closed; his too hot insides clamped suddenly on the Japanese man and he moaned at it, slamming with a recklessness that nearly drove the air from his lover's lung. That, it seemed, had been all Allen needed. His back arched away from the mattress and the silver butterfly wings of his eyelashes fluttered against the flushed pink skin of his cheeks, contrasting with the transparent lines of water that seared down the sides of his face. His orgasm seemed to surprise him by the sound he made – somewhere between a sob and a scream – every muscle in his body reached out and he wrapped himself around Kanda despite it, shaking so violently it was only luck that kept his lover from losing his hold and soiling the sheets around them.

Kanda wished he could have stopped himself from falling into the smaller boy, but the weakness in his limbs coupled with the insanity with which Allen held him forced him to fall forward, his lover's head pressed to his neck. Before he understood what he was doing soft shushing sounds were coming from his lips and the fingers tangled in his hair were pulling with nearly enough force to tear it from his head. He didn't care. He cared only that something good had turned out so wrong.

"Moyashi…"

"Yuu… Kanda… I can't… Yuu…"

He did the only thing he could think to – he ignored the fact that they were naked, breathless, sticking with sweat and fluids, and clutched the smaller boy against his chest. "What, Allen? What's wrong? What can't you do?" He asked into in lover's ear. A sob sounded beneath him.

"_Think."_

"Then don't try to think, Moyashi. Just hold on to me. Be with me."

"Kan…"

"Shush, Allen. Don't try to talk to me, just hold on to me. _Know_ that I am here."

"_Here_._"_ The word carried with it some sort of power that Kanda had never heard before. "_Whereon… he…_ Love?" The nickname was perhaps the most Allen-like of the whole sentence, confused and frightened and more than a little slurred from tears. His fingers did not retract themselves from their painful hold on Kanda's hair but he pushed back enough to lay his lips on his lover's. The contact was slow and warm, delicate, almost shy, and Kanda pulled back to look at his reddened eyes when it was finished, not understanding the sudden change in Allen's behavior. His confusion was evident on his face.

Allen tried to smile. "I should… tell you, shouldn't I?"

Kanda raised an eyebrow. "Che. Tell me what?"

"That I had a… panic attack?" The British boy mumbled at him, fighting off an obvious yawn and choking down the last of his sobs. His hands slipped a bit from Kanda's hair and he moved them behind his lover's neck, drawing him into an embrace that was just lose enough to be possessive and frightened at once.

Kanda narrowed his eyes at the boy. "Why?"

It was the one question that Allen didn't want to hear. He took a slow breath and closed his eyes, seeming to understand something that he couldn't with his eyes open. "Since we got on the bed… I haven't… heard… you. Not like before. There's no song anymore. And…" A fresh wave of tears spilled down his cheeks, and he blinked his eyes back open when he felt them kissed away.

"You're used to it? So losing it scares you?" Kanda suggested in a tiny whisper.

Allen nodded and, despite his desire not to, cried harder. "It's stupid and childish and… I shouldn't let it bother me if it just _stops_ but—"

"You wouldn't have agreed to this if it had been in your head, would you have?"

"N-not…really… I wanted to see—"

"Che. You should have told me."

"I just did."

"Sooner."

Allen's let his lover pull away despite his desire to remain close, his fingers lingering on skin long after he should have let his hands fall to the mattress. Kanda didn't complain about it, instead choosing to settle into a more comfortable position and slip down beside Allen, twining his arms comfortably around the white haired boy's middle. The British boy settled against his chest, laying his face firmly on Kanda's naked shoulder, silently continuing to cry.

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up."

Allen shook his head gently, pulling a leg up to place between Kanda's. It didn't matter to him that he was sticky and spilling on the sheets, nor did it matter to him that he would want a shower as soon as the song was back again – all that mattered was the touch of his lover's skin so close to him. "Really, Love… I'm just worried because I can't… it's like… you aren't there. And I'm not here. I can feel you but… it's not the same. Am I losing my mind, Kanda? Should I… tell someone about… the music?" He inquired softly. Kanda looked down at him with a raised eyebrow and was unsurprised to find Allen looking up at him with moist eyes, blinking them repeatedly.

"I think you should sleep, Allen." He answered as he brought his left hand to the side of his lover's face. "And think about this when you can clearly enough not to have to cling to me like you'll stop breathing if you let go."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing. If you are going insane it isn't your fault it's happening."

"You don't mind then? You don't care that I ruined the sex and I'm going to cry myself to sleep on your chest? You won't – if I'm like this forever… you won't…l…leave…"

"Shut _up_, Moyashi." Kanda's lips quirked at the edges oddly, as if he were fighting a smile despite the harshness to his words. It confused Allen – he couldn't tell if his lover was truly annoyed with him or only pretending. "You're not nuts. You're not going nuts. If you _do_ go nuts I'll fucking drive you sane, Old Man."

Allen smiled. "Thank you, BaKanda."

"Calm now?"

He nodded, but didn't let go of his lover's torso. "Yeah. More than I was."

The Japanese man leaned down and laid his lips softly on his forehead, not so much kissing as sharing an intimate touch, his eyelids pressed gently downward. Allen sighed at it and his arms loosened, tension seeping from his limbs in long, tingling little waves. "I won't make you tell Komui. But you have to tell me if anything changes." Kanda said against the boy's heated flesh. The head against his mouth nodded but no sound accompanied the motion, so he pulled away to watch his lover's face press into his shoulder with nothing but gravity, the fear more or less dissipated from his face.

Silver eyes flicked up at him for a moment, tear worn and tired, and he felt the undeniable urge to _soothe_ fill him. It wasn't like the desire to fix or protect, it was something altogether separate and loving, not defensive and cold.

"Ok." Allen whispered up at him, then yawned again, hugely. "If it comes back… I'll tell you."

"Good."

"If you go anywhere, wake me up and tell me. I can't hear you leave."

"Right."

"And!" Allen added with a bit more enthusiasm. "Feel free to leave a note."

"Allen."

"Hm?"

"No more talking."

* * *

The sound Marlette made when she came into Komui's office was something like a blithering scream of glee. The man was on the phone at the time, having an important conversation with a central administrator, and he would have screamed at any other nurse who entered his office with such abandon and disregard for authority – but this was Marlette. Not only did she seem to have an uncanny understanding of the human mind, she also had a grand total of two charges in all of the medical wing.

Lavi and Tyki.

He promptly cut off his conversation with central – it could wait until it needed to be handled – and stood, looking at her with tired, expectant eyes.

"They're awake." She said breathlessly. He was rounding his desk even before she could take three deep gasps to say more. "Seems th'were earlier too. Lavi's 'ungry."

"And the Arch-generals believe nothing good can come of a Noah." Komui rolled his eyes as he came to her side and she smiled at him, turned back toward the door. They walked side-by-side, though she had to take two steps to his one.

"A lotta good 'as come a Ty-chan though." Marlette comment softly. "'Asn't gotta an evil bone in 'im. Bad? Sure. We all got bad in us. 'E ain't any eviler than yer lads at th'top are though. If 'e were… I dun think Lavi'd be breathin' at this point. T'say the least a sittin' on 'is own." They rounded a corner and he glanced down at her, to see that she wasn't looking up at him. It was strange how she could say those things so offhandedly, as if her defense of the Noah were the same as defending any other person in the order, as if he had never done an ill thing in his life. It made Komui wonder how much she really knew of him and his nature, and in turn how much he understood.

He thought about not responding for a moment, but his heart was too big for his mouth. "I know that you seem to get along fine with the Noah of Pleasure, but you must know what he has done and what he can still do. Even if he didn't know what he was doing at the time he attacked the Order, he could still—"

"Ev'ryone's capable." She cut in with a glare up at him. "I cin stick ya in yer arse with a needle full o' cyanide, but that dun mean I'll do it."

"Marlette…"

"Dun gimme none of that once a killer, always a killer garbage nither. If that were true, yer Order'd be in trouble what wit' yer Aussie an' yer drunkard an' that… samuraia women hangin' aroun'. 'E's _good_. If ya dun see it, tryin' see that 'e ain't killin' outta love. _Love_, Misser Mui. Wha' gooder feelin' is there?"

He looked away as they rounded the last corner, biting into the soft flesh of his lower lip. He wanted to argue – always would – but there was no reason to anymore. This was not the time nor the place and arguing did not make any of his mistakes go away.

"I'm leavin' 'im t'you." Marlette said softly, taking a step away. "I dunno when he'll fall asleep an' gettin' food in 'im will help. 'Ave fun an' try not t'fuck things up royally, eh?" She said the words and turned away even before he could protest them. He didn't try to follow.

He closed his eyes and breathed in a slow, shaking breath as he came at last to the hall that connected to Lavi's room.

Komui's slippers squeaked when he came to a sudden halt at the mouth of the hall. He had expected it to be empty, maybe a nurse or a doctor or a Finder clinging merrily to the wall as they dashed by the window, but there was more than that. Holding to the sill of the window, the much taller Vampire beside her, Lenalee stared wide eyed through the glass that separated her and the redhead he had come to see. She didn't look away, but all the same he could see the difference in her – her hair was shorter, burn marks and cuts and bruises marred most of the skin on the right side of her face, and the way she held herself was strained, her arms somewhat rigid against the stone in front of her. He hadn't even had a mental tingle, or a brush of fear, or a feeling that she might be close – he hadn't been thinking about her.

He was always thinking about her.

"Brother!" The cry pulled him out of his thoughts and he moved forward, hurriedly drawing his sister into a hug that she seemed to need more than a little. The girl's head hardly came to his mid chest and he took advantage of it, folding himself around her in a protective shell that cut her off from the window, as well as the rest of the world. "What happened?! Why didn't you tell me something had happened with Lavi and Ty-chan? I would have come home faster…" She mumbled into his clothes; he made to run his fingers through her hair but found only four inches of length, so settled for simply petting what was there.

"I didn't want to make you careless."

"What happened?" The repeated question was quieter.

He wanted to make the demand himself but knew better. She wouldn't tell him a damn thing about what had happened to her hair until he told her the details of what happened to her friends. It was how she worked. He knew that, after this long.

Komui pulled back enough to look in on the two whose story he would be retelling. Lavi was looking up at Tyki, neither of them seeming to care that people were glancing in on them, a surprisingly healthy smile on his face, eye shining. His heart clamped. How come it had to be _Tyki_ that made the boy better? Why not some other Exorcist? Hell, why not _Lenalee?_ Or himself? Such thoughts were cast from his mind when the redhead caught sight of him and turned that same, blinding, cheery smile his way.

He wanted to hit something. Instead he closed his eyes and soothed his voice. "When he came home, Allen Walker did not understand Tyki's presence within the tower and took matters into his own hands without questioning anyone. As a result, Ty…ki Mikk… destroyed most of the front entrance and killed a number of Finders and scientist and one civilian in a… blind rage. He lost his mind. He… changed. Cross put a stop to it, but Lavi placed himself in his path in the processes."

"A civilian?"

"Kanda Hitori. Sixteen."

"_What?"_

Komui looked down at his younger sister and tried to smile. The expression broke on his face. "Tyki was so out of control that Kanda and Allen tried to stop him – Lavi less violently. As a result of that, Kanda Hitori, a bystander, was killed by an accidental sword wound to the chest." He kept talking despite the fact that her hands tightened on his clothes. "Not long after that, Lavi stepped in front of Judgment." He shrugged his shoulders, just because it felt like the action that the event deserved. "That act may have saved or damned them both." As he said it Lenalee looked back at Lavi, her hands reaching once more for the window.

The redhead had the strength to wave.

"Where was he shot?"

"Left upper chest cavity. He would have bled out in two minutes, though Cross would have shot him in the head first."

"Why didn't he?"

"I stopped him."

Lenalee looked up at her brother, who was looking in at Lavi, and furrowed her brows together. There was something terribly odd about the tambour of his voice, something off, but she couldn't place it. It was as if there were more to his words than he said, more that he meant to imply. "You sound like… Lavi didn't want you to." She went with her gut.

He looked down suddenly, studying his own face in the glass. "He was in a lot of pain at the time. He most likely thought Tyki was dead, in which case he was waiting to become a Noah, so… he looked up at Cross with this expression that didn't ask him to stop but I still…" He shook his head and looked up at a sudden motion from beyond the wall, a wave of invitation. His dark eyes settled on Lavi waving them all inside, not a fraction of pain or fear or regret on his face, and he pressed his tongue between his teeth for a second. "For a moment I thought I shouldn't have stopped him."

Lenalee took her brother by the arm and tugged him toward the door. "I know there's more but… we're going in there before he opens his wounds trying to say hello, alright?" His feet followed her lead despite the fact that he hadn't answered. Crowley stepped back and watched the two for a moment, knowing that – as much as he cared for both Lavi and Lenalee – it wasn't his place to intrude. The Vampire-like Exorcist made a gesture at the apprentice Bookman that meant _later_ before taking his leave of the group; he would think and come back with a quieter crowd, they both knew.

The moment the door was open, Lenalee smiled.

"Lenita!"

"Lenalee! Your hair…"

"Don't talk so loud dear, you'll send yourself into a coughing fit."

"Shut it _old guy_, I haven't had one ye—_ugh!"_

"Old guy? If _you_ were healthier I would show you how spritely I can be!"

"Righ'. Spritely—_huk—_ for an arthritic—_nugh_—mountain goat."

"I told you to take it easy…"

"An' I tol' you t'shut up."

Tyki sighed, shaking his head at the younger man whom pillowed himself half on the mattress and half on the Noah's shoulder, a thin layer of perspiration evident from waving his arms and talking so much. A touch from the surprisingly tan man beside him made him shut his eye and swallow, the disruptions in his breathing coming more frequently until the seemed to settle, his body calmed with mental persuasion. When he was finished he leaned into his lover's offered lips, taking the little kiss on the edge of his brow, but didn't open his eye for a moment, still trying to focus. It took the greater half of a minute for him to crack open his lid again.

"See?"

He only turned his eye at the Noah and pouted.

Lenalee couldn't restrain herself any longer and moved slowly forward, limping – which Komui took note of but decided not to mention – until she came within reach of the Noah and held out her hands. She didn't even flinch when the Portuguese man took one of them and guided her to lean against the edge of the bed. She was at ease. Seeing it made Komui frown deeper.

"I didn't hear all of the details but… are you two ok?" Lenalee asked at once, concern the only emotion on her face.

"Lovely, Lena," Tyki chimed at once, perfectly charming, bright in everything but personality. "For having fallen apart between the two of us. What about you? Come here, no need to worry yourself about safety, you seem far too in need of affection to care anyways." At his words the female Exorcist leaned enough to hug him much the same way she had embraced her brother, short hair brushing at the Noah's chin, his hand placed in the middle of her back. Lavi reached up and touched the turn of her shoulder, which she chuckled at, before letting his hand fall once more to his lover's clothes. There was nothing more he could do, after all of the prior waving, but Lenalee did not mind. Tyki's human display of caring was enough for her. "What happened to your hair? It seems a bit shorter than I remember."

She pulled back so she was sitting on the edge of the mattress, bandaged knees poking from the fabric of Crowley's coat. "I… had a hard fight. I'll be ok, I think." She shrugged it off as nothing despite the pain in her voice. Tyki let her. "How about you? Allen's pretty violent when he gets a notion into his head."

"We're about the same, I suppose. You might remember that I tried to explain to you the differences in me, between white and black, light and dark, the gray… that fine line I used to cross isn't something I can find anymore. The Innocence's did it, I guess." He shrugged, lifting Lavi enough with the motion to make the redhead groan. "Lavi, of course, is as horny and sickly as ever. Every time he wakes he's fine, but talking with his hands inevitably gives him a fever and he has to sleep again."

"I'm right here." The apprentice Bookman said softly. His eye was shut again, the hand he still had on Tyki's chest closed in his shirt and pulled him closer. Lenalee worried that her presence had excited him too much, but the boy smiled up at her, the light was still in his face even now. "Don't… talk about me like I'm sleepin' until I am. And I will be. Shortly." He leaned his face a bit into Tyki's shoulder and sighed; the Noah nuzzled into his forehead, tilting his head up enough to kiss the heated flesh there. The act made Lavi smile.

Tyki seemed only to have eyes for Lavi at that moment; because he turned his face enough to tilt his head over the top of Lavi's and sigh. "Wait for me."

"'Kay."

Komui watched the three interact and leaned back against the doorframe. Tyki looked at him and smiled a little, but didn't call him closer; instead he turned back to Lenalee. "I'm sorry." He said at once, though his expression did not change. "For hurting your friends as well as having something to do with the akuma that you fought," He reached out with his left hand and laid it on the turn of her cheek, just beside the burn. "I… care what happens to you, Lenita. Was I always like that?"

She smiled a little, patting the back of his hand with her palm. "You never said as much, but I think you were."

He chuckled softly and returned her expression sadly, his dark eyes wandered the lines of her face but never went lower, as if he could only see the light of her countenance and nothing else. "It can't be helped then. I don't want you to die, Lenalee. I don't want any of you to die. I didn't mean for any of you to die. I want…" His lips quirked awkwardly as if he remembered saying those words in another setting, with another purpose; he grinned. "To protect the things dear to me," He finished with a slight, sudden cock to his head.

His expression and Komui's both became utterly flabbergasted when the girl moved to twine her arms once more around his neck.

"She keeps huggin' you, I'll get jealous." Lavi mumbled without moving. The other two laughed at him good naturedly, seeming to make the kind of faces that mother's made when offered condolences in the death of their children. There was something so gray to it, yet so hopeful, that Komui pushed his glasses higher on his nose to keep his suddenly damp eyes from sight. He might have blamed the sudden urge to cry on the fact that he hadn't slept much in the last two days, but he knew that was not the case. He wanted to cry because, despite everything he had hoped for, the smile adoring his sister's face was not any more real than the one creasing his.

Lavi looked up at him and he almost ran away. Instead he swallowed hard and prayed the young Bookman didn't do anything to call attention to him.

_Don't worry,_ That emerald eye seemed to say to him. _Even if we don't all get through this, you'll still have Lenalee._

* * *

Kanda jerked suddenly awake at the sound of a terribly enthusiastic knock at his door. It was almost wood splitting – or he was tried and comfortable and hearing it made his skull hurt – he couldn't decide which.

"_Open, open, open."_ The call from the other side of the door was feminine and followed by giggles. He groaned and lifted an arm over his face, intent on rolling over and sleeping a good six more hours with his arms wrapped around Allen.

Unfortunately, rolling led him to place his elbow directly in the middle of his lover's face.

Allen growled at him and pushed him away a bit, seeming far too tired to drag himself out of bed, before he clamored over Kanda's chest, naked and dirty and annoyed, and onto the floor. Why Allen had to climb _over_ him was beyond Kanda, but he used it as an excuse to touch the boy's pert backside before he rolled onto his chest, burying his face in an Allen scented pillow. The white haired Exorcist silently laughed at the display as he tugged the top most blanket from the foot of the bed and draped it around his shoulders.

"Cover your butt, Yuu." He whispered as he made his way toward the door.

"If they haven't seen it before they can shoot it."

"Could be Cross."

"_Kuso…_" Kanda reached over and dragged a sheet over his back and then over his head, pulling it down under his forehead. "If it is, he giggles like a woman." He groused dejectedly. Footsteps warned that his complaint had brought Allen back to the bed, and then there was a kiss pressed into the covered hollow of his right ear, warm and hot despite the sheet between then.

"The song is back." Allen whispered into it. "But I'll try not to get used to it."

Kanda agreed without use of his voice.

When Allen finally did open the door he was more than surprised by what he found. Not only was there Yumeko, sporting a large tray of pastries and three small, oddly shaped bottles, there was also Sable, toting a larger jug of something orange and a tray of cheese and veggies. They both smiled brightly at him, or as brightly as they could these days, and Yumeko waved the pastry tray, tilting it toward him with an encouraging sort of smile. He tugged the blanket a little more tightly around his shoulders.

"Hello…" He said in a small, slightly frightened voice. The two young women seemed far too bright to be standing in front of his door. "What are you two… doing… here?" He forced himself to smile.

"Well!" Yumeko started the unstoppable torrent. "I was on my way to see the ever so unlucky pair, when I bumped into Staple—"

"Sable, thank you for remembering."

"Right! Anyway, I bumped into her standing outside my mom's room looking all melancholy, so we started talking. A bottle of milk and three chocolate cakes later, I found she was trying to tell _my mother_ that she having Hitori's baby and – because that's a fucking _death wish_ if she's being woken up and the rumors are that some redheaded man-whore stayed with her last night _and_ the night before so I bet she's sleeping – I decided to drag her around with me for a little. We got to talking and it seems to me that you guys agreed to be the godparents so—"

Kanda rolled onto his back and sat up in one swift, zombie-like motion. "Che. We did _not _agree to be the godparents to any offspring – Hitori's or otherwise."

"Sure!" Yumeko went on, still waving the sweets in front of Allen. Vaguely Allen wondered if he should eat one or just continue to watch it dance before his eyes, yummy and sweet and delicious looking. "Because of that, we were thinking that you'd both want to hear baby names and be kept up to date on things. And also be there to stop Mom from ripping out Sabe's uterus the moment she finds out something related to her is growing in it." She got just close enough for Allen to snitch a powdered doughnut and bring it to his mouth, munching at her with wide eyes. She grinned at him before her sapphire gaze darted violently away to her brother's. "You _know_ she will, too."

Kanda made to reply but Sable made a face at him, lips pulled to one side of her mouth.

"You know… you're both astoundingly naked, aren't you?" She observed softly.

"Che. Yes. We are."

"Oooh, sounds like the two of you were doing the nasty."

"Hardly."

"My bad, you guys call it something romantic… what was it? Lovemaking? No… mindless fucking? Nope. Sparkling hot buttsecks?"

"You say something else and Okasaan will be the _least_ of your worries."

"C'mon Yuu-chan, you know I'm teasing. You're like the good, stupid brother I never had."

"You're like the goop left on my boot after I step on a snail."

"Sticky and soft?"

"Gross and irritating."

"Allen's lucky."

He glowered. There was nothing to do when someone complimented him – especially not a woman. So he glared at her as best as he could, annoyed. After a moment she smiled at him and he returned the expression a little, just because it was nice to see someone smile like that and mean it, not just do it because they had to. Yumeko, when he looked at her, meant her smile also, and he found that encouraging a little – Allen, however, was smearing powdered sugar on their comforter with his lips turned down. The grin Kanda made at that was entirely affectionate and an expression he could not repress if his life depended on it.

"Godparents?" Allen repeated in an effort to bring the conversation back to what they were supposed to be talking about. Sable took the word as an invitation and stepped into the room, lugging her jug of juice and her tray of food in with her. At once she found space to put the food down on the coffee table but elected to keep the drink with her as she settled on the floor. Kanda didn't like having the two of them here with a naked Moyashi, but he didn't protest. This, it seemed, was more serious than he had first anticipated.

Allen snitched another doughnut – chocolate this time – on his way to sit on the bed next to his lover. Yumeko put the pastries within reach before she settled beside the blonde girl, opening one of her oddly shaped bottles with a smile.

Sable though, was the one who answered his inquiry. "Yeah, godparents… because this kids going to have a surplus of uncles," She turned his smile to Kanda, just because he didn't seem to understand that he would indeed be in that number. "And because Komui thinks it would be fine to raise it here, what with Uri being one of those uncles and Lloyd being entirely indifferent to the Noah's existence, so…" She looked back at Allen, whom had moved on to a slice of coffee cake, bed spread pooling around his hips. "It just seems logical." She finished quietly.

"What's a gob'paren' do?" The British boy spoke from around his food before Yumeko offered him one of her little ceramic bottles, which he declined with a small frown.

"Dote. And… let's say that at some point during the next eighteen years, you both live and I kick the bucket." Sable suggested with a shrug of her shoulders. "You either raise the kid or find someone who will. I don't really care which, as long as Hiroko doesn't end up with it. No offense."

"None taken." Yumeko chimed. She picked up a slice of cheese and began to nibble on it, looking between the two young men they were propositioning with slightly furrowed eyebrows. With that expression she finally looked the part of a doctor – not the part of demented sister or deranged in-law. "I know the first thing out of Yuu's mouth is going to be that you're all likely to die in the next few years – me too, really – and there's no way that an Exorcist can be expected to raise a child. That may be true, but that's not really something to worry too much over at this point. For all we know, the war will be over in nine months and it won't even matter. And, even if you _are_ gay, you're pretty much the most stable couple in the Order. So…"

"And you're nice people – for the most part. And have good morals. And don't sleep like pseudo-humans or count coffee as its own food group."

"I don't think Allen has killed anyone out of anger. Can't say I know about Yuu-sashii-chan."

"You both seem to understand kids. At least more than other people do."

"You love each other."

"You both understand child abuse."

"Being responsible for doting will undoubtedly open another layer of Yuu-sashii's psyche that has been repressed for the betterment of his hardheartedness and swordsmanship."

"_So, please?_" Sable finished. "It's either you or Tyki and Lavi so…"

"Che."

"I thin' it'sha good idea."

"I think you're eating too much to think, Moyashi."

Allen swallowed. "What's the worst that happens? One of us… raises your niece or nephew alone? Komui practically did that with Lenalee."

Kanda grumbled a curse. As much as he hated to admit it, Allen was right, and after Juliana he figured he could handle a non-thinking drool-covered perpetually-noisy baby until he found someone else to raise it, and even then the odds were he wouldn't need to. Even if he did it wouldn't say philosophical things or call him degrading terms of aesthetic enjoyment. "Fine."

"Oh, good." Yumeko lifted a sweet from the plate and began to pick it into smaller pieces before chewing them methodically. Her mind was wandering.

Kanda didn't want her to have a chance to voice whatever it finally settled on. "What else is there?"

"Pastries." Allen answered with a smile at him, just as bright and normal as it had been. The word seemed to carry with it the idea that all was right with the world so long as he had sweet bready things to eat. Kanda reached out without thinking and dragged the white haired Exorcist against his chest, making himself into something of a reclining chair for Allen's back to rest on, arms hooked around his middle. The British boy didn't protest, just looked up at him backward and grinned with all of his coffee cake filled teeth.

"Yeah." Kanda shook his head a little. "You'd say that."

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**Not a lot of insight into Kanda's head yet, but there will be next chappy. LOTS of it. And some other stuff. XD**

**Thank you everyone who reviews this, by the way. It makes me feel appreciated and it lets me know that you don't mind the length of my fic. I will tell you this though – I'm not Hoshino-sensei: I know where it's going and I know generally where it ends, and it's wonderful to have you all encouraging me to write it to its termination. We can cry together when we get there, if you don't mind the snot. QQ.**

**P.S. My beta is sleeping but I'm still posting. She'll yell at me to fix things tomorrow, but if you see any typos, feel free to let me know! 83**


	97. Kin

**Flaming Monkeys of Doom Batman! The plot has taken over the story! YAY!!**

**Disclaimer of D'wonderfulness: I do not own D.Gray-man. If I did… Kanda wouldn't sometimes have one of those razor-sharp uke chins in the manga. He'd always have the smooth, man-woman curve going. -nods-**

**WARNINGS: Umm… manga spoilers… I mean… it's not like you don't know this stuff, right? And… Plot? Fluff? Angst? MILD OOC ALLEN! YAY!  
**

**000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

Kin

"I love you."

"Shush."

"And you smell _wonderful._"

"Che. You smell like cake."

"You seem distracted."

"I'm _reading_."

"_Why?"_

"Because I feel like it."

"Shouldn't you be training rigorously? That seems more… you."

"I did. You were sleeping."

"Oh. So…"

"So did you _want_ something?"

Allen glanced around the library thoughtfully, seeming to think about the question. He was standing in front of his lover for practically the first time all day. The two of them having escaped the clutches of Sable and Yumeko and taken different turns when Allen required food and Kanda required distraction. It was only through luck and humming that the British Exorcist had found his lover tucked away in a dank corner of the library, reading a darkly colored book with a title written all in kanji. Damn Kanda for picking books in Japanese that weren't written with little helpful furigana to make Allen's day easier. "Do you… mind if I stay with you?" He shifted on his feet and didn't meet Kanda's eyes; the song was quiet today.

Kanda sighed. "Can you be quiet?"

"As a mouse."

Kanda glanced toward the front of the room and then the far wall before he moved his book and scooted farther into the sofa. Without saying a word he invited Allen to sit on his couch and curl up under his arm, looking into his book from the side, smirking and sighing at once. It was moderately strange to him that the British boy didn't even think about getting his own book to read and just settled down beside him, hooking an arm around the Japanese man's chest.

Kanda made a small, thoughtful sound of amusement. "You could get a book, you know."

"No, I'll just read yours."

"You can't. Kanji isn't something you just pick up."

Allen shrugged and leaned a little closer, placing his face in the turn of Kanda's neck so he could see more clearly. The position spread his breath down his lover's collar bone, but that was purely accidental. "I can try… hmm… that's… hmm…" Allen looked at the cover of the book, eyebrows pushed together a little, and Kanda tried to repress a smile. It wasn't a hard title if the boy knew kanji, but he seriously doubted it. "Um…"

"Give up?"

"I'm thinking."

Kanda sighed and rolled his eyes. "Che. No amount of staring is going to magically make you underst—"

"_The Black Ships_?"

The Japanese Exorcist looked from his lover to the cover of the book, back to his lover, and finally back to the book, blinking. After a moment his eyebrows went together and he looked at Allen, a frown tugging at his lips. "Have you been studying behind my back? _Kurofune_ isn't something I remember telling you how to read." He opened the book again, but he didn't look at it, too absorbed by the expression on Allen's face.

"I haven't studied." He said softly, blinking at the page. "But… it _sounded_ like _The Black Ships_ to me…" His brow furrowed and he reached out to bring the book closer, looking at the random page with curiosity. Kanda let him mostly because he was mystified – not because he was worried. "Let me see… if you're here then you were at the part that sounds like… _'There is a poem that supposedly pertains to the day the four black ships from America landed at Uraga Harbor, July the 14__th__, 1853…'_" He paused, blinking rapidly at the paper, and swallowed before he went on. His voice was marginally unsteady, as if he weren't sure, and his eyes ran the length of a sentence before he spoke it, taking in all of the ideas at once. Kanda blinked in awe of him – he didn't know if he could read Japanese and say it in English without moving the verb to the end of the sentence, and he was fluent in both. _"_'_Awoken from sleep of a peaceful quiet world by Jokisen tea, with only four cups of it one can't sleep at night.'_ That doesn't make any sense at all. Or… maybe it's… _'The steam-powered ships break the halcyon slumber of the Pacific; a mere four boats are enough to make us lose sleep at night.'_ It's both? Kanda…" Allen pulled his eyes away from the book almost desperately and frowned at his lover, eyes distant. "How come I can… read it? I shouldn't…"

Kanda took the book from his lover's hands and laid it face down on the table beside him, out of reach. He had grown used to Allen's strange behavior, had worried for a short amount of time that Allen was indeed losing his sanity, but this was different. He placed both hands on his lover's cheeks, both of them warm to his palms, and placed a delicate kiss in the middle of Allen's forehead. "I think we need to tell someone else about this, Moyashi. Not Komui if you don't want to, just someone who might know what's going on." He felt Allen's face nod a little into his fingers and leaned enough to cover the boy's mouth with his own. It was gentler than he had initially thought it would be, and the hand that came up to touch the side of his neck prompted him to pull away – a shy kiss they could have in a library, making out was impossible.

"Master might know." Allen whispered into his lips, but he didn't let go of Kanda's throat. Instead he leaned forward a bit, just until he could feel the brush of flesh on his own, just until he could feel a tiny, needy catch in Kanda's airway. He would never get enough of that reaction. He went on after a moment of calming himself through his breathing. "If anyone does."

Kanda made a muffled sound of agreement before winding an arm around his lover's shoulders, pulling him haphazardly onto his lap. Ironically he didn't think about what might happen if someone saw him stretched out across one of the dark leather couches with Allen resting on his hips like he did the prospect of them found lip locking – not that the action was less obvious. He didn't even pause when his boots hit the material of the cushions and squeaked; no one would care if they weren't kissing. "Moyashi-kun—" And then they _were_ kissing, and he was laughing lightly into the contact until Allen pulled away and smiled down at him. "I'll go with you when you talk to him. Whatever it is that's making you change, making you read, making you… hear things and have panic attacks… it concerns me, too. I don't care what it is, but I still want to know." As soon as the words were out of his mouth Allen was pressed full-length against him in something like a horizontal embrace. "You know there _is_ another sofa."

"It doesn't smell like you, doesn't say nice things to me, and doesn't hug me back, so... I only see one sofa…"

"Che."

Allen turned his face sideways across the flat plane of Kanda's chest and smiled up at him, his cheek pressed to the starched fabric of his lover's shirt. The angle of the armrest behind his lover's head made it a relatively good angle for conversation. "Thank you, Love. For being so calm." He mumbled, twirling his fingers around a button. "Even when I say strange things or show strange abilities, you're still there, being so logical that it defies logic. It scares me a little." His lips twitched in an awkward look of half-felt fear and he released a sound that was a bit like a giggle. It made him calm when Kanda just placed his hand gently on the top of his head and glared at him.

"Honestly," Kanda said the word very quietly, his fingers stroking through his lover's hair. "I don't know what to do, so I do what I always have. When you freaked out on me I just finished what I'd started. When you told me that you heard a song that _was_ me, I just tried to understand it the way I can feel sound when I mediate. It's not that I'm any surer than you are, I'm just… more stuck in my ways."

"Well, thank you for being stuck."

Kanda narrowed his eyes at Allen. "You aren't supposed to thank me."

Allen didn't voice the sexual thought he had but Kanda could still see it dancing behind his eyes. He shook his head and reached up behind him, taking the book from its place on the table so he could lifted it to his face. Allen groaned and rolled over, smashing himself between lover and couch so he could see the book despite the fact that he wasn't really supposed to be reading it. Kanda moved his arm to accommodate him, the pages just in front of both of their eyes.

"We should try other books, too."

"It can wait. I want to be beside you."

"Che. Can you see?"

"Yep."

* * *

Komui fiddled with his pen on his desk, frowning at it. He was a hypocrite. He was horrible. He was digging himself a hole he couldn't get out of.

He had known as soon as Lavi went missing that he cared for the boy too much for his own good, but he hadn't let it bother him, hadn't thought about it anymore than he had to. And when Lavi had come back, he had felt like he could handle things as long as the redhead was happy – as long as he was happy and healthy and Tiego Valente took care of him. That had been the first lie. And many, many more had followed. When Tiego Valente turned out to be Tyki Mikk, he had convinced himself that he could leave them be and help the Black Order at once, through questions and heartfelt attempts at peace. He had continued to think that Lavi's happiness was all that mattered to him.

And yet he had set them up to be torn apart.

Every time had spoke on the phone with a member of Allen's group he had thought about mentioning Lavi and Tyki, but he had never gotten around to it. Something else was always more pressing. Something else always filled that little gap in conversation that would have reminded him of it. And now, having seen the no longer dying apprentice Bookman in that Noah's arms, he felt two-thirds guilty and one-third unsatisfied. As much as he hated to admit it, he was jealous, and some twisted part of him wanted to go back in time and be sure that Tyki Mikk breathed his last.

But the thought of Tyki's death made him remember the moment he had stumbled through the smoke and the dust, the instant he had caught the fading light in Lavi's eye with Judgment pointed at the center of his forehead. The young man had seemed so pale with the blood coming out of his mouth in ruby red strings, beading like gems on the floor beside him. His skin was carved from glass set on canvas, a color between white and brow and gray, his eye a faded, dirty emerald set in the bronze of his eyelashes. He was priceless. And at the moment that he was made of such precious things he was broken, the will to go on faded from his face like the color from an old, sun-bleached bed sheet; slowly, but faster than Komui thought it should have. It bled away like the blood bled from his lips, only he didn't try to hold it in, or still it; he let it go like something he didn't need or want, something useless and painful. Even so, despite the fact that the redhead gave himself over to death in that moment, maybe even asked for it with his steady gaze, the scientist just could not let him die.

Komui had been selfish. Komui was selfish. And now that Lavi was reportedly eating again, and waking every few hours, he couldn't deny the fact that he had started to lie to himself all over again while the boy slept.

He couldn't be happy for the sake of Lavi and Tyki anymore. He couldn't keep the face up for Lenalee. He couldn't pretend that it wasn't under his skin, chewing at his nerves, eating at his heart, dampening his resolve. What he needed was to let go.

Slowly he pushed himself up from his desk, leaving his newest, exceedingly bias and untrue report on the events of six days prior on its top unfinished. He wandered from his chair toward the back of the office where the storage room was and rummaged for his key in his pocket, already frowning. The lock opened easily when he found it, and he walked into the cool dark room without looking behind him. With the door shut tightly and locked – twice – he leaned back and closed his eyes to the infinite darkness of his little windowless place, and let out a long held sigh. He let himself sink to the ground without regard for the white of his uniform and kept his shoulders on the door, then slowly brought his hands to his face.

Quietly, because even now someone might find him, he wept.

* * *

"Yummy… yogurt. This is totally a reason to live."

"Your sarcasm is _so_ refreshing! I no longer feel the need to go outside today."

"Oh, look! There aren't even fruit bits. Just yogurt with yogurt on yogurt. Delish."

"If you don't like it _I'll_ eat it. I'm supposed to get roughly three hundred more calories a day than I normally do anyways. I feel fat."

"Why do you feel fat?"

"I'm pooching. That's why."

"Lemme see."

Sable narrowed her eyes at the rather spritely redhead reclining on a mountain of pillows and tried to ignore the Noah spoon feeding him ever so delicately. She was unsurprisingly comfortable around both of them, having known Tyki for much of her younger life with Uri and having a deep understanding of Lavi's willingness to ignore his prior affiliations. No one knew about her past knowledge of the Noah family outside of Kanda, Allen, and Lavi, but no one asked any questions.

Plus, Komui wanted people to see that Lavi and Tyki weren't dangerous even if the Noah was capable. That was one reason to have a room with a view. And generous visiting hours when they were both awake.

Admittedly it was a bit awkward, being she knew that they had both had a part in the act that took Hitori from of the world, yet she couldn't find it in her heart to blame them anymore than she could blame Allen – things like that happened and there was no way to stop them, no way to point fingers. So she frowned at Lavi the same way she had frowned before, annoyance evident in every line of her forehead.

"It's awkward." She clipped shortly.

Tyki chuckled, bringing this spoonful of seemingly tasteless food to his own mouth. When he had cleaned the metal to shining he looked up at her with his slightly more gold than brown eyes and smile, the spoon bobbed in his hand like a baton when he flicked it. "It's natural. You should be proud."

Sable's face fell further, one eyebrow held over the other. "By that logic I should give up shaving because it isn't natural. And the two of you should break up."

"Ty-chan…" Lavi was reaching for the spoon but Tyki pretended not to notice. Sable eyed the redhead for a moment, stretching right handed for the implement to feed himself with, before she turned her eyes back to Tyki's constant stare. Somehow, despite the fact that she had been attracted to Lavi at one point and thought of Tyki as an uncle she had never had, she thought it was cute. "Ty-chan…"

"I suppose if you're uncomfortable showing your growth, there's nothing I can do to convince you."

"Spoon, Ty-chan. Hungry."

Sable shrugged. "Eventually I _won't_ be able to hide it and then the rumors will start. I'm really not looking forward to that…" She reached down and touched the top of her stomach thoughtfully, a small smile tugging at the edge of her lips. After a moment she cocked her head to the side so her hair fell down around her shoulders, shining in the electric lights. "At least I don't really get morning sick anymore, and I feel like moving again. Not all… emotional and moody and gross." She drummed her fingers and the fabric of her shirt rumpled at it, though not enough to show what was under the white material any more than usual.

"I'm starving to death, spoon hog."

"That far along already?"

She cracked an awkward grin. "Time flies when you're having fun."

"Don't make me use my finger."

"How cynical of you."

"Meh, keeps me breathing."

Tyki smirked back and twirled the spoon between his fingers as if he hadn't heard Lavi asking for it repeatedly. He did look, however, when a hand tangled itself slowly in his hair, tugging at the curls experimentally, gently, but strongly enough to turn his head against his will. When the redhead had his face completely turned, Tyki blinked repeatedly at him, seeming not to understand what he wanted.

After a moment he offered the little eating utensil as if it were a precious, divine offering. Lavi took it with a swift narrowing of his eyes and Sable made a soft sound of amusement.

"You're holding up ok then?" Lavi asked as he stabbed the piece of silverware into his food and moved it to his mouth. Now that he had complained about it and had it denied him, he seemed to have grown a genuine appreciation for the flavorless yogurt he had been given. He even glared when Tyke tried to take the spoon back.

"I guess." She tugged at her shirt a little, not that it needed to be straightened. She sighed deeply, though not tiredly. "Kanda and Allen agreed to be godparents, which is good, I hope. Maybe Kanda will learn to like selfish annoying drooling things as much as he likes selfless annoying drooling ones. That he can't have sex with, of course."

"_Burn." _Lavi chuckled, but lowered his bite before he could take it. "Actually, if I remember right, he was always pretty good with kids. Being calm – for the most part – helps. Though he's a bit… straight forward. Strict." He lifted his left shoulder, winced, and took a bite of the yogurt.

"An ass."

"Kind of has a stick up his butt."

"Or Allen."

"Stop! Stop! You'll make me snort and yogurt will come outta my nose."

"Heh."

Tyki shook his head but did not speak, a line of white forming where his teeth showed with his smile, too bright for the room. The thought he had then was an unhappy one so he decided not to voice it, no one needed anymore sadness than they already had – especially not Sable. To bring up the story of Cole now, or even the human friends he had left behind, would undoubted lead everything in a terribly dark direction he didn't want to go in. Instead he leaned a little closer to Lavi, letting his face press on the boy's pillow.

"Tired, Ty-chan?" Lavi turned his head to him – an act that would have seemed like a miracle the previous day, and leaned close enough to press his lips to the side of Tyki's mouth. The Noah looked up at him and attempted to shrug.

"It hurts a bit more than usual," Tyki responded lowly, and he pressed a hand to his chest as if to show where. "Perhaps it's too soon for you to be sleeping on me with all of your weight, hm?"

Lavi let the spoon fall to his lap and didn't raise it again. "You know, at this rate we're never having sex again." The air of seriousness with which he said the words made Tyki smirk and Sable laugh, he looked back at her over his shoulder as if he had forgotten that they were all three in the same room. She was making an odd expression at him, what with her hair hanging around her face and her eyes half-closed in mirth, and he furrowed his eyebrows at it even as a vibrant blush spread across his cheeks. His lover brushed the side of his face with his fingers and he looked back, heat still burning on his features.

"The moment you won't get sick from me touching you, I'm touching you. I don't care if we're in the middle of a hear—"

There was a distracting dash of white across the window before the door burst inward, a panting young man standing in the doorway with three large books under his arms, each in a different language, silver eyes focused on the blonde woman at the far side of the room. Tyki stopped speaking at once, slightly surprised, and watched as Allen Walker stared at Sable with his mouth slightly open, breathing deeply. The young Exorcist didn't even look at him, just opened his mouth and waved a yellow book at the girl, skin cast in shades of green and white.

"Sable! Do you read Siddham?" He blithered at length, fumbling not to drop the other two books he held under one arm.

"Hi, Allen. Yes, I'm feeling great. No, I don't read Siddham yet. I can't say I know what it is."

The boy sighed with a smile. "I don't know it either, but it's a kind of Sanskrit."

Sable lifted an eyebrow and glanced at Lavi and Tyki, the smaller of which sat with his spoon full of yogurt three fourths of the way to his lips without moving it. They were just as perplexed as she was. "Are you… feeling ok?" She asked with a little shift in her chair.

"No. Yes. Just listen." Allen went on, putting the book on the floor. He opened it to a random page and pointed to a line somewhere in the middle. _"'The Aum, or Om, is a symbol that embodies the three gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadev – also known as Shiva. Together, these three are the Triumtri, and represent creation, existence, and destruction; because these ideas are embodied in the Aum, it is the most sacred letter in the Sanskrit alphabet.'"_ He looked up at her, blinking rapidly, and turned the book so she could clearly see that the words were not English, they were swirls of symbols that she didn't understand. A mask of confusion covered her face. "It was a random book in Siddham, I've never seen it before. No idea what it's about." He admitted with a downward tug on his lips. He swallowed before he spoke. "I don't know what's going on but… that's what it says. I can't read it to you _in_ the language it's written in, but I can tell you what it means."

"You're not making sense…"

Allen sighed. The second book came down by the first. "You _do_ read Japanese, right?"

"No. Not a word."

"Sable."

"Yes. I read most Japanese."

He opened it to a random page again, showing long lines of kana and kanji that were well beyond the normal student's ability. He pointed to a line on the right side and ran his finger down it, seeming to analyze it before he opened his mouth to speak. _"'So it was that the young Prince came to the mountaintop and there fought against the dragon who had taken his lover. A great storm came down from the heavens, lightening forked the sky with every—'_ I can _understand _it! That _is_ what it says, right?" He turned the book to face her, like the first, and slid it forward, tapping the place he had read.

"Yeah…" She said after a moment, reading the line before and after. "But… you don't read Japanese."

"I don't read Siddham either. Now this." He took the last book and opened it, this time to the first page. Sable recognized it at once as _Don Quixote_ and smiled, having loved the story almost as soon as she'd picked it up. Allen turned a few pages and picked a place, frowning. "It's gibberish. I have no idea what it says. It just looks like Spanish." He said, and his frown deepened. "I don't know anything just looking at it. Only that it's called Dawn Kwixotey."

"I refuse to correct that horrible butchery of the Spanish language."

"Exactly! I don't know what's going on. I feel like my head is going to explode if I read anything else, but I _can _read it. But I can't read the Spanish. I can sort of understand French though. It doesn't make sense." He shook his head and looked down at his three open books, blinking at them slowly. "Kanda wasn't sure if maybe he was just seeing what I said was there or what, so I wanted to check with you." He bit his lower lip and touched the one written in Siddham. "I just… don't know why I can _hear_ it like I do." He finished softly.

Lavi cleared his throat and Allen slowly looked up at him, as if he hadn't even known the apprentice Bookman was there. He blinked at the redhead for a long moment, then at the Noah sitting beside him, then at Lavi, and his expression became suddenly frightened. His mouth was dry. His stomach hurt. He looked like someone had just told him he were dying.

He wanted to apologize and run away at once.

And then Lavi smiled at him. "So you're going crazy, Moyashi-chan?" He chimed brightly, and he finally got that scoop of yogurt into his mouth. He watched a bit of the horror leave Allen's face only to reset itself when his gaze wandered to Tyki. Allen thought they blamed him. "How's that goin' for you?"

"I don't…" Allen fidgeted a little under his gaze. "Know, really… if I am."

Lavi elbowed Tyki in the side and the Noah twitched upward with a little narrowing of his eyes. He sat up off of the pillows, doing his best to disentangle himself from Lavi and yet still be by his side, and breathed in a gentle breath. He opened his mouth to say something, anything really, but couldn't make up his mind what he wanted.

"Er… It's nice to… see that you're well, Allen Walker." Why did it have to sound creepy when he said it? He didn't want it to be creepy. He wanted to be _friendly_. Lavi hit him in the side a little harder. He glared at the redhead. "Would you stop it? I have bruises!" He said, and then a little more quietly. "It's awkward enough without having you goad me on like a pack animal."

"You could introduce yourself."

"He knows who I am; otherwise he wouldn't have shoved a sword through my chest, dear."

"It was more of a slice, actually." Allen mumbled from the floor. They both looked back at him, eyebrows high. "I'm… sorry… about that." He played with the spine of his nearest book, shyly, childishly, and turned his face away from both of them. It was a terrible apology and he knew that they needed more, deserved more, but he didn't know how else to convey his regret. He swallowed before he went on. "I can't really defend my actions and I don't want to… but… I didn't know that you were… ok to be here. I didn't realize that you were… for lack of a better word, _good_." He looked up at Tyki then and his next words died on his lips; the Noah was smiling at him.

Tyki pushed himself away from Lavi a little, hanging his feet to the floor, before he walked on unsteady feet to the end of the bed. Allen watched him mutely and Lavi sank against the pillows as his lover moved away, the spoon hitting the bottom of his dish without notice. He didn't complain, however, and instead watched as his lover knelt beside his friend, always on the edge of falling, and reached out to touch the younger boy on the top of his head.

Allen's face was blank when those fingers brushed gently through the front of his hair.

Tyki kept his smile even. "It is never a pleasant thing, doing what you think is right only to find out you were wrong." He said quietly. "I don't blame you, Allen. Not six months ago I might have done the same to even Lavi he had wandered into the Ark wearing his coat. And it is because of what you have done that I can tease him with a spoon rather than beat him for my own enjoyment. Not that you understand that, do you?" His hand dropped to the book Allen had been touching and he moved it between them. "Not like this." The British Exorcist didn't understand what he was doing – indeed he was thinking about throwing himself away from the Noah because the man still was a Noah – but looked at Tyki all the same, wanting to understand. He felt a strange little ping in the back of his head, a sort of open fifth that made his chest feel warm.

_Kindred_ was the only word he knew to describe it only because _brotherly_ wasn't something he was willing to apply to Tyki Mikk.

"I might know why you can read these things." Tyki continued, and tapped the cover of the book with his finger. It struck loudly, pleasantly, a strike a percussionist would have proud of. Allen's eyes looked from it, to the words it pointed to, to Tyki's face, searching his eyes.

"Why do _you_ know?" He asked softly.

Tyki's face became distinctly gentle. "Because there was someone else like you, Allen Walker. Because I may be like you. You may know how to read this the same way I know you were born on Christmas."

"What? How do you know that?"

The Portuguese man sighed deeply, and looked down at the book in his hands. Somehow he hadn't imagined that this would be his first civil conversation with Allen Walker – real conversation, not playing cards silently in the galley of a ship. He had never imagined just who the boy was, what he was, or what he might become. He felt bad for telling him. No one needed to know what was going to happen to them when it was bad and unstoppable – not in his opinion.

He hoped he was wrong.

Allen saw the man's reluctance and frowned at it. Why would Tyki understand his strange new ability? Why did he feel like it was ok to be so close and yet want to attack the man? He didn't understand. His brain was doing strange things to him. He wanted answers and he aimed to get them by asking or by using his Innocence, it didn't matter. "Tyki." He said in a serious voice. The palm of his right hand hit the book the Noah had and he held the man's eyes with his own. "Why can I read this?" He demanded, or tried to demand.

"Because your lover can. Can't he?" Tyki answered in a whisper.

Allen's eyebrows pressed down toward his eyes, confusion moving across his face. "What?"

"The pretty Japanese boy. He can read these."

"But…" Allen turned his eyes to Lavi. "You _told_ him about Kanda and I!?"

Lavi waved his hands at the white haired Exorcist, an amused expression on his face. "'Kanda and _me_,' and that's totally not what's important right now."

The British boy looked once more to the Noah of Pleasure, then glared at Lavi, before deciding that the redhead was right. It didn't matter if Tyki knew about him and Kanda, it wasn't much of a secret anyway and there was valuable piece of information he was missing. A piece of information Tyki had. It was odd to him to think he was so willing to talk to the man if he could learn what caused the music, but it was even stranger that the man was willing to tell him. He expected a catch but he didn't voice his worry.

Instead he searched the pair of brown-gold eyes that looked down at him. His fingers curled against the book. "What do you know?" He asked the question because it didn't feel as hollow.

"You want me to tell you here?"

"Yes."

"Now?"

"Yes."

Tyki sighed. "Not long ago, maybe eight or nine years, there was a fourteenth member of… my thirteen person family. The Musician. The Fourteenth. A white sheep in a flock of black, if the analogy suits you. He betrayed the Earl." Lavi leaned forward a bit and the bed squeaked, but Tyki pretended not to notice. The apprentice Bookman had a right to be curious – he had never told him anything about the Noah family, much less about their powers or their lines – and here he was, telling an Exorcist a lost part of history. Allen seemed to be absorbing this information rather well, though he hadn't put the ideas together yet. "The Earl wanted to kill him for turning on… us."

"What does that—"

"I don't know the details – I wasn't a Noah then. But that man, the Fourteenth, died. When he died he gave his will to a perfect stranger. If he hadn't have picked randomly it might have gone to someone he was close to, being wills follow the lines of love."

"I don't—"

"You." Tyki went on. "Possess the same powers he did. I wouldn't be surprised if you held the License of the Player yourself."

"What? But… I grew up with Mana! If I were… like this then he would have seen it. I've never met a Noah that wasn't trying to kill me besides you! And even if I had… are you saying that what I'm…it's not a coinc…" Allen's eyes became very round suddenly, understanding brightening his eyes and filling them slowly with water. He jerked his head downward, looking at the book written in Japanese, before he looked back up at Tyki. He knew then, what the Noah of Pleasure was telling him, but he couldn't accept it. If that were true what did it make him? A not-Noah? What did that make the Order to him? Anything at all?

He made a short, mirthless sound of amusement. "You are telling me that _I'm_ a Noah? You expect me to believe that I can hear th—"

"I know that it's hard to believe," Tyki interrupted him again, even softer than before. Sable was leaning in as well now, her mouth slightly open, and Allen didn't move when Tyki's hand touched the side of his face. He was rooted on the spot it seemed – his left hand didn't even twitch. "But I'm telling you that you're most likely becoming one. Trust me, I've been through it. I have no reason to lie. If your lover can read these things, doesn't that prove it to you?"

"How would that prove it to me?! I don't even get what you're trying to tell me." Allen's voice went from screaming in angry disbelief to choking with fear. The hand flitting through the front of his hair was the only thing that kept him from striking the Noah in front of him. "If you're right… then… why do I know things Kanda knows?"

Lavi made a soft sound of realization and sat up a little, dragging Allen's attention away from Tyki. "It's like… how I can speak Portuguese. I can because Tyki can."

Tyki waved a hand at him to incite silence and Lavi narrowed his tired eyes at him. Tyki pretended not to notice. "When one of us loves someone, they want to be with that person forever. They want to be with them even in death. So the dark – the _Noah_ that never dies – passes to the person that we love if we do not force it onto someone else. It destroys a person, takes away their personality and replaces it with memories, changes how they speak and react in slow, subtle ways until they aren't who they were anymore. The person is still there in the memories sometimes, but they are not the creature they used to be.

"In that way, a Noah who falls in love with a person gives their will willingly or not. It ensures that they can never kill themselves to save a person they love.

"What this means is…" Tyki paused to swallow, trying to explain things in terms that Allen would be able to follow. "If you _are_ who I think you are, your mind is making that tie between you and the one you love, preparing in case you die. Because of that you know things only he would know, and it won't be long before he begins to do the same with you. You should hear music in things, see a ghost in the mirror that isn't there when you turn around, there might be a voice in the back of your head that won't leave you alone. It will start with your name, then it will move on to other things. Claim you. I could be wrong, Allen, but—"

"No." Allen pulled away from Tyki, looking down at his hands. He reached up and touched his own face, calming himself silently, breathing in and out, try to make sense of things. Even if he could read these things and understand what they meant, it didn't mean he was a Noah. It didn't mean Tyki was right. But who would know the truth? Who could tell him about his childhood or another time in his life this might have happened to him?

_Master._ He thought at once. "He knew Mana."

"Ty-ki…" The spoon Lavi was holding tumbled from his fingers and clattered against the floor. Allen looked up at him and so did Tyki – neither of them saw what Sable did across the room from them. The redhead looked at them both and shook his head before he moved too much and knocked the remaining yogurt on the floor as well, Tyki tried to stand but Lavi held out his right hand to him as if to call a halt to his movements. "Memory. Not injury. I'll be… ok… just let me…" His hand fell to his side and his eye seemed to glaze over, but he stayed aware of the room around him, even if he couldn't see it. "Allen."

"What? What's going on?"

"He's remembering something I did in one of my lives." Tyki said without looking at Allen. "Inheriting my will."

Lavi turned his face toward Allen but his eye didn't focus. "It's me… and I'm telling you… oh… it's our date… but there's… _Allen?_" He reached up and touched his own forehead, turning his face down into his palm. It was a strange position to sit in with his eye open, but seemed to give him an anchor between what he was remembering and reality. Tyki hadn't taught him that, but so seeing Lavi do it on his own gave him hope. "This is when… we—you—he talked about undressing me with your eyes. And how I like pain though, not in so many words. God, it's fucking crazy to see this from your angle…"

"You like it?" Allen was slightly shocked. "I always knew you were the king of deviance – I mean… sorry." He glanced sideways at Tyki, then returned his gaze to Lavi, casting aside this new news as hurriedly as he consciously could. "If he's remembering something you did… then… _why_?"

"Because we love each other, Allen." Lavi replied softly. "Don't you love Yuu the same way?"

The soulless eye that looked at Allen made him swallow. He stepped away, not wanting to think about what was becoming of Lavi, and perhaps himself, maybe Kanda as well. He needed to get out of this room. As long as he was near Tyki and Lavi, as long as they tried to show him what he could be, as long as the two of them were with him, he would feel that it was true. Without picking up the books he turned to the door with a nameless fear in his chest and ran. He needed, even if it was pointless, to tell Kanda.

The memory only lasted a few moments before it was gone, and Lavi left drained in its wake. He panted up at the ceiling until Tyki moved to his side, offering a hand for him to hold on to. _"Fuck_…" He drawled, twining his cold fingers through the Noah's. "Am I really healthy enough to start having those again?" He asked before Tyki silenced his mouth with a kiss that was longer and deeper than any they had shared in the passed week, forceful enough to make his lips bruise. When the Portuguese man withdrew, the redhead had nearly forgotten his question.

"I don't know." Tyki answered, and pushed himself up beside his lover. He caressed the side of Lavi's cheek, smoothing his hair away from his eye. "But wake me up if you feel the need to relive something."

Lavi nodded. "The Allen thing though…"

"Hm?"

"When he got here… he was prophesied as the Destroyer of Time."

"Oh?"

Lavi nodded again, more harshly. "If you're right… what if he's not supposed to destroy the Earl of Millennium? What if he's supposed to remember things that this… Fourteenth Noah did, and bring the past back by knowing them? Does that make sense to you?"

Tyki blinked down at his lover and furrowed his eyebrows, trying to follow the thought. "I don't know that either, dear." He said honestly. "But I do know that you should rest."

* * *

"It doesn't matter what I am, I'm still me." Allen mumbled to himself as he walked at a near inhuman speed toward the library. He _wasn't_ a Noah, the ghost following him around in his refection _wasn't_ the fourteenth, and the fact that that number had been haunting him for weeks now was purely coincidence, he was sure. That voice wasn't some other person's, some other evil person's, it was something else, something he wouldn't mind as much as being _one of them_.

"Not that it matters." He repeated a little louder. "I'm still Allen Walker. I'm still everything I'm supposed to be. I made this path with my own feet. I fell in love with Kanda because _I_ fell in love with Kanda. The voice hasn't been around forever."

**All-en.**

_Get out of my head! You aren't really there!_

The library doors seemed lighter than usual when he threw them open and walked inside, ignoring the startled look the librarian on duty gave him as he walked back toward the place he and Kanda had claimed as their own. His boots were noisy but he wasn't thinking about them. They weren't important at the moment. What _was_ important was when he found Kanda sitting in front of a book with his eyes closed, lips gently parted, and the streamers of his blue-black hair cascading in a frozen waterfall from the tie on the back of his head. The red ribbon was still there, tied in a delicate bow.

Allen moved forward a little more quietly, but Kanda's eyes still came open when he drew closer. He had a strange look about him, thoughtful, bland, and Allen frowned at him for a moment before he reached out touch his lover's face.

"Allen."

He stopped before his fingers could touch Kanda, too taken back by the way his name was said. A tiny little peep of sound came out of his mouth to express his comprehension.

"I love you." Kanda wasn't looking at him, just staring across the table at nothing. "And now you can tell me the news you think is going to make me hate you."

"Wha-what?" Allen pulled his hand back and rocked on his feet, his voice suddenly a strained, desperate whisper. It was true that he thought Kanda would leave him if he believed Tyki's words, but he hadn't felt at all like he exuded that emotion. It had been in the back of his mind, buried under the fact that it _was not true._ "I didn't… really have anything t—"

"You saw Lavi."

"I saw Sable. Who was in the same room as Lavi."

"Che. What else?"

"That's it."

Kanda narrowed his eyes at Allen and he took another step back. It didn't make sense that Kanda would _know_. "You know something that you aren't telling me because you're scared. I can _sense_ it." The Japanese man insisted with a scowl. "I don't care if it's not true and I don't give a damn who told you. Tell me."

Allen swallowed. He wanted to hug Kanda. He wanted to kiss him. But those things were not what needed to be done. Instead he licked his lips and spoke softly, his eyes held in place by his lover's no matter how hard he tried to move them. "Tyki Mikk told me that… there was a fourteenth Noah. And he could do what I can." He answered softly, and closed his eyes to the sudden wave of tears he felt at repeating it. "If it's true… I should hear music in things and see a ghost in the mirror that isn't there when I turn around and know what you know and – I don't want it to make sense. I don't know if he's just being cruel but when he spoke, it _sounded_ like truth! An-an-and—" He was crying too hard suddenly and his knees buckled; his back hit the nearest bookcase before Kanda could push back his chair with an earsplitting shriek. "I thought _brother_ when I met him! It's too much to be a coincidence but I _know_ it can't be true! If it was true… if it is true… I'd be… I'd feel…"

**Allen.**

"_Shut up!"_ He clapped his hands to the sides of his head and sank against the bookcase with a violent, sobbing retch that – somehow – brought his face into contact with something warm and soft that smelled like soap and flowers. Arms wrapped firmly around his back and he threw himself into the embrace, too distracted by the scent of Kanda to give a damn about how loud he was being in a library. "Not you, Yuu. I me-meant th-the thing in my… my… oh _God_…" He clutched desperately at his lover as words seemed to solidify everything that he had heard. The arms around his back pulled so tight he thought his ribs would crack, but he didn't mind them.

Kanda was making little shushing sounds at him, knowing that that was all he could do for now. If he thought about the nonsense coming out of his lover's mouth he would do something stupid and regrettable – so he would pretend that none of it mattered until Allen was calm enough to face it with logic and understanding, not tears and open denial. If it was true, Kanda didn't know what he would do, but he sure as hell wasn't going to hate the boy he had come to care so much about.

Allen's knees gave out and the two of them ended up on the floor at the base of his bookshelf, the entire upper half of his body pressed against Kanda's. The Japanese man was wearing his sweater again, gray and keeping them apart, and Allen threaded his arms under it, his face pressed to the man's collar. The song was so loud in Kanda's arms that he felt it singing in his chest, drowning out the panic faster than physical soothing could have, but even as it soothed, even as he willed it loud enough to drown out that insisting voice in the back of his head, he knew that it made everything true. He let his eyes fall shut and began to rock slowly in time with it, enjoying the feeling of Kanda's face pressed into the top of his head and his own on Kanda's chest. He sighed.

It surprised him when, despite the fact that he was already _hearing_ the tune in his head, he began to hear it around him as well.

Kanda was humming.

It was softer than Allen's sobs had been, but it still carried through their section of the library, more tenor than the British boy would have imagined his lover's singing voice. He reached up a little higher on Kanda's back and tilted his head upward, letting the song dance across his face and into him, somehow, in a way that seemed to warm his heart in his ribcage. He felt suddenly tired, like he had walked a very long way to get here, and he knew the song did that. It gave him peace and made him feel loved, even if it normally only made him feel marginally happier. This, the sound of Kanda's voice, was different.

"Love…" A hand glided through his hair and lips pressed into his temple. His blinking was slow. He looked up and his eyes drifted out of focus, Kanda's were shut the same as his own had been. "Oh…" It was the only sound he could make. His body sagged sideways and the song stopped in Kanda's throat, his hands pushing Allen up as he blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on his lover's face.

"Allen?"

"I feel… tired…"

"You're bleeding."

"I am?"

Kanda reached out and pressed his palm over Allen's left eye, his fingers pushing all the way up to the star of the boy's curse mark. When he pulled his hand back it was red with blood, a stinging sensation started on Allen's face. "Che. A lot. How did that happen?"

"I don't know. It doesn't hurt." Allen answered at once, and moved his hand to touch his cheek as well. He couldn't tell where the blood was coming from. His vision blurred again looking at the red on his fingers. "We should get something before I bleed on…on any…ooh…" He gripped the bookcase in an effort not to fall over, the room suddenly seeming unsteady. "I n-need to lie down." He mumbled without looking at Kanda.

"You need to hold on to me, I'll carry you to the medical wing."

"But you haven't told me what you think about… about what Tyki—"

"I think you're bleeding and need help, Moyashi. What that demon said doesn't matter."

"But Love, I… might be…"

"Shut up. No more nonsense. We'll deal with it went you aren't about to faint, Allen."

"Oh…" The silver haired boy turned his head down toward his lap and watched two drops of blood splatter on his left knee. "Ok."

Kanda did the only thing he could think to then, and tilted Allen's face up enough to kiss the side that wasn't bleeding. His lips just barely touched skin before Allen let out a long, deep sigh and went limb in his arms, breathing steadily as if he had fallen asleep. He still felt warm, his pulse was steady, but his consciousness had run out of him – his eyes moved behind their lids as if he dreamed. It didn't make sense to Kanda, but he pulled the boy against his chest and looked down at him even as fingers pressed against the middle of his chest in sleep.

"Che."

He tried to stand up holding Allen cradled in his arms like that. He got to one knee when an inexplicable wave of exhaustion hit him. He made a sound of discomfort and sank onto the floor again, breathing deeply.

"Great…" He mumbled at his unconscious lover, watching the British Exorcist's face drift in and out of focus. "Now what, Moyashi? We just sit here until I pass out, too? Fuck…" He tried again and his vision started to swim by the time he was halfway up, but he reached out and grabbed a shelf with the hand he had under Allen's knees. He wobbled. He cursed. He needed to get out of the library.

_I don't know what's wrong with you and I don't know what's wrong with me but… if you are a Noah… how could I not know?_

* * *

"_Oh_, that's nice…" Her voice was huskier than usual, warm in a way he couldn't remember hearing it, and she tightened her fingers a little. "Strong, but not fucking overpowering like that other shit you had."

"Enjoy it while it lasts, I have things to do and places to go and I intend to take every ounce of this stuff with me when I go."

Hiroko sat back with her tumbler and sighed up at Cross, aware that his arm was stretch out across her back and enjoying its heat there. She was happy that he had stayed by her and her by him. It was something of an understanding between them, something she couldn't explain beyond the fact that it was, and she leaned far enough to the side to feel him cuddle her under his arm, his fingers playing through the side of her hair.

She wasn't _normal_ by any means, but she was much better than she had been when they started sleeping in the same bed together.

The ice clicked in her glass as she brought it to her lips and swallowed, the harsh burn on her tongue and down her throat sending a flurry of warmth into her chest. She drank half of it, two gulps. When she pulled it down, he was staring at her, not that she cared.

"What?" He asked conversationally, but they both knew he meant to ask whey she would drink more in a second than she normally did in an hour. She didn't look at him, instead studying the liquor in the bottom of her glass.

She made a face and downed another gulp. "I'm about eighty-five and a half percent sure that Sable is having Hitori's baby."

"Aw, what a cute drooling ball of teenage stupidity it will be."

"Fuck you, if it's true I'll be related to the monster. I'll be… _Baa-chan_."

"Grandma."

"Shut _up_, Mari. I'm sure you've got grand-demons running around with all of the women you've fucked."

Cross growled at her. "I have grand-nothings thank you. I don't make mistakes like that."

"Right. That's what every man with blue balls tells his woman."

"Well, I mean it. Why do you think I wanted to become a magician in the first place?"

Hiroko laughed and looked up at him, her smile stretched unevenly across her face. "You're fucking retarded, Mari-chan. And I like that about you. For the record."

"Thank you, Hiro. You're brutal honesty is equally lovely."

She chuckled and he grinned lopsidedly back. With a sigh she lifted her glass to him, the sleeve of her yukata slipping down her arm a bit with the motion but not enough to expose her. The lazy look, in Cross' opinion, did wonders for her. "To grand-demons, whenever you decide to have some." She smiled.

"To never passing on my genes for all eternity, _kampai!_" He tried to hit his glass against hers and she pulled it away; he gaffed at the horrified glare on her delicate features, lips pulled back in a gloriously ugly snarl, the thin lines of her eyebrows pressed into a look of disgust. He chased her glass for a moment, trying to strike it regardless of how she leaned to the side to avoid him, and smiled when she had it dangling off the edge of the bed, short arm straining. "Damn it, what's wrong with that toast? Kampai with me, Hiro." He said when he had her more than half under him, their legs in an awkward, childish knot, his face pressed into her neck so his glasses sat funny on his face and his mask threatened to fall.

She looked at him sidelong, eyes shaded by her bangs. "What I'm going to say isn't supposed to flatter you."

"Oh, I'm listening."

She glared harder. "The world needs more womanizing bigots like you." She said through her teeth, and then brought the glass to her lips to chug what remained in it, then suck an ice cube between her teeth. She rolled the frozen bit of water in her mouth and Cross made an annoyed sound at her until he worked her one handedly onto her back, looking up at him with a curious expression. She let her empty glass fall to the bed right-side up as she watched him down his liquor, moving to straddle her thin frame against the mattress.

_Maybe this time…_

His hands hit the bed to either side of her head and she held the ice between her teeth as she smiled up at him half-playfully. The corner of his mouth twitched.

"Unless you're offering to have my child, I'm not having children, Hiro." Cross whispered at her, only vaguely aware that she lifted her hands to touch the sides of his face. Her eyes narrowed – a look he saw a lot with women who wondered what was behind his mask – but she didn't blurt her desire to see it. Instead she frowned a little, and let her fingers wander to the side's of his throat and then to his shoulders.

Her expression became even darker after a moment before she spoke, thin lines pressed around her eyes and mouth. The ice cube clacked back into her throat and she swallowed it whole. "I don't know, Marian." She sighed, tugging at the edges of his coat. "If you were the fucking lame-ass heartless, yellow-bellied, cocksucking, settling type, I might say yes. But you're not. You don't want to settle about as much as I want to. It'd never work with just me and your sniveling retarded spawn and no one else." She brought the glass back to her mouth and pulled out another piece of ice indifferently. "'Oo 'ad illy."

"I'll assume that was an expression of discontent."

She nodded.

Cross smiled softly at her and leaned down enough to place his lips against the hollow of her throat. He blinked his eyes shut and then open again and found her turning her head away to give him more space. "When I get back from where I'm going, after Komui has told the higher ups that I'm back and they scold me for being a bad little general, I suspect that I will have to confess my sins, tell Allen my secrets, and then fall off the face of the Earth before they kill me." He moved so that he was looking down at her again, in the eyes, seriously, and she looked back at him as if he were speaking in a language she did not understand. He felt his chest grow tight. "If you want me to… I might fall off the face of the Earth… and you can fall off with me."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about running away together and changing our names and living our lives on a hill in Scotland, Hiroko."

She blinked at him. "Fuck Scotland. It rains there."

"It rains everywhere. Pick a place, Hiro."

She shook her head, seeming to see a problem with her argument. "Run away together? I have two kids in the Order – I can't just _leave _them here and not give a damn about what happens in this stupid unholy war. Shit Cross, I don't like the idea of running from the Vatican like a fugitive for the rest of my life very much either. And I'm not gonna piddley-fart around in some ass-backward Indian village where I'll get malaria while I watch your parasites play. Thank you." When she was finished she pulled the ice cube from the back of her mouth where it had fallen and held it between her teeth again while she glared at him, seeming not to realize how much she looked to be a pouting child. The expression did not, however, make anything she said ring true. She sounded like she was lying about everything but her children, and the thought made Cross smile.

"I've never ran away with anyone, I've never even offered." He whispered back at her and lifted a hand to touch the side of her face with his knuckles. She didn't move. "But I can't stand the thought of you thinking that I'm dead like everyone else will."

"You're going to fake your death."

He smiled at the fact that it wasn't really a question. "Is there a better way to fall off the face of the world than to no longer be a part of it?"

She frowned deeply. "My kids though… and… it's not like your pussy-faced enough to fall in love with me, right?" The undertone of fear in her voice made him smile wider and he leaned down at it, not quite close enough to touch her face with his hair.

"You hate your daughter and your son didn't call for three years. I'm pretty sure you can make your amends and I can have grand-demons."

"You seriously want me to make babies with you?"

"No, I want to have unsurpassable, wonderful, mind-blowing sex with you. You want me to have grand-demons." He said honestly, and pulled away to finish off his alcohol. There was no way he would have said any of this more than two-thirds sober, just because these things weren't ideas that normally went with his mind and character. He felt them, but liquid courage got them out of his mouth easier. Honestly he would rather have faced a thousand blood thirsty akuma, naked on a flaming hot beach with no sunscreen, at noon with no shade at all, and the Science Department watching him fight than he would have liked to ever voice his feelings. Sunburn hurt a hundred times less than rejection ever did. "Besides, if there's something that comes of it, it's not meaningless either."

"It's not meaningless if you love me, asshole."

"Sorry but I simply don't know the meaning of that word. Besides the platonic one, of course." He said and shifted enough to remove himself enough from her body to be lying on the mattress beside her, his face closer at that angle. "Think about it, Hiro. Komui is bullshitting reports left and right in an effort to keep people from knowing I'm here. And it's going to take me at least two months before I'm done with my mission. That's a long time for a paper to be lost under his coffee cup, don't you agree?" He smiled at the disappointed look she gave him. "I swear I'll come back to you."

"Oh God, Marian, that's the cheesiest most retarded thing you've ever said to me."

"And I bet you're glad I said it."

"Yeah right! I'll be thinking about you and your promise to come back to me for two months rather than thinking about the grandson-demon-thing that's going to pop out of that whore!"

"You can thank me later. And you might as well say it will be three, being I intend to stay lost for at least one more month before I come find you."

"Fucking bitch!" She lashed out with her fist and hit him in the chest.

"What?!" It didn't hurt. He grinned at Hiroko and her tiny fist pressed harder, not that it had any force behind it with which to cause damage. She wasn't trying.

"_You_ are a real douche bag. Asking me to run off to bum-fuck Scotland and then telling me I have to _wait_ three months to see you again. What the hell kind of invitation is that?! Stupid." She pushed herself up on her arms and tried to move away, but he caught the hand she had hit him with and yanked her forward. Her face turned up to his, hurriedly, and her mouth hit his hard, bruising his lips on his teeth.

_Maybe this time…_

Cross pushed her away after a moment and found himself breathing hard. Just one kiss and breathing hard. He felt like a virgin. "Is that a yes?" His voice was a nearly forceless push of air through his lips as if he were timid and flustered, though neither could have been true. He cursed his cold fingers when she touched them.

"I'll think about it."

* * *

Lenalee walked. As strange as it was to go around in house slippers, moving just for the sake of it, she was. She wandered the innermost hallways outward, wiggling her toes, giggling when she stepped out of a shoe on accident, and eventually found herself going right passed the lounge – which was strangely not empty. Bookman – no longer her brother's tumor and yet no longer clamoring to see Lavi either – and Crowley bent over a game of chess, and a dark haired body stretched out full length on one of the far couches, a long arm draped so she couldn't see the persons face, a lizard curled at it's side.

It was rare that she saw someone she didn't know in the lounge, but she wouldn't bother them. Sleep wasn't something to be interrupted – Komui had taught her – no matter where it took place.

She went on, walking lightly. She didn't know if it was alright to find pleasure in wandering around without her Innocence, but she did. Maybe it was selfish but she didn't care, God was sadistic for finding pleasure in the pain those boots gave her and she had seen enough not to care if she did one thing that He didn't like. She skipped passed the door, scuffing her slippers like a much smaller girl than she was.

Her wandering brought her around two long hallways and down a flight of stairs as if she were giving herself the grand tour. She could have done it with her eyes closed if she had wanted.

As she was passing the library, reminded vaguely that she should pick up more books for Lavi and maybe a few copies of the newspaper, the low groan of a door opening caught her attention and she turned. The metal portals – covered with panels to give the illusion of wood – shuddered and a person opened them with a sound like a strained growl. She pranced forward on the balls of her feet and made it to the door just as Kanda thrust it wide, staggering heavily until he dropped to his knees not four strides from the threshold and two in front of her feet, Allen grimaced with closed eyes against his chest.

"Che. Stupid fucking librarian." He spat sideways. His eyes were on the floor in front of him, before her slippers, and he shook his head as if to clear his vision before he tried to stand again. His right knee gave out on him and Lenalee moved to catch him, his face turned to her and he blinked dully. He hadn't known she was there.

"What's going on? There's blood on your clothes."

He tried to right himself and fumbled sideways; she guided him against the wall, Allen still in his arms. "He screamed some nonsense that that… _creature_ told him and then his face started to bleed and he just… passed out. Like a light. I can't wake him." He tried to explain, but Lenalee's concerned and frowning face was fading with every word. He clamped more tightly on Allen and fell again, this time siding down the wall. "I can't… stand anymore… my feet and hands are… numb." She was touching his face with concern but he couldn't feel it. "He fainted and he's dragging me down with him." He mumbled almost brokenly, blinking upward as if that were somehow a reassuring direction.

"What did he say? Did he say anything before he passed out?" Lenalee had turned her attention to the now twitching boy in Kanda's arms.

"That he's turning."

"Turning?"

"Into a Noah."

She made a little gasping sound and looked down up at Kanda. He could see something in her eyes, something like recognition, dark and frightened. She opened her mouth and he shook his head to stay conscious. Everything was swimming in sound and light, everything was wrong and he felt so tired. _So tired_.

"Who told him that?"

"Ty…ki…" The world was dimming considerably with every passing heartbeat and it hurt to keep his eyes open. Why did she even care?

"When he sleeps…" Lenalee's mouth fell open and she was speaking to him, but the anchor of her voice wasn't enough anymore. He wanted to stay awake but he wanted to sleep. Somehow, in his gut, he knew that it was Allen's fault.

"Not. Passing. Out. Fuck." He grated from the back of his throat. Fighting it though, now that he couldn't hear her speaking, was causing him pain that he couldn't explain, burning into his head. Lenalee had him by the shoulders and was shaking him, her mouth still forming words he could hardly read with his unfocused eyes. Time was somehow moving at a snails pace for him, his blood felt like sludge in his veins.

_It's the same._ She was saying. _It must be true._

_Bullshit._ He wondered vaguely if his mouth formed the word properly when she frowned at him. _I'm not like that stupid rabbit. I wouldn't cross that line._

_Kanda! Kanda! Stay with me! _Her mouth kept moving and his blood kept thickening with every repetition of his name, it didn't seem worth it to stay awake what with the fire in the left side of his chest and the pain shooting through his head like lightning bolts. There were black spots forming in front of his eyes.

Lenalee did the only thing she could: she drew back her right hand and slapped him, hard, right in the cheek. The handprint that formed on his skin did nothing for the pinched, pained, soulless expression in his eyes.

"He's right…" Kanda's voice came out very distant, as if he didn't even know that he was making sound. "I can feel it singing." He slumped against the wall entirely, obviously no longer conscious. Lenalee shook him again, then shook Allen, and was unsurprised when neither stirred more than the other.

"Like Tyki and Lavi…" She whispered, and dashed away down the hall.

Her slippers remained on the floor where she had knelt in front of Kanda's knees.

**00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000**

**D: The plot monster ate my chapter.**

**You like?**


	98. Black

**So this one is a little shorter than the ones that came before, and at least a day late as our internet service at my apartment complex decided that they didn't need to work for a day. LAME. My internet is part of my RENT, I should damn well get internet that I pay for, ne? Aw well. I suppose that if this is up there's not really a lot to complain about. Well, YOU can complain, being I didn't answer all of the reviews for fear of having to update even LATER, and firefox lost all of the tabs and I'm too lazy to swim through my inbox for reply URLs…**

**-sigh-**

**It's been a long few days… I shall not delay you anymore than I have to. You're here for the story, not my autobiography. 8D**

**Disclaimer of D'timpani: I do not own -man. If I did… I think Lavi would be more of a man-whore than Cross is. D:**

**WARNINGS: PLOT CONJECTION, ANGST, KIND OF JUMPY STRUCTURE AND MEN LOVING EACH OTHER. EnJoY!**

**-- --**

Black

It was oddly bright, though the sky was starless, a drape of black velvet so immaculate it might have swallowed the world if not for the crescent slice the moon in it, bleeding silver on the water. The leafless trees, bathed white in the illumination, struck a harsh contrast against the backdrop of pitch sky, like bones in a tar pit, waiting to sink into their final resting place. The cobblestones though had a blue quality to them that the rest of the world lacked, and the pair of charcoal eyes that followed them took note of it quietly, watching them wind toward the water's edge like serpent come down from heaven to drink for that black and silver pool. The lake was too large. The mirrored surface was too flat and too thin, transparent despite the light. Looking at it the boy thought he might be eaten by it the same as the stars had been eaten by the darkness, but he still pushed himself up and moved closer.

Two steps on the snakelike road and he heard something move besides his own two feet and turned to it, vaguely aware that he should be alone. The moment his eyes found his lover, draped like a corpse against the road, he remembered. They had not been here to start – wherever this was. They had been in the library, speaking of things that sent his heart pounding in his chest like a timpani.

"Kanda?" He moved forward slowly, as if his feet did not want him to. He felt that maybe he didn't even have feet, just awkward things with which his body deemed suitable to walk on. The man on the walkway stirred a little and he bent to touch him, tilting his cool face up into the moonlight.

The Japanese man was wearing a badly beaten coat for some reason, the left side more or less destroyed but for the part that used to be his sleeve by his forearm. Nevertheless his sapphire eyes blinked open, unfocused and soulless. Allen touched the man's forehead with a hand that wasn't a hand, just something to touch with. He knew at once what he had to do to really wake him – put him to sleep, bring him here – and he settled himself on the icy stones and drew his lover closer.

He sang. Softly, somehow knowing that singing too loudly would make someone angry, he formed the words with his mouth – which somehow remained a mouth unlike his hands and feet. He sang two versus, closing his strange feeling eyes to them, and ran his left hand across his lover's forehead, calling him in, back, out, here. Why he had to do it he didn't know, but there was no music here without his voice lifted in song.

Kanda stirred slightly, his distant eyes becoming focused on Allen's face. There was no moment of darkness in his consciousness between seeing Lenalee in the hallway and finding himself here, drawn in by Allen's voice – it just happened. He blinked at the boy who held his head cradled against his knees for a moment until the song stopped, then reached up to stroke the side of his face, running his fingers down Allen's curse mark and across his black, endlessly deep left eye, marveling at how it seemed to be a hole he could see the sky through.

Allen bent until he kissed Kanda's lips, his hands that were not hands on the sides of his lover's face. He pulled back when he felt how deliciously warm and real his lover felt, surprised. "This isn't really a dream, is it Love?" He breathed out across Kanda's face, and watched the man's bangs wave in response.

Kanda's eyes darted back and forth between Allen's, searching for something he didn't seem to find. "Che. It doesn't feel like one." He admitted quietly. After a moment he ran his hand down to Allen's lips and felt his breath with his fingers, warm and slow against them. "In my dreams no one breathes. You're breathing. I also didn't fall asleep; I passed out after you did." He explained, and curved his palm around the back of Allen's neck to draw him into a strange, upside down, one handed embrace.

"Kanda?"

"You smell normal."

Allen managed a barking chuckle. "That helps you deduce that this isn't a dream?" He caught Kanda's hair in his fingers and dragged downward, coming the front of it, loose unlike it had been in the library.

"You don't look normal, Moyashi. You look hollow."

"Hollow?"

"Your eyes are black."

Allen frowned, but didn't seem to be disturbed by Kanda's words. "What do you think we should do?" He inquired gently, soothed by fingers trailing gently down his neck.

"Che. Get off the road. See whatever we're supposed to see here."

"Supposed to see?"

Kanda rolled his eyes. "If it's not a dream then it's a vision, Moyashi."

"Oh. I thought people who had visions were crazy."

"Could say the same thing for people who hear voices." The Japanese man commented dryly, pushing himself from the cobblestone walk. His lover made way for him until the two sat facing each other, both of them kneeling, Allen's strange hands folded against his knees, Kanda's still feeling the lay of his shoulders. For a moment the two of them stayed quiet like that, taking in their odd surroundings with a combination of curiosity and fear.

After a long moment Allen looked out at the water and frowned, the expression not reflected in his eyes at all. "I can't hear the song here, but it's not like before." He whispered, "When it happened before it was like I had forgotten who I was, like some part of me had been taken out but now… I just feel like me. Allen. How I was before the sound started." He pushed himself to standing and wobbled slightly as if he didn't know how to use his feet properly, and then took a step forward, eyes drifting up to the moon. Kanda watch his lover's surprisingly short hair fall back from his face and smile; the light from the heavens was not reflected in his eyes. "I don't feel… empty." Allen mumbled the words, dark and honest and painful, before he turned to face Kanda and offered a hand, his expression unreadable. "I think we're supposed to go the water."

With a short nod of understanding Kanda reached up and took the limb that was offered in his hand and stood, following his lover's previous line of sight to the lake that awaited them. The setting seemed like something out of a nightmare to him, though it lacked the usual lotus and hourglass, what with the too dark sky and the trees that seemed to reach up for it, begging or praising its seemingly unending depths. He tried not to look at them. Instead he found his eyes drawn to the equally black water, and the light dancing across its marble surface far better than a rock would have skipped it.

"Allen." He found himself saying without meaning to, but decided it was best to just speak his mind once the name was between them. "If this place is proof that you are a Noah," His fingers squeezed on his lover's palm, "Would you rather die than become one?"

The British Exorcist looked back with a slightly open mouth and blinked, returning the press of fingers. For a moment he didn't speak, only watched his lover turn to him with serious eyes. He didn't seem certain. "If what Tyki said is true… all of it then… if I turn against you and the Order, if I try to hurt someone or something then… yes, I would rather die than become a Noah. But…" He looked away and his hand gripped almost painfully, his ebony eyes welling with tears the same color; it was too soon to think about this, it was still unreal. "If becoming a Noah means I help the Order, even if I forget who I was before… it will hurt but please," His voice was trembling so terribly he worried Kanda wouldn't be able to understand him. "Let me fight until the war is over. Even if I don't love you anymore."

A wave of indescribable emotions came over Kanda at the words and the tears that Allen produced too honestly to be a dream. Without a care that the tears were black nor a thought that Allen might as well have just asked him to rip his own heart out and hand it to him, he tugged the silver haired boy against his chest, sharply aware that he felt as if the two of them were indeed touching each other. Allen didn't hug him back, too ashamed of saying what he had, but the older man didn't care; too busy trying to sort through his own feelings to notice.

"Che. I won't lose you." He said thoughtlessly, and he felt a hand pressed to his heart. "As it is I'll only have you until I die and I won't give you up before then. I don't care who says otherwise. The day you stop loving me, I swear to God, I'll kill myself."

"Don't say that, Love."

"If you stop loving me you'll be dead, Moyashi. Even if your body is walking, it won't be you moving it. You'll be a puppet for the thing inside of you."

"Stop it! Don't talk about it like you know it's true!"

"It is, isn't it?!" Kanda took Allen by the shoulders and pushed him away, holding on to him even as hands gripped his wrists to keep him close. He looked at both of Allen's colorless eyes and focused on trying to make him understand. "You said you would love me forever, you said you would rather die than let me die, and I _told_ you that nothing – not even a Noah would come between us. Do you think of yourself as an exception to what I said, Allen? Because you're not. If you're a fucking Noah then you're at the Goddamn top of the list of things that aren't going to tear us apart!" He gave the boy a little shake, unable to see comprehension in his eyes. "You aren't allowed to die before me! Physically or otherwise. If you do, I'm coming with you."

"Kanda—"

"You're going to fight it until you can't anymore and you'll be there when I can't live anymore." His fingers were hurting from holding Allen so tightly, the boy's face screwed up in an expression of pain and fear, dark tears streaming unhindered down his cheeks. He could see utter defeat in him and knew that reminding his lover of his own impending demise had been the wrong way to go about things, even if he hadn't been able to think of a better way. Rather than try to right his mistake he forged ahead, loosening his grip on Allen as he did. "I've already come to terms with the fact that I'll die before you, Moyashi. Don't make me watch you go instead."

With a childlike sound of yearning Allen reached out for the older man and floundered into his arms, growling his negation. There were too many things that he didn't want, and not being able to hear or feel the music made him feel lost now that Kanda was telling him these things, even if it was a dream or a vision or whatever. He rocked on his feet with his face pressed so hard against his lover's demolished coat that he worried he might scrape his skin with the harsh material.

Allen swallowed a sob to speak. "I won't stop loving you, Kanda. I'll find a way that you can keep me until you're old and wrinkled and too sore and tired to even tease me anymore, and I'll love you even then." He said loudly. He had to breathe and cough before he went on from all of the crying, but he didn't care. "And don't look at me like it can't happen. It can happen. If I don't believe that it will, then it won't!" He insisted before his legs gave out on him and Kanda was holding all of his weight, unfazed. "Now let's get this stupid vision over with so and I can wake up and find it."

"Che." Kanda felt his face take on a wry smile as Allen took his weight back on his own feet. "Still moving forward then?"

"It's what Mana told me to do."

"Fitting, for a guy named _Walker_." Kanda answered gently; glad to see his lover's determination restored so quickly. He wiped the tears from under Allen's eyes and leaned down to catch his lips in a hurried kiss. The boy smiled at him softly, though the meaning behind it was too hard to read. Kanda knew there was uncertainty behind it, as well as fear, but there wasn't a thing to be done about it, not here with his own doubts running through his head. As sure as his conviction had sounded he didn't know if it was possible to love a Noah, not with how much he hated them.

Hated one.

Allen furrowed his brow as he turned down the road toward the lake. "You know… if Walker fits me then… what does Kanda mean besides _Holy Rice Field _and _Man of My Dreams?"_

Kanda turned with him, a small, less pained grin on his lips and spoke indifferently. _"Double edged sword."_

_-- --  
_

_I want licorice. I hate licorice but I want some._ Sable thought vaguely as she watched Komui attempt to look like he knew what the hell he was doing. She didn't need to be a mind reader to see that the guy had finally let go and dealt with whatever emotional baggage he had been toting around for the past few weeks, he was back to doting on his younger sister like she was a virgin goddess to be saved for immaculate conception. He wasn't doing that now, indeed he was ringing his own hair in an effort _not_ to as far as Sable could see, put thinking about it made her want to vomit on herself all the same for some reason. It was just too much non-twin-sibling-closeness, she decided, too much _feeling._ There was no way she'd ever be that way with Lloyd or ever want to be – the bond of older brother to younger sister was made only for the purpose of teasing in her mind.

Like when she and Uri had turned six, bought ice-cream, and thirteen-year-old Lloyd and called them both fat and smashed their heads together for crying, then taken the ice-cream.

Komui wasn't like that. He was more like a very young father than a brother in that respect.

But he still had his exceedingly annoying qualities.

She imagined that part of Lenalee's patience with the man was based on obligation of some kind. Sable didn't know the details – didn't want the details – but she imagined that the arrangement had been something like her own with Hitori, only with guilt on Lenalee's part. Lenalee, after all, was the type to see value in everything around her and find none in herself.

Sable's mind came back to the issue at hand when Komui finally scratched his forehead and sighed, making the face he always made when he was about to try and explain something in an administrative, understandable way that he didn't get himself.

_God, I want licorice._

"As far as I can see…"

She perked up at his voice, intent to listen to his bullshit and break it down to the best of her ability. _Licorice…_

Komui cleared his throat and tapped the piece of paper as he turned to Lenalee, "It's a dream. They're both in an exceedingly deep, very active sleep as best I can tell, but I can't be sure." He lowered the paper and looked at the pair whose room they were in and frowned at the two of them, wishing there was more. Lenalee took the paper as if her eyes could somehow find something in the mess of lines that he had missed. He took it back only a moment later. "And you're saying that they're this way because Allen might be this… Fourteenth Noah?" He asked for what had to be the seventh time since Tyki had tried to explain it without waking the sleeping redhead beside him. He looked terribly tired as well but he didn't complain about it.

"Yes." The Noah of Pleasure said softly, and Lavi let out a slow, deep sigh against his chest. Tyki lifted his left hand and absently stroked the redhead's hair, acting as if that somehow made up for the fact that he wasn't acting directly as a pillow. "He isn't awake yet at this point, so I doubt Allen understands what he wants or what his purpose is, he just knows he's there."

"How sure are you of this?"

Tyki shrugged. "If you didn't see Lenalee for a decade would you know her when she walked in the room?"

Komui's hand attempted to fist on his paper but he didn't let it, he just clenched his teeth instead. That was a terrible parallel to make in his mind and he almost said so. Instead he closed his eyes and sighed. "You're telling me that you recognize him?" _Ridiculous._

"Lord no." Tyki said back with a laugh. "I can't explain it. It goes deeper than looking, Komui, but it's not as close as blood. All you need to know is that I am fairly certain he is indeed my kin – half my kin, a family member that's not related." He seemed to give up after that and pinched the top of his nose as if to stop it from bleeding, not that it was. "I would really love to go into all of the nitpicky details but I'm afraid that I can't. My health demands sleep and I'm not going to deny him that." He shook his head and let go of his own face before he looked up at the three people who stared at him – one confused, one frightened, the other entirely indifferent to the events unfolding around her.

_Licorice and pickles! Damn it, I'm not far enough along to be having cravings yet._

"How is his progress, by the way? I hate to change the subject from one darling Exorcist to another, but I'd like to have everything in order for when he's well enough for you to prosecute."

Komui actually did crumple the paper then, his face contorting in a wave of anger. Lenalee saw it for only a moment before he worked himself into nothing more than a clenched jaw and fisted hands. "Prosecute?! You think I want to—"

"Come _off_ it, Komui." Tyki settled himself a little lower on the mattress with his eyes closed, calm despite the fact that he had just interrupted the Chinese man's yell. "I know enough about the Order to understand that your leaders will be more than unlikely to find me an unsuitable resident of your tower, but they will not kill me when they find out killing me will turn one of your few weapons against you. And trust me, he would turn, I keep me from being evil with him. So instead they will go after Lavi to avoid the issue all together." He inclined his head a bit toward Lavi without opening his eyes, as if he didn't need to. He wasn't looking at Komui no, he was simply saying what came to mind and was true, thoughtfully and half cynical. It might have seemed odd to them if it hadn't been happening on and off for a half an hour. "That isn't what I want to talk about. I want you tell me how he's recovering." He finished as seriously and calmly as a man who wasn't speaking of his wounded lover.

Komui tasted bile in the back of his throat and swallowed it. "His progress is impossible. Even if I told the Arch-Generals what happened exactly they wouldn't believe me. At the rate he is currently going, if you stay with him and this bond that you share continues to do what it has been, he could be walking anytime – tomorrow, two days from now, five at the most. It _should_ take him at least six months to walk and another five before he can do anything like running or being hit or fighting, and that's not counting the time he should spend rebuilding the muscle he should have lost but…" Komui had gone from angry to stumped in a matter of moments, analyzing and exasperated at once. Telling the Noah about it somehow relieved his anger. He breathed in slowly and went on. "His metabolic rate hasn't changed but his healing is too fast to be normal – or anything like normal. I don't know how he does it. If his body is really rebuilding like it is, he should be eating more than Allen."

Tyki nodded and wet his bottom lip. "Then… when do you intend to tell them that he is no longer comatose and I am apologetic for the damage I have caused?"

Komui shifted on his feet, a little nervous about having this discussion in front of Lenalee and Sable. They both looked at him expectantly, however, so he was given no choice but to speak further. "As long as it takes to come up with a lie to cover up exactly what happened. I don't want any more blame falling on the two of you than is absolutely necessary."

"You may want to rethink that logic."

"Why?"

"Because the boy you intend to blame is a Noah as well as an Exorcist."

"They don't know that and neither do we."

"But they will. Would it not be better to blame the one responsible and save the Noah who has always been against the Earl?"

"Tyki, I know that you think that's logical but we really don't kn—"

"I'm telling you that I _do_ know, Komui." Tyki cracked an eye as if to show his certainty. "If you don't believe me, ask someone with an authority on such things – though I'm relatively sure I'm the best you've got." He let his eye fall shut and heaved a sigh, all of the irritation in him running out with his air. The angle of his head on the pillow seemed to signify to Komui that the man was teetering on just this side of sleep already, though it seemed impossible with how he had spoken just moments before. "No more." The words barely parted his lips and Komui sighed at it – he couldn't argue with a sleeping man, no matter how hard he tried.

Lenalee tugged on his sleeve and Komui turned to look at her, eyebrows pressed together in curiosity. She was pale, worried. "If Allen is this… other Noah then… what will we do with him?" She asked with a small quivering of her lower lip. Unthinkingly he reached out and pulled her to his chest, eye focused on the far wall.

"I don't know, Lenalee." He stroked her hair more to soothe himself than her. "I really don't know."

-- --

The lake water was not as austere up close as it had been from down the road, though it had not lost its degree of intimidation. The thing didn't stretch out forever like Allen had thought it did on first seeing it, and it reflected the night sky in shades of red, the moon in velvet black, the colors an inverted sin against the stark nature of this dreamscape. The walked right to the waters edge and looked down at it, the cobblestones formed a short wharf out into the water that ended abruptly which left them standing with water on three sides and land not two steps behind.

There seemed to be a broken city under the red sky of the lake, not reflected in it because the image was not upside-down. Allen tightened his grip on Kanda's hand at the sight of it then buried his fear in his gut. In the middle of the scene beneath the ripples, was his own corpse.

And Lenalee, crying.

"Che. Like we didn't know she'd cry." Kanda grumbled from beside him. Allen moved an elbow into his ribcage and looked up with a slightly miffed expression, which Kanda returned as a playful smirk; Allen realized that his lover was trying to make things seem less dark than they already were and cracked a lopsided smile at him, glad of his presence. Alone he might have frightened himself into a tree by now thinking about what these things – his hooded body, Lenalee, the black moon – might mean.

Allen opened his mouth to suggest getting into the water when a sound like a hissing crack cut him off. They both turned to the far side of the lake as a blast of cold air hit them with the force of a brick wall, thin and crisp with ice and heavy with moisture. He watched as the far side of the water was swept with a sheet of ice too fast to be natural – not that anything in this place was even close to following order. Fear gripped his stomach and he lurched forward, still holding Kanda's hand as he knelt at the waters edge, the sudden need to stop the covering of the water before it was complete filling his mind.

He caught sight of his own reflection and stopped.

Already half covered in crystallized water and darker than the sky above them, a figure too much like his own looked up at him and smiled a gash of white so bright it rivaled the moon. The partially open button down shirt the figure wore was the same has he had now – without the blue ribbon at his throat and the vest over it – and he _knew_ that, as much as this wasn't himself, it was.

"You're…"

**My Allen.**

Kanda took a firm hold of his lover's right hand and yanked him back from the edge even as the reflection reached out and took Allen's left, keeping him from retreating farther than the edge of the short pier. The white haired boy felt his heart jump into his throat and rocked on his feet, unable to help or hinder his lover's attempt to pull him away from this _thing_ that struck such a resonate chord within him. It didn't matter than the thing didn't have features – it was still _him_ in that water, and he knew that if he got close enough, pulled it out, or something, the music would come back even in this place.

**My Allen.**

"Do you hear it, Love?" His voice was blank – like he didn't feel fear at the three times too long arm holding his left wrist. "Can you hear it when it says—"

**Mine. Allen is mine.**

"He's not fucking yours, Noah!"

The words made Allen's head snap back away from the still grinning face to focus on Kanda. His arms were shaking, though he didn't seem to be straining or pulling anymore than he had at the first jerk he had given, his eyes wide with some kind of feeling Allen had never see so plainly on his features. Allen frowned at the lines of sweat on the man's skin and took a short step toward him, only to find himself pulled painfully toward the water, left leg bending to push up and keep him where he was.

He suddenly didn't like the situation very much.

**My Allen. My Allen. My Allen. My All—**

"Shut the Hell up already! I don't give a damn what you are! You can't have him unless you go through _me!"_ Kanda pulled back again – violently – and Allen found himself glad he wouldn't be feeling the pain in his shoulders when he woke up. The anger in Kanda though – as well as the sudden feeling that the hand on his left wrist was going to break him – were currently entirely too real.

"Wait, Love!"

"Don't you _dare_ say that you want to listen to that _thing_!"

"That _thing_ is part of me! We have to listen!"

"If you say it's a part of you I'll shove you in that lake and let it have you!"

"What are you saying, Kanda?! Why are you pulling so hard! It didn't touch me until I got clo—"

**Kanda?**

The Japanese man stiffened at the name and stood still, his fingers so tight on Allen's arm the boy thought his hand would pop off. "Don't—"

**My Kanda?**

"No!" He responded at once, fear mingling with the hate in his eyes. Allen shifted toward him and marveled that the hand allowed him to move. "Who are you? What are you? Why do you want us here?!" When the question had left his mouth a second arm, just as long and thin as the first, reached out of the water and wrapped its long fingers too tightly around Kanda's throat, dragging him toward the water's edge. Allen jerked back, the fear that Kanda had shown only a moment before filling his chest. He held Kanda's wrists too tightly, though he couldn't say that he held on with his fingers.

Kanda could breathe fine, but he couldn't wrench the hand off of him. He growled at it, clawing with his free hand.

"_Kus—"_

**I am the Fourteenth, **_**Lover**_**. Who might you be, **_**Love?**_

"Let me go!"

**You cling to me.  
Like rime on a spring leaf.  
And breathe my bloodied air—**

"What ar—"

**With hungry mouth  
And thirsty eyes,  
Find shadows and despair.**

"Stop it!" Even as Allen said the words he felt his wrist slip from Kanda's hold, his fingers as limp as those of a fresh corpse, cool for the brief moment that they brushed his skin. The Japanese man fell to the ground with his hands pressed to either side of his head, eyes open as if unable to see even the faintest hint of their dreamscape. Allen ignored the second hand retreating into the water and moved to his side. The one on his wrist did nothing to try and stop him.

**BaKanda. You can't win with hate.**

"What did you do?! How do you…" Allen tapered off as he dragged his lover's vacant face up to lap and wrapped his arms around him, shaking him. "Kanda? Love? Yuu?" There was nothing in response but a soft, high sigh that did not belong to Kanda.

**He's rude.**

"He's right!"

**Why do you even like him Allen of Mine?**

"I'm _not_ yours!"

**Then why do you use my Music? Can you read my Score? Do you have my Timcampy?**

"Stop it." He repeated softly, covering his lover's eyes to see if they would adjust to the light – not that it mattered, it was a dream anyway. "I don't know what your score is and Tim is Master's. Now fix Kanda."

**My Kanda?**

"Mine."

**Ours.**

"No. Mine."

**You are mine so what is yours is mine.**

"Please just _fix_ him!"

To his slight surprise the hand on his wrist let go and moved to his fingers, guiding it to them lover's forehead. It wasn't a menacing move to him for some reason, it was guiding, familiar, showing him where he needed to keep his fingers. The texture of skin on his felt normal, not like a dream or a demon at all. For a brief moment he remembered that when Tyki had touched him he had felt human also – though with softer fingertips. **You are mine.** The voice spoke as if to a small child.** You can do all of the things I can. You fix him.**

Allen bit his lower lip. He studied the hand on his own, slightly larger and paler than the one under it, still, sure, gentle. It didn't radiate evil or anything, it just felt different at the same time that it felt human. He wondered, if only for a moment, if there were no way for the Noah – being he knew now that it was a Noah – to be his friend and not his all consuming enemy. It was a strange thought, considering what he knew of them, but nevertheless it occurred to him; Noahs were human in the end, so why would the one in his mind be so different?

He let his hand slowly let go of Kanda and gently, timidly, took a hold of the hand that had come from the water. He felt it at once – the _anger_ this creature held, and his jaw clenched. "Show me."

-- -- --

"And the Cheeseburger God looked down on the Lowly Pregnant Teen and offered her the most _delicious_ cheeseburger, stacked with lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions, licorice, pineapple, cucumber, mushrooms, and the ever important _meat _and _aged cheese_."

"Sable… if you eat like that I'm pretty sure you'll kill the baby."

"Ha! Just be thankful Jerry wouldn't let me put tempura on it."

Lenalee hunched over her tray and made a disgusted face – no matter how she fought it there was only so much smiling she could do in the face of licorice on pickles. "You're so weird." She commented softly, unable to hide her horror when the blonde bit enthusiastically into her hamburger on steroids. It was messy, but she didn't mind, and Lenalee found herself looking away in an effort not to be reminded of Allen's eating habits – thinking about Allen made her worry and she didn't want to worry now. That was the point of coming here with Sable. "So have you picked a name yet?" She asked instead of lingering on her thoughts.

Sable shrugged and nodded at once, taking the time to swallow. "Hito wanted to name it Murasaki if it was a girl – even though it means _purple_. I think he wanted _Sora_ for a boy but… I can't see anything more male than Allen named _sky_, you know?" She picked a ring of onion from her plate and placed it between her teeth as she spoke, smiling. "So I figure if it's a girl I'll name her Murasaki and call her Saki, and if it's a boy… I'll name it something _I_ like. Like Claus." She went back to her half-finished cheeseburger and took an enthusiastic bite, indifferent to the twitch Lenalee made at her when she did. She didn't care, she liked it and it wasn't as if Lenalee had to eat it too.

"Those names are cute." She managed a weak smile.

"Now I just need _middle_ names."

"Any ideas there?"

"Screeta and Scrone."

"Sable…"

"No idea."

The Chinese girl sighed and pushed her plate away, folding her arms against the table. If things kept up how they were going, she wouldn't know what to do with herself anymore.

-- -- --

For a time, Kanda didn't know if he was awake or asleep. He'd forgotten where he had been, why his heart was slamming against his chest like it did during a nightmare, why his hands were tangled in the sweat soaked sheets. Too many times before – before Allen – he had woken just like this, and each time he had known exactly what it was that he had dreamed about but now, with his eyelids just cracked toward the ceiling, he couldn't say that he had woken up let alone if he had seen that same thing with his eyes closed.

He felt like someone had hit him in the head with a rock.

And very, very depressed.

He reached up with his left hand and rubbed at his forehead, and he was more than happy to find that there didn't seem to be a bruise. With a grown he laid his fingers across his eyes and tried to remember what exactly had happened to him, where he was and why Allen wasn't beside him. The stone ceiling above him gave him a painful hint: he wasn't in his room. The more he thought about and rubbed at his face the more he began to think that maybe someone really had hit him in the face with a rock, most likely an insulted new scientist or something, when he heard the door open. He glanced up at it.

A woman with strawberry blonde hair and clear crystal eyes in a nurse's uniform poked her head inside.

"I see yer awake." She said brightly, stepping into the room entirely. "I's worried ya'd b'out like yer li'le whit 'aired frien' in d'other room. 'Course ya ain't go' tha' problems 'e's go', so I s'pose it's t'be espected."

Kanda blinked at her for a long, quiet moment before he decided that – despite her failure – this woman was attempting to speak English to him. He felt his face melt into a comfortable scowl. "Che. What did you say?" He furrowed his brow before he let his head fall back again, aching and heavy and so _very_ despondent feeling. And for the life in him he couldn't remember what made life seem so bland.

"I said yer sprout's in th'room nex' door an' it's good t'see a' leas' yer up."

"I have no fucking clue what you're saying."

"Ya do speak English. Sure o' i'."

"Just talk!"

"I'm talkin'! Ya need yer ears cleaned while I'm 'ere _pretty boy?"_

"What did you call me?!"

"Pretty. Boy. Look a' tha'. Comperhension."

"Comprehension. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Less tha' you, Misser Turrible Disposition. Ya keep claimin' ya kin't unnerstand me an' I'll get ya one of th'nurses who like hurtin' people! Jesus."

"Che. I got about half of that."

"Stop pretendin' jus' b'cause I gots a funny way of speakin'!"

"What?"

"Tha's it. Yer ass kin die." With those syllables – being they did not quite register as words to Kanda's untrained ears – the nurse walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her. For a moment he just watched the door as if he expected her to come in laughing to tell him it was all a big joke and she was Lavi's new best friend. That didn't happen though. Instead, while he continued to rub at his forehead and think of nothing but how very gray and useless he felt, a different, much friendlier face poked in the door to his room.

Komui came in very, very slowly and shut the door softly behind him. He noted how pale the samurai looked and frowned – but it wasn't the time to prod into the content of his dreams. Komui needed other information, like if the man was dying or simply tired, so he cleared his throat, held his clipboard out so he could write on it, and smiled. "How are you feeling?" He asked as softly as he could for fear the man had a skull splitting headache and that was why he wasn't looking at anything in particular while massaging his face so forcefully. He wasn't far off the mark, either.

"Che. Like someone hit me with a rock between my eyes."

"Oh."

Kanda focused one eye on Komui as he scribbled something on his clipboard. "And oddly… hopeless. I don't know what happened. Where's Allen?" He pushed himself up and turned slowly so his feet hung out of the bed – he was still in his clothes so he hadn't been here very long at all, he realized. And yet, somehow, his favorite sweater seemed to lack its customary warmth against his skin. He shivered.

"Next door. Sleeping, it seems, but he might as well be in a coma for what trying to wake him does." Komui moved to stand in front of Kanda as he spoke so that the younger man couldn't go running to find his lover, not that he would try. "What do you remember?" He pressed, subtly encouraging stillness by moving just three inches closer than he knew Kanda would be comfortable with.

The Japanese man didn't seem to notice. "Being… angry…" He answered, looking down at the scientist's socked feet thoughtfully. He swallowed. "Choking. Water, but I wasn't in it. Besides that… I don't know. Before that we were in the library and Allen was being stupid. Him telling me he's a Noah."

Komui wrote something else on his paper. "Are you tired?"

"No."

"You're terribly pale."

Kanda shook his head and decided that, as much as he hated to, he had to tell Komui the sudden change in his mental state. Even if it wasn't important now, it could be later. "Che. Beside the headache I feel… like there's something wrong, like I don't want to live anymore than I have to. And there's nothing I can do to change anything. I'm not stupid, I'm not going to kill myself, but I don't think I'll be trying astoundingly hard to stop someone from trying, either. It's like… someone stole the light." He sighed and looked up at Komui to see that he hadn't written a damn thing on the paper he was holding, just staring on in disbelief. Not only was it unusual for Kanda to talk so much, it was also unheard of that he fall into a sudden depression. The man, as far as Komui knew, was emotionally made of steel and never actually _felt_ anything.

"Can I see him?" The Exorcist asked after a moment.

Komui nodded. "I'll take you. I want you to keep me posted on how you feel though, as well as how you think, and tell me if you remember anything else about what happened after you were in the library."

"Che."

-- -- --

He figured that something was wrong the moment he saw that Allen hadn't come down for lunch. He had even arranged to go into the cafeteria at a time when the boy usually deemed it time to stuff his gullet to bursting – because he needed to talk to him, even if he made it look like an accidental meeting. So he ate his meager, expensive meal in a silence, and his eyes roamed the expanse of the room in long, slow arches, picking out faces that he recognized but had yet to greet. The slim, delicate, form of Lenalee Lee caught his eye and he smiled; if anyone knew the whereabouts of Allen Walker – aside from that long haired bitch he was seeing – it would be her.

It was hard to miss Cross Marian walking anywhere, in his coat with his curtain of dark auburn hair hanging half way down his back he was a red flag among the people of the Order, so it was no surprise when the Finder's at the table evacuated as if fearing a plague at his presence. The Chinese girl looked up at him and Sable – almost unrecognizable with her hair down around her plate and smiling – offered an indifferent glance. He gave a lopsided smile to both.

"Hello, ladies."

"Hello, General."

"Mumf."

With a slow, world hating sigh, Cross threw his hair over his shoulder and sank to their level. He sat at the table with the two Exorcists and tried to pretend it didn't bother him to not be the center of their feminine worlds.

"The two of you wouldn't happen to know where my idiot apprentice is at this hour, would you?" He inquired with a languid sort of smile in Lenalee's direction. The Chinese girl made the sort of expression her brother made – like she knew what he was up to – before her face fell into a strange, fearful frown. He lifted an eyebrow delicately. She didn't brighten. "You are looking at me like I've grown a second nose, Lenalee."

"Oh. Well…" She sat a little higher before she leaned forward, a thoughtful expression on her face. She shot a look at Sable before she looked back at him, small breasts pressed unattractively flat against the side of the table – not that Cross was looking. "You haven't heard then?" She questioned so low he almost leaned forward to listen more closely. "About… what happened earlier?" Her prodding voice had almost fallen to the point that he had to read her lips, so he did hunch forward a bit. At least the people around them were too far away to care.

Cross had to take off his hat to see her properly, so it ended up between them, next to her dish of half eaten noodles. "What did he do? Decide he needed to synch with his Innocence enough to give himself the powers of flight and leap off the side of the tower?"

Sable choked on her food of the moment – vanilla ice cream.

Lenalee pressed her hands on the tabletop and looked at them as if she wasn't sure they were hers. She was changing her mind about talking about this here, but she doubted she could get Cross alone without one of them being lectured, and then having to beat her brother, and that would be harder without her boots. She'd just have to bear with the risk of someone hearing her and go with it. "Allen… went to go see Tyki and Lavi earlier and…" She picked up his hat and bent the brim of it. "Sable was there, so this is more her story than mine but, apparently he Allen can read things he shouldn't be able to read, by hearing it somehow. And Tyki said that it's the same thing one of the Noah can do – the Fourteenth." She paused when Cross shifted back on his seat and blinked at her. She thought he looked slightly frightened, but didn't let it get to her. She breathed in a slow, deep breath and sighed it out again. "We assume that Allen freaked out about it and went to see Kanda, but he fell asleep – or something like it – when he was there, and Kanda tried to bring him out. I found him in front of the library, and he passed out before I could get anymore out of him, just... the stuff that Allen said, with no details." Her fingers bent the hat almost to the point of ruining it and she put it down; her fingers shook when she wasn't touching it.

Cross twitched his fingers, suddenly in terrible need of cigarette. "Ah." The syllable did not do the emotion in his chest justice. The idea was for him to use Allen to get to the Ark _before _the Order found out who he was, not two months after. He leaned back and forward again, running a plan through his head as fast as he could think to.

_I can't do it with just the three of them._

"General?"

"Hm?"

"You don't seem… very upset."

He nodded a little to the side. "Well… why would I be upset?"

"He's your apprentice."

"And a critical. He can handle himself."

"General Cross."

The red haired man cracked a smile at her incredulous expression. "It's hard to be upset by something you've already known for years, Lenalee." He said honestly, reaching across the table to take her hand. She gaped at him openly, not because of the sudden show of caring but because of the expression of genuine regret on his face and the words coming out of his mouth, it aged him more than ten years to see the fine wrinkles around his eyes when he forced a smile. "I know it's sudden and I know that you will look at him differently than you always have, and you should to an extent. He will change – has been changing – but no matter how impolite he becomes or how well he can suddenly use a katana, or how stubborn he ends up, he'll always be the same at the core. What he likes and what he dislikes might change, but bringing him his new favorite food will get the same reaction, if not something less restrained. Understand?"

"No."

"Lena—"

"Why Allen? And if you knew…" Her voice was small and dangerous, low, like something from he might have heard in an unpleasant dream. He stiffened at it and felt a wave of guilt for the shine of tears forming in her eyes. "What will happen to him? What about Kanda?" Her voice began to quaver out of fear and something darker, anger perhaps, and he reached out unconsciously to soothe her.

Cross shook his head. "He was convenient. Nothing will happen to him yet – just… little things. The Fourteenth hated the Earl, Lenalee, and at this point so does Allen. You can't win against the Earl with hate, but it sure as hell gives them a reason not to fight each other for control of Allen's mind." He saw her swallow the lump in her throat and cupped the side of her face in his hand – it no longer mattered if someone saw. "I wish it wasn't true, I really do. But I can no more to stop it than I can to help him with the pain when it comes. I'm… sorry." His right them glided slowly under her right eye to catch a tear that she didn't feel.

"And Kanda?"

His mouth pressed into a long, thin line, and he shook his head. "I don't know."

"But… this is so…"

"Sudden, I know, and scary and seemingly uncalled for. All the same I need you not to tell anyone else for a little while – he's harmless, always will be – because there are some things that must be done before he's completely… changed. Will you promise me that, when the time comes, you won't talk to him or me or anyone else about who he really is?"

Lenalee shifted her eyes to Sable, who had remained so quiet Cross had nearly forgotten she was there, before she looked at Cross and smiled softly, or tried to, it was too strained with her eyes crying. "Will everything… be ok, General?" Her fingers pressed his against her face.

In another world he would have wished he was younger. "We can really only hope so."

-- -- --

The moment Kanda walked into Allen's hospital room, another wave of exhaustion hit him, this one just hard enough to bring his hand up against the door frame to lean on it. Komui stopped and looked back at him with his eyebrows pushed together in thought, memories dancing in the back of his eyes, lower lip pinched between his teeth. He wouldn't ask what the scientist was thinking, but he did scowl at him for not even offering to help even if his assistance would have been ultimately denied; it would have been nice to know he would have an over worried pair of hands to catch him if he teetered too close to falling before he got to Allen's bed. He growled passed the feeling that he was going to fall over and placed one foot in front of the other until he came to the white sheets of his lover's mattress and sat himself rather hurriedly onto it.

The boy was peaceful. Allen watched the insides of his eyelids with a rapt twitch to his eyebrows, small mouth pouting slightly, all of the other muscles from the turn of his jaw down to his collar bones perfectly relaxed. The sheet was pulled up under his right arm and then folded down a few inches, leaving the limb and the small bandage from the break from his fight with Tyki exposed to the electric lights, bare fingers limp, palm turned slightly upward. It begged to be touched.

Kanda reached out and slowly, as if frightened that Komui would see, drew a line with his middle and ring fingers across the curve of Allen's palm.

The boy sighed.

Komui made another note on his clipboard.

Kanda no longer cared. With an all too deep sigh he threw himself face down against his lover's chest, eyes half hooded and face blank. The little sound of protest that Komui made didn't matter, nor did the suddenly rapid movement of his pen; Kanda was only thinking a single thought worth paying heed to, and no amount of distraction would stop him. His fingers stayed just as light and curious on Allen's hand as they had been, but the palm that joined them pressed with more force, almost hungry. There was no worry that the British boy wouldn't wake – or if there was he didn't show it – there was only a deep expression of appreciation on the Japanese man's face.

_A Noah, hm? The Destroyer of Time, an Exorcist… if you're one more thing than you were before, do you really change that much? Or will you still just be mine when it matters? _As Kanda thought, his fingers curled in Allen's hand and he closed his eyes as if in prayer, drinking in Allen's scent with a thirst that did seem quenchable with a sheet and a shirt between them.

_I'd like to hate you._ His mind went on after a pause. Desperately he held to the boy even as the words came to him, hypocritical and hurting._ I want to throw everything we ever were away if you are like him, if you are like the others, but really, how can I do that? It hurts, Allen. Touching you, watching you sleep, smelling you – it all makes me think of how much I _care_ for you, even though I'm so angry. I love you. Can I care for you and hate your kind? I don't think I can. Hate the sin and love the sinner they used to tell me, but I can't take that to heart when your life is the sin. I can't damn you for breathing anymore than I can damn my father for trying to save the world._

He felt a burning behind his eyes and wished that Komui would just leave; the Chinese man wasn't doing a thing for his mental state and he didn't cry in front of people who didn't already know that he could. His teeth pressed painfully into the skin of his tongue to keep the tears in. _It's all so stupid. Lavi crossed the line and I hate him for it, but can I really hold it against him if I cross the line for you? If I just go on loving you despite the fact that I'm supposed to hate you, if I keep my word and don't let this come between us, am I any better than the fool who killed my brother?_

"Kanda?" The name made him jump slightly, which in turn made him feel stupid; he cracked an eye at Komui that didn't have the power to glare.

"Hn?"

The scientist shifted on his feet for a moment, moved his clipboard, tucked a bit of hair behind his ear, frowned. "If… you want to stay with him for a while that is fine. Just tell someone if you plan to sleep here."

"Hm."

With the sound of his jacket brushing against his pants and one final note on his paper, Komui wandered back to the door, scuffing his slippers, ignoring Kanda's lack of vocal responsiveness. Kanda closed his eyes again when he reached the threshold, fully intending to stay exactly as he was, face pressed against Allen's gently rising and falling chest until told he had to do otherwise.

"There's a difference you know," Komui spoke over his shoulder as to not show the expression on his face. "Between loving your enemy and loving someone you love." He said vaguely, perhaps having read the look on Kanda's face a moment before. The Japanese man made a short sound that could have been out of amusement.

"Is there really a line between being a traitor and being a lover, Komui? Because I'm not sure I can see it at this point."

"There is." Komui responded with a slow turn of his head. He didn't look directly at Kanda still, choosing instead to look at the wall across from him. "Loving someone is giving them the right to ruin you and trusting that they won't do it unless they have to, being a traitor is letting them ruin other people who don't feel the same as you do." He paused then, entirely, and looked back with something of an ironic smile, his clipboard pressed to his chest in the fashion of his sister. "I suppose that it's a bit finer than it seems, isn't it?" He laughed without mirth. "Love and hate, good and evil, betrayal and understanding – for all that separates them, for all we thought we knew, can you honestly say that you give a damn which side following your heart puts you on?" He realized with a start what he was saying and took a leering step back before he stepped forward, struggling with the urge to take back his words at once. He saw comprehension in the one tired eye that looked at him, however, and remained silent, as if waiting for a response.

Kanda swallowed thickly before he spoke. "I don't know." The words carried with them more weight than he intended, the tears he had fought not to spill in front of anyone threatened with a new vengeance, his heart clenched in his chest. "But I can't leave him. I want to. If it's true – it _is_ true – I want to hate him as much as I hate that other creature you're keeping here with that… with Lavi. Hating him though, being angry with him, _blaming _him doesn't – I won't – I _can't_ do it. He… I'll…. It's not a matter of whose side I'm on. It's a matter of who is on my side." He blinked his eyes closed and the moisture in his right eye fell with the force of it, defying his desire not to let it. Komui didn't make a sound. "I want him on my side."

"If he's not—"

"I'll kill him."

Komui felt his mouth fall open at the conviction in Kanda's statement.

"It's what he wants." He finished, much more quietly. His eyes had yet to come open and he wasn't about to force them. "If that happens… if he turns against us…" Somehow, he didn't understand it; he felt Allen's hand more keenly in his without it moving. "You may lose us both." He whispered into the space between them.

Reluctantly, knowing what the Japanese Exorcist was saying and hating it, Komui nodded. He didn't say a word after that, not knowing what might _be _said or how to convey his thoughts. Exorcists he knew how to protect – Noah, he did not. Kanda he did not. He felt suddenly useless.

Kanda waited until the scientist was well out of earshot before he gave up on pretending not to feel anything more than a tickle of tears that had already escaped down his face. Crying wasn't something he did well, alone or in front of others, so he hunched forward, muffling the sound in his lover's chest. Thought eluded him. He couldn't remember if he was crying for the sake of Allen or the sake of himself or both, it was just the only response that made sense anymore. Even in the snow in Japan when he had thought his lover lost to him he had only cried softly, he hadn't let himself break to the point of choking, he hadn't been swallowed in chaotic feelings that he didn't understand. Now though, his chest was tight and his eyes wouldn't even focus on Allen's face they were swelling so terribly – the strained sound of his voice came out raspy, the a harsh laugh that parted lips at how he was acting sounded broken.

He hadn't even cried when Hitori died and yet here he was, moaning like a spoiled child denied his most loved toy.

After a time a strange calm settled over him and he eyelids became hot and heavy. It didn't matter anymore. He loved Allen too much to leave him and he had promised that no Noah – not even Allen – would come stop what they had, nothing. He wasn't about to go back on that.

He was teetering precariously on the edge of sleep when a hand came from the opposite side of the bed and touched his hair, following the curve of his skull until it came to the tie that still held back his tresses and pulled it out. A melodic sigh parted his lips and he smiled a little at the brush of hard, familiar fingers threading in his hair, combing out the little catches and snarls that had gathered throughout the day. He was so used to it and calm that he didn't even question its intentions. He breathed in deeply. The texture of Allen's left hand, his Innocence made him want nothing more than to just let himself drift away on an Allen scented dream.

"Did he scare you?" The whisper that came from the head of the bed had exactly the same tone as he remembered.

"Che. Just let me sleep on you."

The chest under Kanda's face rumbled with quiet laughter. "You're ok then?"

"Think so."

Allen shifted and Kanda moved with him, following a series of guides and commands he couldn't explain until his head rested snuggly against the boy's neck, two arms curled around his own while he embraced the boy's middle. Touching skin, breathing it, made him feel even calmer.

"I love you."

"Ah."

Allen seemed to notice his reluctance and pulled him tighter, face turned down into his hair. The boy breathed deeply, sighing, and kissed the top of his head with gentle lips. Kanda shivered. "Do you… want to go back to you room without me? Or… will you stay for a while?" He pressed on, gently. It was too hard to try and read the samurai's mind when he wasn't acting strangely, let alone now. The steady push of breath at his Adam's apple was astoundingly reassuring.

"Che. Don't be stupid." Kanda answered at length. "I want to sleep on you. I can't do that in _our_ room."

"Might be more comfortable in your own bed."

"Shut up. It might smell like you but it doesn't say stupid, annoying things, play with my hair, and doesn't love me back so… I only want this bed."

Allen laughed, just the same as he always had. As the sound filled the small room, Allen felt Kanda relax against him, taking in the fact that he was just the same as he had always been, taking in his tranquil mood. He wasn't calm, not really, he had more to think about now than he ever had, but it was good to feel the samurai accept him without further persuasion. Smiling, he rubbed his face into his lover's hair and took a very long breath, enjoying his closeness. The Japanese man was unnaturally warm, not that he minded. It soothed him. He felt, despite everything, that _this_ would never change, no matter what did. He would always have Kanda. Forever. It was astonishing how the thought having him _forever_ made his heart sing rather than depress him with thoughts of his lover's eventual death. Even if he died, even if he lost him, he would always have the memory, and the song.

He wondered if it was traitorous of him to be happy that some memory of Kanda would live on no matter who the Fourteenth was after him.

**My Allen.**  
_It's more complicated than that._  
**Black, black, black…**  
_You're like a child.  
_**Ever wonder where you get it, brat?**

"Moyashi-kun," His lover breathed into his throat, dragging a palm down the center of his chest. "Go to sleep so I can."

Allen continued to stroke his finger's downward until his palm came to his lover's shoulder blades, which he didn't so much rub as massage tenderly, resubmitting every contour to memory. "You know, Kanda… I think it's about time that I got to watch you sleep. It's kind of unfair. You get to see me peaceful every time we go to bed and but I—"

"Allen."

"Hm?"

"No more talking."

The British boy smiled at that and let a tiny, almost nonexistent giggle bubble out of his throat. "When you wake up, I'm telling you what I learned."

Kanda harrumphed at him.

"And… will you… please…"

"I love you. Still. Always. Can't help it. No use fighting that battle again. Pointless."

"You make it sound like loving me is horrible, Love."

"Che."

"But I guess that's ok. You're pretty insufferable yourself sometimes."

"Fuck you."

"I don't have lube with me. Do you?"

"_Stop. Talking."_

"Oh. I didn't realize that had started."

"It did. An hour ago. Shut up, Moyashi."

Allen didn't protest at the touch of hands pushing up the back of his shirt to find his skin; he understood that Kanda needed it, just a subtle touch, and so he let his breathing become slow and even at it. With his eyes half hooded it would be easy to fall asleep again, and he knew there would be no lake of black silver in his dreams now that he had seen it, no renewed claim on him as the host of the Noah in his head. For a short time he thought about it, keeping that same steady rhythm, holding his lover like a child he loved too dearly to release even in sleep. By the time he was contemplating what might happen if someone found Kanda and him sleeping in the same hospital bed it no longer mattered, Kanda had fallen into a gentle slumber that – in a way that he did not understand – made him want to simply enjoy the heat against him and follow him off to dreams. His eyes closed and his fingers came to a trembling halt.

The feeling of being dragged down into sleep wasn't unpleasant, though it was must stranger than _falling_. He could feel every part of him as it passed out of wakefulness, starting with his hands and ending with his feet. Even then, with his entire body feeling the start of a dream, he was aware of himself holding on to his lover, holding on and refusing to let go.

Turning into a Noah. Turning on the Order. Turning on the Earl. Wasn't it all the same if he had what he loved in the end?

-- -- --

**So this chapter is 11007 words. About the last three were 13k. I hope you don't miss that 2k too much…**

**BTW, we don't really know a whole lot about the 14****th**** yet, so I'm winging it.  
Lastly – there shall be more Lucky in the next chapter than there was in this one, I promise. Sometimes one couple needs more fic time than another, ya know?**

**You like? I like readers and reviewers…**


	99. Liveliness

**Another bouncy chapter. Updates are slow because my room has been invaded by spiders, so I must write all stories in the living room until they have been removed. Do you know how hard it is to write stuff in the living room in front of a married couple?! I feel like I'm going to die of het vibes…**

**Anyway, sorry this is late. And FF screwed up my replies, but I shall try to get them all out for this chapter. I'll just have to answeransweranswer before my comp dies. :D**

**Disclaimer of D'place: I do not own dgm. If I did… I would have a Tim plushie. Because that's the only plushie you can own without making some fangirl somewhere hate your bloody guts. (But for Dark1408, she said she'd hate me if I had one.)**

**WARNINGS: Um… stuff and stuff. Ooooh, and a little masochism. LOTS OF TALKING.**

**IF YOU ARE AUSTRALIAN, PLEASE DO NOT LET HIROKO OFFEND YOU. HER THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE AUTHORESS WHO CREATED HER.**

**-- -- --**

Liveliness

Lavi woke with the feeling that he had slept too long and found the assumption confirmed at the sight of a cold dinner tray sitting beside the shared bed. He yawned and rolled enough to face his lover, who laid turned away, dark hair in a long curling line from the back of his neck across the soft white surface of their pillow. The redhead grinned a little at him and rolled onto his right arm before he hooked his left around the Noah's waist and buried his face in the base of his ponytail, breathing in his scent. He wondered for a moment if he would wake his lover in order to look at him more closely but decided not to worry about it. It wasn't a necessity to study his sleeping face at the moment, it was enough just to have him there beside him.

The sheets rumpled as Tyki leaned back into his touch, a gentle sigh on his lips. Lavi liked the fact that in his sleep Tyki never worried about his physical condition or his wounds, he didn't worry about touching his eye or poking a place that might have at one time cause him to fall into a waking nightmare, he just did it. Without guard or anxiety or pain, the Noah leaned against the center of his chest, most of his weight on the exactly place the bullet had entered his flesh. It hurt – not terribly bad, but it did hurt – and he liked it. Part of him wondered if Tyki would ever tie him to a bed again, or tease him, or whip him with a belt so hard the younger man would have to scream just to hear himself begging over the sound. Without thinking about it he pulled Tyki back against him and enjoyed the shock of discomfort that moved through his torso.

_I miss this…_ Lavi's breathing wanted to rush itself for a moment but he didn't let it, afraid the change might rouse his sleeping lover, and instead held just a little more tightly. After a few moments, when the initial stab was gone and only the dull ache of irritation remained, he sighed into the back of Tyki's neck and closed his eyes. He could sleep better this way and he knew it having never tried.

"Doesn't this hurt?" The words were astoundingly quiet but they sent a sudden shake of horror through his body all the same, forcing him to inhale a dagger of air that cut into his lungs with a searing bolt of bittersweet agony. His arms twitched at it and a tiny click of enjoyment sounded in the back of his throat, just loud enough to be known between the two of them. Tyki spoke again a bit more loudly. "Are you that desperate for pain, Lavi?"

"That… doesn't really hurt anymore at all." He tried to explain in an uneven voice as his lover turned to face him. God it was a lie. It hurt like a sword had been shoved straight into his breast bone, but he loved it. If he didn't like it would be over. He didn't know what to expect from the Noah, but he figured a lecture was in order – something about how such a small action could hurt him beyond it's worth. "And it's been…" The redhead went on in a rush. "A while and… I miss…" The push of a hand on his ribcage brought the words to a halt – it was too much pressure to be entirely reassuring, just on this side of pain. He found himself arching into the touch.

Tyki frowned at him a little, but didn't pull away. His olive skin looked nearly black in the dim light, his eyes two dark points of gold, the flash of his teeth a strange sort of white glimmer of light. "If you want me to," The sound of his voice was almost too soft for Lavi to hear and the Noah was leaning closer, faces nearly touching. "I can hurt you in ways that won't leave marks."

Lavi shivered at him, a strange sort of hopeful expression on his face. "The old you would have told me to wait until I was being allowed to walk again."

"The old me didn't enjoy the thought of hurting you to the point that you don't want it anymore."

"And now you do?"

"I relish it."

The redhead watched his lover's hand come up and drag along the skin of his neck, barely touching. He felt the vaguely familiar tingle of fingers passing through flesh and held still; he trusted the Noah not to kill him, even now, but jerking away didn't feel like a smart idea. "Gonna show me?" His breath hitched again when the touch slipped down the length of his windpipe, tracing his flow of air for a moment before doubling back along the lines of a blood vessel.

The Noah nodded. "There are many things I can do that won't hurt you enough to cause permanent damage, but will cause more pain than anything I've done to you before. Of course, there are ways to try and lessen it, if it is too much for you, but I would much rather watch you… I would rather not have to do that." He revised his words too late, he knew, but saw understanding in the redhead's eye.

"You will lighten up if I'm going insane, but you want to see me suffer."

"I love that you hold no qualms against saying what I mean, dear."

Lavi chucked and lifted his own hand to trace the same pattern across Tyki's neck, pausing at the hollow of his throat. If he went through with this and someone found out, he didn't know what would happen. There was no rule against assisted masochism in the hospital wing, or at least not that he had ever seen written on a piece of paper, though he doubted that sort of thing normally needed to be written down. It didn't matter. Things weren't looking to wonderful for him anyway – why deny himself and his lover this small display of physical reliance? "Try not to make me scream." He instructed after a moment. "I don't want Marlette to find you with your fingers in my neck while I'm screaming bloody murder; no one will ever listen to us again."

"Alright." Tyki nodded, and chose a place near the base of his lover's skull to start. _"Amante."_

-- -- --

Kanda woke with the feeling that he had slept too long, stiff and achy, the left side of his face oddly _crisp_ against the sheet on Allen's chest. When it was exactly that he ended up in that position again he couldn't say, but he didn't mind the steady thump of a heartbeat on his face anymore than he minded the perfectly limp fingers twined in his hair; they were absolutes that made everything from before seem like little more than a nightmare. With a small sigh he curled himself more tightly around the smaller Exorcist and kept his eyes closed, content for the time being just to listen and feel. He didn't know how long it had been since he had just _felt_ Allen beside him, or if he ever had. The idea of it made ignoring the lights easier.

"_Ramen…"_ The word was sighed into the room, soft and clear, and just as he smiled at it, the fingers in his hair curled a little, though not enough to prove his lover wakeful. The boy really was normal, no matter how he looked at it. Touching, dreaming, talking about food, clinging so closely – those things, coupled with selflessness, stubbornness, and a handful of rather loathsome qualities – were what made him the person Kanda loved. Hearing it echo ever so softly through the room lent a gentle kind of reassurance that nothing else could quite parallel. _"Roast beef…"_

"Soba. Tempura."

"_Cinnamon buns…"_

_It was worth a shot._ Kanda rolled his eyes a little. Of course Allen wouldn't say _yummy_ at his suggestion, or better yet _Kanda_ or _Love_ or _Yuu_, that would have been too much the perfect response. Instead he had to say something disgusting like a desert. "Che. He'll have a heart attack at twenty-five." He murmured to no one in particular.

"_Honey…"_

"Belt."

"_Oyakisoba."_

"_Oyasumi."_

"Naked."

Kanda looked up to see Allen's left eye cracked down at him, a smile spread across his pale continence. He raised a lip at him and blinked his swollen eyes twice before he spoke. "You have a bad face, Moyashi." The observation made Allen laugh without sound.

"I hope that's an expression, Pretty."

Kanda returned Allen's little snort of amusement with a press of his right hand on the ridge of his collar bone, delicate and intimate enough to make him feel just a bit vulnerable. "Che. It means you don't look well."

Allen's hand slid through his hair a little, just enough to find the ends before it came back again, pushing his too-long bangs away. "I think I'm a little… emotionally drained is all. Once I get used to it, and do some thinking and talk to you and… maybe see Master… I think I'll feel better." He sighed and stopped his stroking at the crest of Kanda's brow, holding his hair aside with his fingers delicately. "What's your plan for tomorrow?" He asked with a slow blink and a subtle lift of his lips.

"Nothing."

"What?! No training? Reading? Laundry? Nothing?"

"You."

"Kanda…"

The samurai ran his fingers up the tendon on the left of Allen's neck until they came to his jaw, then drifted up to his cheek. The texture of skin on his fingertips felt oddly dulled, like he wasn't really touching anything at all, but he didn't let it bother him. Instead he closed his eyes again and snuggled his head more closely against Allen's chest. "I want to… just… be, for a bit. To share your space and watch you. I need… to…" His left hand came out of Allen's right and moved instead to his shirt, which he pushed up with the confidence of a man whom had done the very same thing a thousand times before. Though Allen didn't particularly like the idea of someone walking in on them in the middle of something so sudden, he didn't stop his lover from moving the material aside and pressing his face to his skin.

"Kanda?"

"Che. Just… pretend I'm not clinging to you."

"I was just going to say that you could hold me entirely naked if we went back to your room."

Kanda's mouth twisted into a mirthless smile and a silent laugh parted his lips for a moment. "Sounds… nice."

"But you're not moving."

"No."

"Are you _sure_ you're ok?"

"Fine."

"If… it really bothers you, I don't… want to make you stay with me."

The Japanese man managed to shake his head a little, tickling his lover's chest with his hair. Allen didn't complain about it, though he did scratch the place that was touched. "It's not you that bother's me, Moyashi. I just feel… like I don't want to do anything. Like it's pointless. If you weren't here, if everyone would leave me in peace, I can't say if I'd get up for dinner tonight." The words incited a line of goosebumps across Allen's stomach, lifting the almost transparent hairs there and making his skin grow taught with the feeling. The reaction filled Kanda's mind with imagines for a moment that quickly vanished, chased away with the worry that he might actually follow through with them.

"I think dinner is over."

"I think your stomach has taken over you brain."

"You aren't hungry, Love?"

Kanda rolled his eyes for what felt like the sixth time since waking. "No. I thought that would be obvious." He sighed again, deeply, and pulled his right hand down enough to lay it perfectly on the side of Allen's ribcage, forming a half of a frame with his fingers. Somehow, the desire to be with Allen stretched beyond whether or not he felt hungry, which he _didn't_ feel, but he had the sinking feeling that even if he had, he would have ignored it just be at Allen's side. It was strange. Even though they spent quite a bit of time together, the idea of Allen eating with someone else, or sleeping in a bed that wasn't his, or staying at the Order while he went on a solo mission hadn't bothered him at all two days ago, but now was different. Now he didn't think he'd manage the day without being in the same room with the boy, if not sharing furniture.

_Something's wrong with me._

"Love, he's not… _I'm_ not… what I mean to say is that…"

"Spit it out."

"I'm hungry."

The words were so sudden that Kanda narrowed his eyes at his lover and his fingernails turned down against his skin, though not hard enough to leave lines. The determination on Allen's face made him pause. "You weren't going to say that." He observed softly.

"No, I wasn't. But it sounds better than telling you that I refuse to fall out of love with you, even if _he_ thinks you're annoying and rude and an idiot."

"Che. Good. I don't like _him_ much either."

"You're going to get along, just so you know."

"Whatever."

Allen gave a little pull on Kanda's hair and, with a bit more coaxing than might have been needed before, brought the Japanese man's lips to his own. With more prodding than normal he deepened the contact, dragging his tongue over the surface of his lover's, desperate for some kind of reaction. He got what he wished for, and perhaps a bit more than that, what with the fingers twitching against the surface of his bare chest. A hungry sound clicked in the back of Kanda's throat.

When the contact broke they stayed painfully close, the older man's fingers still hovering over Allen's heart.

"Allen do you…"

"Do I what?"

Kanda's eyes dashed back and forth between Allen's gaze, searching for something that he didn't seem to find before he spoke. "Want to go back to the room? You keep talking about it like maybe you do."

"You mean… and cuddle naked? Yeah that could be nice." Allen pulled the samurai up again, though they didn't quite kiss. "I could use some… Kanda for dinner." He joked, and kissed Kanda's lips as they curled into a soft expression of amusement; the fingertips on his chest curled into a loose fist. "Unless you don't feel like it. Then we can jus—" He smiled into the lips that pressed so surely into his, warm and firm and demanding. He wouldn't have pulled away if Kanda had been less decisive with his answer, but the touch was reassuring all the same.

Withdrawing, however, let him see the oddly sad expression his lover wore on his face.

"Che." The Japanese man intoned without moving from his place on Allen's body. "Before we do anything we haven't done since yesterday," He began softly. "Tell me what that thing in your head told you."

Allen furrowed his brow for a moment before he nodded, his eyes no longer smiling. "There is this thing that the Noah have called the _Ark_. He… used to control it before… he died. It's hard to explain without you seeing it, but it can take you anywhere I… _he_ has been – this time. If I had it, I could control it. I could take us anywhere just with the lyrics but… I wouldn't be able to go anywhere I haven't been." He paused then, worried that Kanda had noticed his slip, and then went on when the other man made no protest. "If I had it I could do anything with it… I could unmake or make whatever was in it. I don't know what it looks like or how big it is or… what… _he_ embodies but… that's part of what… he can do."

"You can say _I_, Moyashi."

Allen stiffened under Kanda's weight. _I don't want to talk about him like he's me._  
**My All—**

"He might be me but I'm not him."

"Che. Right."

Allen closed his eyes and leaned more heavily on his pillow, forcing himself to relax. This wasn't something that he could explain, he didn't think, not without going on for hours and wearing them both out more than they already were. Instead he looked back at Kanda and – for the first time – tried to make the _Noah_ explain. The voice shrank away teasingly and he let his eyes come open again, a frown taking his lips.

Kanda pushed himself up on his arms and then back on his knees before reaching first for Mugen – which was not there – and then for his lover's throat.

The British boy threw up his arms and pushed what he was doing from his mind, too worried about Kanda's reaction to care much about what they had been talking about. The palms of his hands caught wrists and he held them tightly to either side of his head, which in turn forced Kanda's face next to his own, wide-eyed and pale, his mouth slightly open as if in shock. For a moment they stayed that way, perfectly still, breathing hurriedly, eyes locked, equally frightened. Allen let his hands go slowly loose; his lover retreated gradually, sitting on his knees on the edge of the bed.

The white haired Exorcist had to work moisture into his mouth before he spoke. "Love?"

"Don't…" The dark haired man's hands shook as they curled in the bedclothes, rumbling it over Allen's hips. His face, pale a moment prior, had faded to a shade not unlike a sheet of paper, his lips a sickly purple. Allen pushed himself up and reached for his face only to have him recoil away from his fingers.

"Kanda…"

"I said _don't_, Moya…All…F…"

"What's wrong? Why did you just… _attack_ me, Yuu?"

"If you say my name again I'll kill you."

"_Why?"_

For a time Kanda was quiet, the gears in his mind turned almost so Allen could watch them. He ignored the little snicker in the back of his head at the idea of Kanda _thinking_ and instead pushed himself back a bit, waiting. It was a long moment before a hand touched his, lightly, and then another before it took a firm enough grip to really count as more than an accident. The Japanese man cleared his throat before he spoke. "For only a moment… your eyes were gold."

-- -- --

"_Oh, fuck…"_

"Should I stop?"

"_Please… don't…"_

"Your heart is racing, _Amante."_

"_God,_ it's like… my chest is… _Ty-chan_ – it hurts…"

"But you like it. If you didn't like it, you wouldn't have asked me for it."

"_Tyki."_ The word was hardly more than a hiss of air from Lavi's quivering lips, just loud enough to hear. Tyki could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead, as well as feel the trembling of his limbs, and frowned deeply at it. Even if he enjoyed dragging his fingers across the tendon and nerves in different places of the apprentice Bookman's body, he didn't want to hurt him past repair. Slowly, knowing that the redhead wouldn't much enjoy the idea, he slipped his fingers from his throat and leaned down enough to kiss him softly on the forehead. Lavi's skin was heated as if feverish.

Tyki didn't want that.

"Enough," The Noah whispered, pressing both of his hands to Lavi's sweat soaked shirt. "If you are unsatisfied we can do more tomorrow, but I'm afraid that you can't take more currently – not without someone finding us out." As he spoke a hand lifted to frame the side of his face, fingers as cold and clammy as he had ever felt them. To his surprise there was a glazy of lust in the eye that looked up at him, the dark circle beneath it a purple just light of black, wakeful despite the late hour. "How do you feel?" He asked as if he needed words to know.

Lavi's fingers moved into his lover's hair and curled slightly, though they lacked any real strength to pull him forward. It was entirely Tyki's doing that their mouths touched for the brief moment that they shared breath. "Like I want you… and I'm totally going to bake you a cake." His expression was mildly amused though tired, with a strange sort of happiness in his eyes that Tyki had not really seen since fight against Allen. It soothed Tyki a little to see that little glimmer of contentment behind the fog of desire, so deep and hungry that he couldn't quite place the true emotion underneath it all.

Tyki let his hands spread out and rubbed a bit at the twitching muscles on the sides of the redhead's ribcage, slow and hard. "Do you think you can sleep?" He lowered his face to the crook of the boy's neck and whispered. "I might have trouble… but I do not think it wise to put ourselves in a position to be caught just yet."

The redhead nodded, bouncing his chin on the older man's forehead. "If we did that after what you just did," He paused to swallow and breathe; the ordeal had taken a lot out of him, even if he was happier for it. "I think I'd have a heart attack." And, as if it wasn't strange enough to say that with a smile, he giggled at his own observation.

"You know, if you're feeling good enough tomorrow, we could talk Marlette into letting you have a real bath. At this rate you're going to smell like sweat for a week."

"Well enough. What happened to Tyki the great grammar specialist?"

"He bled into the Tyki who never had a formal education and now I am about half as smart or twice as dumb as I always was."

Lavi snorted. "Whatever. Either way a bath sounds _so good_ right now. With low lights and a book…"

"And me there to wash your feet."

"Or my back…"

"Side."

"You're a dirty old pervert."

"Oh, I know." Tyki chuckled, lifting his hands enough to run them through his lover's hair. Lavi smiled at it and so did he. Somehow the oddity of it all, of pain and pleasure and the line between, didn't cause as much trouble for him as he thought it might have at one point, the fact that they had an understand seemed more important than anything else at the moment – beside, perhaps, his fingers slipping delicately through those sweat soaked strands of hair. The pounding of his lover's heart was exciting to him, but he had no care at the moment for what he could do to speed it yet more, he had only the thought of what he might do to keep that wonderful look in his lover's eye.

Lavi's fingers were more certain when they traced a slow line over the Noah's eyebrows then down around his mouth, teasing his lips with a gentle brush of his knuckles. For the greater part of a minute he let his hand rest there, just to feel the push of warm breath against his fingers, before he let the tiredness show on his face. "Love you." He mumbled, and the mouth on his hand cracked in a strange smile.

"It might be best if you didn't say that for a while, dear."

"Oh, yeah? Because you think the Order is gonna try to off me if I keep saying it?"

"It's a possibility."

"About as likely as you secretly being a woman."

"_Amante…"_

"Komui wouldn't do that. And even if someone else tries to fuck us over – or _me_ over – I'm not going to stop saying I love you. So I'm not going to stop because you're paranoid." Lavi's face fell into something like a scowl, though softer, annoyance flashing in his gaze. "They could have the very Pope himself come to visit and I'd stand right in front of him and say you're mine and I'm yours and he shouldn't knock it before he tries it – though not with you, obviously. I don't think the worlds most powerful religious leader would want to crawl into bed with a sadist, and even if he did I don't think I'd let him. Anyway, you get the point. I _love_ you. The end."

Tyki bit his lip at the pout that Lavi made before he sighed and shook his head, shaking his long, uncustomary hair over his left shoulder. "Go to sleep then."

"Like I can sleep when you said that?"

"Lavi, I won't try to make you take the words back and I'm not willing to fight you right now over the safety of admitting your feelings for me in front of others. We can have this conversation when you are rested and won't wear yourself out yell—"

Lavi's hands moved to his lover's shoulders and pushed; the Noah rolled away, taking the pillow with him, and mashed his head against the mattress before covering his face with it forcefully. The redhead jerked the pillow away harshly, though it hurt more than a little to act so violently, and held on to one end of it while Tyki clamped on the other, keeping it hostage between them. "I won't wear myself out yelling. You just told me to say I love you less often, and then you changed your point to not saying it in front of other people. Explain to me which it is, Tyki, and why." He demanded with a slight narrowing of his eye. The man that looked up at him only did so for a moment before he blinked and sighed again.

"Someone might hear you."

"I don't care if some eavesdropping idiot hears me say it – no one's gonna believe a Finder heard an Exorcist confess to a Noah while they were walking around the medical wing for no reason. Besides, everyone important already knows."

Tyki shook his head again and gave a hard enough tug on the pillow to cover his mouth with it. "If the people who don't know send someone to investigate, they might be dressed as a Finder. They might hear it firsthand and damn us both."

"Love isn't damning. If it was damning, half the Order would be burning in Hell right now. Well, everyone but Bookman."

"You're not listening."

"I don't have to listen, you're being ridiculous."

"_Amante _this could b—"

The redhead gave a sudden yank on the pillow that brought it into his lap, Tyki's hands just hardly touching it. His expression had only hardened in the past few moments and now he outright scowled, sunken eye slatted dangerously at his lover. "Look. There's a difference between being careful and being stupid, and you're being stupid. No one is here to try and blame us for what happened yet, so I'm not changing how I act – and even if they _do_ send someone, I might not do it then. I don't intend to give them anymore ammunition than they already have and hiding how we feel will just give them something to dig up, won't it? A reason to interrogate us? A reason to say that I fucking betrayed the only people I ever cared for? Like hell. Telling them right off that I am yours won't give them shit to guess at. It's safer." As he spoke his fingers loosened on the pillow until Tyki dragged it back again, holding it firmly against his chest. Lavi sighed and let go. "Besides… if they do send someone… and they do question us… they might try to play us against each other."

Tyki let the pillow fall beside him and reached out to pull Lavi against him, hungrily and yet unsure if he should. The younger man melted against him like butter in the dip of a hot spoon, all trust and affection regardless of the harshness to his words only a moment before. The contrast was strange to Tyki, but he understood it. The redhead just wanted to be close. "So you suggest that we expose ourselves in the hope of giving them nothing to find?" He echoed Lavi's sigh from only a moment before as he curled his arms firmly around the redhead's shoulders. "Idiot." The word was mumbled into the top of Lavi's head, warm and soft.

The younger man shifted enough to bring his hands to either side of his lover's body and snuggle against him; eye screwed shut, knees bent oddly around Tyki's thighs. "So what if I am?" He grumbled with a squeeze of his hands.

"Nothing." Tyki responded at once, his right hand returning to Lavi's hair. "You're my idiot, that's all. My very own stupid Exorcist that is too stubborn to argue with this early in the morning."

"I think it's still night."

"I don't think it matters."

Lavi sighed again, deeper, and stretched out a bit, as if to bring them closer without moving; Tyki accommodated him gently, stroking a palm against his head. "I love you." He repeated into the stillness.

"And I love you."

-- -- --

"Australia? I don't care how fucking hot you are when you say it, I _will not_ live in a country where the Goddamn _lizards_ can bite my _arms off._ What kind of shit is this?! I want to live in a _real_ fucking country, Mr. Supervisor!"

"Mrs. Kanda—"

"_I. Am. Not. Married."_

"Kanda-san—"

"Don't even _try_ to be polite with me when you're kicking me out!"

Komui's hands pulled back from the place they had been on his desk and he frowned, not that he hadn't been frowning for most of their one-sided conversation to begin with. He, Hiroko, and Cross Marian occupied his office rather loosely, the General hanging at the back of the room until the Japanese woman had concluded her business, chain smoking. Komui had half a mind to tell him he needed to quit before he gave them all lung cancer, but that wasn't what currently demanded his attention. "Please, if you would just calm down we can disc—" Hands smashing into the wood of his desk cut him short.

"Do not tell me to fucking calm down! I am calm! If you tell me to calm down again I'll—"

"Hiro," Cross' voice carried rather well through the office and she turned at it, glaring at him and his cigarette, the flame bobbing like a firefly when he pulled it from between his lips. "Ever thought of Mexico?"

"I am going to beat you."

"Wait, wait, wait…" Komui said rather hurriedly, rising from his chair with a sigh. "I _know_ that none of our current choices of placement have been to your liking, but this isn't something we have handle _at once_, it can wait. When we find another place I will contact you, Hiroko, I only ask that you take each option into careful consideration and pick some time in the next six months."

"No." Hiroko bit back at him, looking up at his chin with a scowl. Her face was level with perhaps his navel, rouged with a blush of anger, eyes thin slits of annoyance. "I'm not going anywhere until that whore has her kid. I'm too young to be a grandparent but I don't give a damn, if she's popping out my son's spawn I'm going to see the little retard they produced before I vanish from its life forever. How much longer is there? Thirty-six weeks left?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth Komui was gaping at her like a gasping fish, obviously confused. Hiroko, he knew, was not supposed to be informed of Sable's state under any circumstances.

He decided that promises were meant to be broken. "Twenty-seven."

"Those _little sluts!_ They couldn't have known each other for two months!"

Cross let out a short bark of laughter that got him a glare so dark, it left the end of his cigarette looking dim. "I think my record is seven minutes."

"And that is why they call you a _man-whore_."

"Please!" Komui yelled the word rather than saying it and his desk shuttered under the press of his hands across from Hiroko's. "If that is _all_ that you request, _Hiroko,_ then I can see that I try and have it done. I cannot promise that you will be here, but I will do everything I can to make it so. It might very well happen just because of the level of other… problems that the Order is currently facing." He pointed to Cross then, face perfectly stern. "Furthermore, I need a word with… _you_ about how long you've been gone and how much of a failure you are and what, exactly, we're going to do about it." He finished in a rush. With his eyes narrowed behind his reflective glasses he looked a great deal more menacing than he did usually, and the loss of his usually standoffish demeanor only added to his ominous air. He tilted his face downward, scowling to the best of his ability at the General.

Hiroko wasn't sure if she should be angry with him for dismissing her or curious what Marian had done to deserve such a harsh (attractive) look. Cross took another drag from his cigarette and smiled.

"You're not going to like my plan very much."

"I like that you're willing to share your plan."

"It will take months."

"We currently have months."

"I'll need Allen."

"Of course."

"And a few others."

"Who?" _Not Lavi._ The words were in Komui's head even before he could think of _Lenalee_. He crumpled the nearest paper against his palm – the redhead had been through too much to go trying to destroy an akuma plant any time in the next thirty years.

"Allen will want Kanda. Crowley is tough enough I think, though he'll be annoying to travel with." Cross pushed himself away from the wall as he spoke and began to pace – as if he were actually strategizing. "If Lenalee had use of her Innocence I would want her, but as she is, that's impossible. That German woman who never sleeps – her power would be handy. And…" He stopped tapping at his chin for a moment. Komui sucked in a short breath of air before he went on. "I _know_ that you don't want him to go, but Lavi has every reason to be there."

"_No."_

"Komu."

"Absolutely not. That… Exorcist has been through too much to just go off with _Kanda-kun_ of all people and attempt to save the world. It won't work. He'll go into emotional seizures or something."

"He's supposed to be a Bookman."

"Then _take_ Bookman."

"Bookman is old and will cause trouble. Yes, he's spritely, but he's not as strong as Lavi is."

"You will not be taking him. We don't know what Tyki wi—"

"Tyki! Ha!" Cross threw back his head with his laughter; though it was obvious no one else got the joke. "Tyki isn't any more of an issue than Allen is, Supervisor." Cross commented dryly, flicking the ash from his cigarette anxiously. Hiroko had never seen him act quite like this, half-desperate, and she had the urge to reach out in an effort to soothe him somehow, though she never had urges like that. It would have been a normal desire to kick him for being antsy, not hold him for the exact same reason. "Trust me, I _know_ what's going on in his head and if the evil part of him really loves Lavi, which it does as far as I've seen, he won't _breathe_ unless Lavi wants him to. If you try to remove that part of him – kill him, exorcise him, whatever – he'll try to kill you before that happens. If it's a temporary removal rather than permanent separation, he won't do anything he doesn't think his… other half wouldn't want while they're apart." He took a deep breath as if to go on, but Hiroko reached out and took him by the hand, curling her small fingers against his palm. Cross looked down at her and smiled softly; Komui cleared his throat behind her.

She didn't let Komui speak. "If you don't stand still I'll hug you." She warned in a voice that seemed to suggest that touching needed to be avoided. His smile grew wider at it and his hand gave hers a little squeeze. That wasn't what she had wanted, but it helped her glare at him a little.

Komui stopped things before they could become anymore diverted than they already had. "Even _if_ that's the case I will not let him walk out of here in his current state. He's been through too much to go on a huge mission like this when he shouldn't even be walking!"

"He _should_ be walking. He _should_ be showing just how much he _hasn't _betrayed the Order!"

The Chinese man scoffed at that. It didn't matter to him that Cross was at least half right, it only mattered that Lavi – even if he wasn't what he had been to him – would be completely unpredictable in that situation. Suffering so much and then having the weight of the world on his shoulders could not end well. Komui ground his teeth at the idea. "Even _if_ taking him will make things look better, how do I fit all of this together in the lie I'm spinning? No matter what I tell them, the fact that he and _Tyki Mikk the Noah of Pleasure_ were here _two months_ ago will damn us all. How else do I explain that you _shot_ him? And what do I tell them when they realize Tyki was here while Lavi was off with _you_, doing the job that you were told to do _five years_ ago?" As soon as he had said it he stopped, a strange, worried expression taking his face.

_Has it… been that long already?_

Cross sighed and stopped in front of Komui's desk, his hand still captured in Hiroko's. It seemed that his palm was the last thing on his mind when he took another deep pull from his cigarette before yanking it once more from his lips with a scowl. His hair swung dangerously close to the flame when he tilted forwards, speaking down to the hunched over scientist. "How much do they know?" He demanded quietly.

"They know that Kanda and Allen were scheduled to return from Japan _weeks_ ago."

"Do they know that Lavi was returned?" Cross clarified.

Komui bit his lip for a moment before he shook his head. "The last our communications had to do with how Lavi, was after _Tiago Valente _brought him here – they know he's breathing, but they don't know who Tyki is, or why we lost one hundred sixty three of our personnel." He sighed after that before sinking down in his chair and rubbing at his temples, all of the stress of his job visible on his face. As he sat there, trying to make sense of things, the General on the other side of his desk knelt to look at him, something Komui had never seen him do. He looked up at the red haired man and cocked an eyebrow, curious what he wanted.

"Then don't tell them."

"General…"

"Look." Cross sighed and tapped the desk as if to show that it was solid, smoke wafting toward Komui's face as he did it, distractingly. The scientist coughed.

"You're giving me cancer." He warned softly. The Japanese woman they shared the room with – quiet now – snickered lightly.

The General growled. "All you have to do is lie."

"You're _insane_."

"Tell me about it." Cross said without sarcasm, tapping the desk again. He demanded Komui's attention with that little movement. The woman beside him let go of his hand and stepped closer, something she wouldn't have done for money in the past, and wrapped one of her small arms around his waist, drawing him closer. The General man pretended not to notice; Komui's eyes flicked to her before seeming to understand that he wasn't supposed to be seeing her. He had heard the stories of women who fell for Cross Marian, had seen pictures of them fawning delicately over him, lighting his smokes, pouring his wine, but never had he seen one of a woman that held him as if he needed it. He went on as if he weren't leaning a bit into Hiroko's hold. "If you tell them it was an earthquake – and get every eyewitness to agree with you – we can wipe the slate clean. After we get back it can be revealed that Tiago isn't who he says he is and has some connection to the Noah family, but we never have to tell them how much of a connection he has. As long as he can keep his scars tucked away and his skin a nice olive, they won't suspect a Goddamn thing."

"Che!" Hiroko hissed from beside him. "I don't like the idea of the… _man_ responsible for the death of my youngest bastard just going unpunished."

Komui sighed at her, apology written deeply across his face. "You must understand that he didn't _mean_ to kill anyone. If my understanding of his mind is correct, he didn't mean anything – he simply wanted to stay near Lavi by any means necessary." As if to make his point clearer than it already was, he tilted back in his chair and narrowed his eyes at Cross, scrutinizing him. A strange thought had come to mind that he didn't want to voice, but needed to nonetheless. "He's a bit like Allen in that sense, am I wrong?" The words incited a little widening of Cross' eyes and a little snort from Hiroko. She didn't much like that idea, it seemed.

The General nodded. "More than you realize." He poked the wood again, harder. "But that's not the point of this. _Can_ you convince the people who actually _saw_ what happened to say something other than the truth? There were only three or four Finders, they should roll over rather easily." He looked down at Hiroko with a thoughtful expression, who shrugged her shoulders in response. No one would be interested in her word, but he had it if the need arose; he had to fight off the urge to kiss her right there in front of Komui. As much as they hadn't been naked, he still felt that she had him wrapped around her pinky finger somehow, especially with physical affection.

"It's possible, given Allen is so apologetic but…" Komui bounced himself a bit, his chair squeaking with the motion, and picked up his quill thoughtfully. He spun it between his fingers before he pressed it to his lips with a frown. "Kanda Yuu." He said finally. "I don't think he'll be willing to sign away his honor just to save the people he thinks are responsible for his brother's death."

-- -- --

Lavi slept so deeply that he didn't dream. There wasn't a flicker of Tyki, a shred of Yuu, or a dash of Lenalee – it was just him and darkness that he hardly even comprehended the existence of. When he woke, soft electrical lights shining down at him dimly, he felt perhaps as rested and satisfied as he had in any number of days, warm and stiff and in need of a shower. Opening his eye revealed the room much the same as it had been when he had fallen asleep – white and impersonal and clean, with Tyki's shirt tangled in his fingers and a cold breakfast sitting on the bedside table. He smiled a little. It was nice not to be woken for meals, even if he didn't much like cold eggs and room temperature milk.

After a time he sighed and pushed himself up, looking down at his sleeping lover with a smirk. The Noah lay with his hands to either side of his head, face turned slightly to the side, eyes gently closed and lips softly parted, sleeping just as hard as Lavi had only a moment before. The redhead felt a rush of warmth for the man and reached out to run his fingers through the tangled front of his hair, still unused to the length. It was soft and thick, a shade somewhere between brown and black, and the curls that had made for a jostled, knotted mess before were long and delicate, malleable in a way that they had not been previously. Lavi shaped the long forelock into a single curve before he draped it down the side of Tyki's face, quietly observing the shine it gave in respect to the sheet beside it.

"You're beautiful," Lavi heard himself whisper and almost jumped at the sound; it had been an internal thought, something he hadn't meant to share. It was strange of him to do something without thinking like that.

With a quiet chuckle he moved himself slowly away from the mattress and stretched his left leg as far as it would go. He had waited for a morning just like this – when Tyki wouldn't stop him – to try out his legs after too long sitting and sleeping. He didn't know how long he was supposed to spend recovering from a gunshot wound, but he knew it was too soon to do the things he did when no one was looking. Stretching his arms, lifting his legs, doing his best to flail about to exercise his under-exerted heart – if Marlette found him he'd be beaten to death with a clipboard, but he didn't let it bother him. He wanted, for some reason, to move.

When his left foot found the cold floor he knew that he'd finally get his wish today. It held his weight with a little effort, more out of practice than weak, and he lifted his slightly more troublesome right leg after a moment. With both feet on the floor and his arms beside his lover's body, he had to be exceedingly careful not to touch anything that might feel as he finally, gradually, put all of his weight on the floor.

He thought he heard the door open and jerked his head to look – nothing but gray door greeted him.

With a sigh he first took a step toward it, not that he had any idea what he was doing with himself. Maybe he would wander off to Komui's office and ask if he could have a real bath. Or maybe he'd go find Allen and ask him how Yuu was taking everything and if the freaky Noah thing was true. Maybe he would see Jerry and order something spicy, rather than cold eggs and warm milk.

His stomach growled. _That's right,_ He thought with a tiny pout. _I slept through dinner._

Jerry it was.

Just as he came to the door, the man in the bed behind him made a soft sound of discontent and rolled onto his side, then growled loudly. The redhead turned to look at him and felt a little prick of guilt in his heart; Tyki wouldn't know where he'd gone. As he watched, his lover's gray-clad arms reached out as if to embrace him and fell on nothing but air, then lifted to try again, this time at a different angle. Lavi frowned. He wanted, in all irony, to leave the kind of note he used to when he couldn't stay or had plan already, complete with smiley faces and cheesy closing line.

_Ty-chan,_ He thought the opening, writing it in his head being he lacked the paper.

_I'm going to get some food that's not soggy or old. Be back soon. I'll see if they have any of  
those Spanish pastries you like. Though… I'm not sure how I know you like them. Did I see you  
eat one? I don't remember. Oh well. I'll be back, I promise. 8D_

_Love and all that stuff that's gonna kill me,  
Lavi :-x_

He snorted at his own thoughts and walked shakily back to the bed with a soft smile, reaching for Tyki's shoulder when he was close enough. He shook the man slightly, leaning over him enough perhaps to appear to still be in bed, if not only half out of it. The pair of yellow-brown eyes that blinked up at him smiled a little, the mouth beneath them matching the expression a moment later.

"Good morning?" The Noah inquired softly.

"I guess. Our room temperature breakfast is over there if you want some, but I think I'm gonna go and get something spicy. All of this tame food is getting old."

"Walking?" Tyki blinked, then brought his hands up to rub the sleep from his eyes. He really had been sleeping like the dead.

"I was thinking I might run once I get down the stairs."

"Lavi, you should—"

"Sit here and get fat. No thanks, I _need_ to _move_. I'm gonna eat, get you a pastry, go take a bath, and then talk to Komui about what's going on – and you aren't gonna stop me with that _'the wounded should rest_' shit." He leaned down enough to kiss the Noah's lips ever so softly, pulling away in a rush. "If I'm not back by lunch, I might be in my room if you want to join me…"

Tyki lifted a hand until it touched the side of Lavi's face, lightly. "Walking and inviting me to the room… are you trying to seduce me, boy?"

"Don't call me _boy_, old pervert." Lavi growled back teasingly and smiled wide, his face tilted into Tyki's touch. He didn't resist when his laughing lover tugged him down into a gentle, loving brush of lips that left him wanting more than just that, more than just hugging, and grinned at the touch of fingers at the small of his back. Tyki wanted it too, he realized. It had been far too long, with far too many mishaps in-between for them to be satisfied with something so small any longer.

The kiss broke and the older man nibbled on the redhead's lower lip, pulling small, needy moan from behind his teeth.

"Go." The Noah commanded with a little push at Lavi's left shoulder. "Or this old pervert will want to test out his old man knees."

"Or my tight boy—"

"Sh! I get it; I should have used a different word. But you're defeating the purpose of sending you away." Tyki chuckled, pressing his fingers to his lover's lips in a playful attempt to silence him. He felt the expression of amusement that spread across Lavi's mouth and returned it gently, a flirtatious twinkle in his eyes. "You are far too well, _Amante._ I might have to beat you to keep you bedridden if this keeps up, though I find it more likely that you'll hurt yourself just walking from here to the cafeteria and I won't have to." He laughed again at the press of teeth on his fingers.

Lavi let go of his lover's hand and instead brought his own up to hold it, turning it to face him, fingertips lightly on his lower lip. "I won't hurt myself. That's what you're for."

"You make me sound terrible."

"Well, you're evil. At least."

"Just the other day you were calling me human…"

Lavi's expression changed into something more like a smirk, though a small glimmer of sadness came into his eye that Tyki had never seen before, something not quite explainable. The Noah had the feeling that perhaps he looked on the verge of tears simply because he was remembering what had been, before the thing that divided his humanity from his cruelty had been cut away. He didn't feel sad for it, or for Lavi's loss of it, but he felt a pang of guilt for not knowing what it was or how to make it right again. The word _human_ carried with it more pain and meaning that it shouldn't have and he couldn't say that he knew why. "You _are_ human, Ty-chan. The evil thing was a joke." Lavi clarified softly, and brought Tyki's fingers gently passed his lower lip, testing. "Though… the old thing wasn't, just so you know."

"Somehow I feel like you're teasing me."

"If I wanted to tease you I'd—"

"If you even _say _the word naked we're going to your room without any of the stops in-between."

"Ha. _No_, I was _going_ to say that I'd tell you the order I'm going to wash me in, but I guess that's not quite as sexy as saying… that word." With that Lavi grinned at his lover and took two fingers into his mouth, just the tips of them, and smiled at the suddenly wide quality to Tyki's eyes. He pulled them in deeper.

Tyki could not repress a shiver and gasped sharply, obviously uncomfortable, perhaps frightened, with his mouth hanging softly open. The reaction made Lavi suck harder, a strange grin taking his lips regardless of his hope to keep them soft. "Lavi, if you keep this up I won't even make it to the room, let alone let you bathe." He warned in a whisper. The redhead pulled back at it without even the slightest loss of amusement in his eye then leaned forward, pressing his lover's hand to his chest as he kissed him.

_Thanks for the warning, Ty-chan._ He thought when the hand on his shirt curled into a forceful fist. _I'll be sure to do that again after I scrub myself shiny._

-- -- --

It was awkward for a time, after Allen had let go of Kanda and the older boy had simply stayed there, looking at him from on top of his hips with his eyes drawn into uncharacteristic circles. The British boy didn't know how long they stayed that way, staring at each other, or what to do with his hands while they did. Eventually though, when he felt the tickle of tears starting in his throat at the prospect of losing Kanda's trust, the Japanese man closed his eyes and moved enough to lightly embrace him. There were no words to be said between them, though Allen couldn't say why his lover was silent. He would have cried if he had been forced to speak in that moment, just sobbed out his fear and heartache and his desire to remain with his lover the same as he had in that strange dreamscape not too long ago. Instead they settled with his back pressed to the larger man's chest so that when he rolled a bit, he could bury his face in the turn of the man's neck and breathe without having to worry about repressing a sudden shiver. Allen did not want this to happen to him. Kanda did not want this to happen to him. And yet it was happening, the same as so many other things Allen didn't want to think about.

The older Exorcist growled into his collar as if the sound would scare the darkness away and shifted, drawing his legs under the blankets with them. The press of pants against the back Allen's knees reassured him somewhat, the hand that sailed stealthily under the hem of his shirt adding a bit to that same feeling, warm breath on his ear inciting one that was completely different. With a tilt of his head he looked back at Kanda and saw him sigh, the pallid quality to his skin seeming to worsen with the loss of air.

Worry knotted in the white haired boy's gut.

"Che." The sound was so quiet he almost couldn't hear it. "I don't give a damn what color your eyes are. You're mine as long as you're Allen. Or maybe I'm just too apathetic to care."

"Apathetic?"

"Lethargic."

"No, I meant… since when do you know the word _apathetic?_" Allen inquired as daringly as he could without feeling as if he might insult the older man. His lover looked down at him with a furrowed brow, face pressed into worried lines and hollow creases. His arms grew stiff before he closed his eyes again, seeming unable to escape the word for more than a moment.

"I don't… know."

Allen didn't smile no matter how much he wanted to. The voice in his head chuckled for him; there was no need to do it out loud. "Do you think… I've made you smarter?"

"Che. Stupid, Moyashi."

"Really! I can read mantras and Japanese books and you get my vocabulary… that's not really…fair…"

Kanda cracked an eye at him, a strange, half-disbelieving expression on his face. The thought he had at that moment – centering on just how much like himself Allen was acting regardless of his state – remained unspoken; lost in the desire to touch. Kanda knew that he himself was acting strangely, knew that if he hadn't felt as emotionally _desperate _as he did, he would have pushed his lover away for a day when he didn't feel like he was sleeping with the enemy, but there was nothing to do about it now. He felt that somehow, even if his lover didn't look like himself anymore, he could bring him back with nothing but a hand on his skin. Vaguely the Japanese man remembered words that he had heard while sleeping, something about clinging like frost to a leaf, and the simile didn't seem too far fetched to him in that moment. He wanted to be a close as he could be, still, solid, but Allen's warmth seemed to make the action impossible; just trying to explain something ended with violence or crying. Without word he buried his face in his lover's hair and breathed in, hugging him closer.

"Um… Kanda?"

"Che. What?" He didn't even move when Allen shifted to look at his face.

"Are you… going back to sleep?"

The samurai thought about it for a moment, seeming to turn the idea around in his head as he relaxed further, eyes drooping shut. His body wasn't tired, his mind wanted nothing more than to be still, and emotionally he didn't know where he stood. Sleep sounded just fine with him. "No. I'm going to hold you with my eyes shut." He growled back all the same.

"I'd kind of rather… do that naked."

The tone of Allen's voice almost made him look, but not quite. Instead he placed a hand on his lover's face as if to silence him, his palm missed the mark and covered Allen's left eye instead, almost quick enough to poke it. "Right. Sounds great. After I feel like moving."

"Then I'll sing to you."

"Che. No."

"Sex or singing. _Choose._"

Kanda looked down at him and once again and didn't fight the little upward lift to his lips. "I get the feeling that if every damn thing about you changes, you'll still be like this." He heaved himself rather lazily over the smaller boy, ignoring the fact that at any moment someone could walk in on them, and forced himself not to tell him no. It was work to keep himself up, not touching Allen as much as he had been, his hair pooling on the sheets around them. "Horny like only a stupid moyashi can be." He elaborated, and sank down enough to lay his mouth on the flesh of Allen's collar bone.

The British boy lifted his hands to press them on his lover's sweater, a small grin shifting his mouth upward. A laugh that was not quite unlike a giggle sounded in the back of his throat. "Have I defeated your apathy with my seduction?" He inquired with a slow movement of his hands to Kanda's chest. Distantly he wondered what would happen if someone found him like this, under the Japanese man, before he shrugged it off as something that just wouldn't happen today, and if it did he wouldn't care.

"I don't want to hear you sing." The Japanese man corrected against his skin. With fingers that suddenly felt enthusiastic he pushed the material of his lover's shirt under his arms and moved below it, leaving a trail of open mouthed kisses in his wake. The black cloth stayed more or less out of his way, Allen's hands much the same as they found their way into his hair and tangled there, encouraging him the same as the little hiss of air from the boy's lips. A little rush of uncertainty filled his chest and he fought it down; gold eyes, black hair, stigmata – none of it would make Allen any less of himself if he continued to act normal. He would taste and smell the same, make the same sounds, and _feel_ the same no matter how much his appearance betrayed them. And until that happened, until he started to really show signs of changing, there was no reason to pull away or hide. His soft white hair and silver eyes were the same as always, the crimson of his curse mark a constant contrast to the colorlessness of the rest of him, all of it as delicate and innocent as it had always been in the electric lights. And deep down, beneath all of the uncertainty and anger, Kanda still felt the same warm knot of love and attachment that had been there since he had fallen for the boy.

So he let his mouth close over the nub of a nipple and smiled at the encouraging tug on his hair. The reaction was perfectly predictable, though he expected to be lectured on doing this in the medical wing at any moment.

"Love, we shouldn't…"

"Fuck _shouldn't._"

"Room, oil, bed…"

"Moving, walking, not touching…"

"It's my turn anyway."

"Che. Like I care."

"Kanda!" Allen protested without really protesting, tugging his lover's head back and forth by his hair. That got him a glare that darkened with the shadow of Kanda's bangs hanging over his eyes, reflecting like blue tinted coal up at him. Allen smiled at it and shivered as the Japanese man dipped his head to touched his skin with the cold tip of his nose, breathing hotly in contrasted with the touch. The white haired Exorcist made a short sound of discontent and whined at the brush of a tongue dancing on his skin. "Ka-Kanda… my turn… are you listening to me? _Ah! Love!"_ His hands balled into fists just as his lover came to the waist of his pants and tugged the material downward, lapping hurriedly lower. For a moment the younger man flailed, terrified that his lover had slipped below the line of the covers and shocked at the press of a mouth on the inside of his right thigh, hot and moist and demanding. He pulled the older man closer and, for the first time that he could remember, hated his own willingness to give up a fight for this.

"Just stay quiet." Kanda instructed against his skin, "They think we're sleeping anyhow."

"Wha-wha-what if they come in to be sure?"

"They'll be surprised the positions we can sleep in. Now shut up, Moyashi."

"Ka-Kanda! Don't _lick—oh… _please…again..." To Allen's surprise a laugh bubbled up from under the sheet and Kanda rose with it, meeting him with a kiss that encouraged his left leg to bed and his arms to twine around his lover's neck, warm and tight and loving. Whatever had previously plagued mood had vanished with the words it seemed, and he found himself smiling, grinning like he hadn't since the news of being a Noah had come to him. His enthusiasm was met with equal fire, enough that he slipped his left hand under Kanda's shirt and moaned at the press of teeth on his lip, everything he ever remembered them being.

**Why do you love **_**this**_** one? He's horrible. You might be mine be I'd never want… that.**  
_Well deal with it. You're the one that started singing that song for him, after all._  
**You made me do it because you love him.**  
_Whatever. Be quiet, please._  
**It disgusts me how much of a submissive you are.**  
_I like him on top of me. Now please mind your own business if you don't like him._

"Moyashi…" The word was breathed against his throat and he smiled, his mind filled with silence. Bittersweet stillness, nothing. Like this, so close to something the Noah didn't like, Allen wasn't anything or anyone but himself, not a twinge of Fourteenth in his mind. He didn't miss the music this time, didn't freak out because of it. Instead he pulled Kanda closer and lifted his hips invitingly, eyes half shut to the electric lights. "You were right… we should go…" Kanda hissed against his collar and swallowed, then pulled back enough to look down at the white haired Exorcist and smile. He leaned into his lover's hand while he wound an arm behind Allen's shoulders and pulled him up to sitting.

For a moment the British boy wasn't sure what was going on. He frowned at his lover but left his left hand as it was, draped around Kanda's neck, while his right painted a series of slow, crooked lines across his chest. To his amusement and his horror, the older man first secured his pants back to his body and then hefted him bridal-style, lumbering with a determined expression on his face. It wasn't until they were out of the room and heading down the hall, passing doctors and scientists and Finders that Allen made to raise his voice in curiosity, and even then he did it as politely as he could think to. "So Love…" He began, and waved at a man that might have been staring at them as they went by. "Are you carrying me because I'm shoeless? Or is this one of those… strange fantasies you never told me about?" He lifted and eyebrow at the Japanese man, who in turn looked down at him with a decidedly serious expression.

"Neither, Moyashi-kun." Kanda replied tersely. "I'm not letting you get lost."

"I would not get lost."

"Che. Let's not risk it."

Allen frowned a little, though not enough to worry Kanda about the plans forming in the back of his mind at the moment; his expression began to take on the characteristics of a pout. "We _are_ going to your room, right?" The younger man emphasized the question with a little tug at the side of Kanda's sweater. The action got him nothing short of a glare. "Oh… harder, Kanda. Glare harder. It's so good when you do it like that."

"If I weren't going to fuck you—"

"Oh, but you are."

"You're such a brat."

"Right. Pedophile."

"You should have been born sooner."

"I totally picked December. Because I'm magical, I got to choose when I was born."

"Don't mock me, Moyashi."

"Whatever you say, Candy."

"I'll drop you."

"I dare you to try…"

And so, leaving a trail of curious and thoughtful personnel in their wake, the two passed through the tower to the dormitories; a figure always three corridors behind them.

-- -- --

**You like?**

**I knooooow, I said there would be more lucky this chapter, but it's more like… next chapter…ish. We'll see… and… I dunno if you can see it or not but… it's moving along. How quickly the end seems to be approaching! T.T (It's about three months behind schedule, I might add.)**

**Anyhoo! Thanks lots for reading and reviewing! You guys keep me alive, I swear! So much stress without fanfiction. 8D**


	100. Fitting

**THIS IS RELATIVELY UNBETA'D. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE BETA'D VERSION, CHECK ASSHAT PRODUCTIONS TOMORROW-ISH. MY BETA IS AWAY AND I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG IN TO FF FOR A FEW DAYS TO MAKE ANY SUGGESTED CHANGES. TY FOR UNDERSTANDING.**

**So I've decided that this isn't late. Why isn't it late? Because I'm late so often, I might as well just update whenever the hell the chapter is done without trying to make any rushing deadlines or anything. I bet it would come out better too…**

**Next week's – or whenever's – chapter will be even later than this one. Remember that holiday from not-so-long-ago? Thankgiving? It's back again, and I once again have to go be with my families for the next 3-ish days. And most of them are old. So I won't be able to yaoi it up with them reading over my shoulder.**

**Disclaimer of D'smexiness?: I do not own D. Gray – Man. If I did… Lavi would do that cute, shy, arm lift of uke WIN more often.**

**WARNINGS: SEX. BETWEEN MEN. AND STUFF. MAJOR GUESS WORK ON THE PERSONALITY OF THE 14****TH****.**

**-- -- --**

Fitting

On most days, the kitchen ran like a well oiled machine – or greased, or maybe buttered – without a hitch or a problem or a burnt piece of toast to speak of. Jerry oversaw the chefs and cooks to be sure that everything went exactly as his recipe said, and everything went swimmingly as long as Allen Walker didn't eat more than three meals a day.

Today though, things would be different.

It was the supposed dead time between breakfast and lunch, when the late risers and forgetful scientists ate, yet three-fourths of the tables were occupied what with how hard they had been working of late. It seemed that the loss of nearly two hundred people had only affected occupancy at the busiest times of the day, and the new recruits all ate at the random moments they had time to stop reading and writing and calculating. Some didn't bother to stop and simply read and wrote and calculated while they ate. A few of the people, much to Jerry's amazement, had come from as far as the Asian branch to be sure the slack was picked up while things evened out over time. It was strange, and oddly reassuring, to see new faces even if he didn't see the old.

At the moment a new face was peering into his window, overly large, circular glasses perched on the end of her pert nose as she leaned into look at his wok, completely astounded. Her strange, course hair stuck out from her head in two great pigtails, breaded in a travesty of Lenalee's old style. She bobbed for a moment as if unsure if she wanted ramen or udon, and her brow crinkled.

That was the moment the machine came to a sudden, smoky halt.

In a flash of red hair and gray hospital clothes, Lavi the successor to Bookman came bouncing into the room, all smiles and heavy breathing, flushed and looking pleased about it. Silence filled the room awkwardly, starting by the door. He didn't seem to care however, and almost pranced his way from where he was standing forward, waving at a few people who stared at him that he recognized and introducing himself to the few bold enough to ask their neighbor if he was _the Lavi_ – whatever that meant. He was a bit paler than he should have been under the rogue on his cheeks, and his collar bones were protruding even more obviously than normal, perhaps because he held his shoulders a little different or from losing weight; it was impossible for Jerry to tell from this distance. What he could tell, by looking at the crowd staring at him so obviously, was that his return would be taken with smiles and frowns alike.

"Beef ramen." The girl had finally made up her mind. With a smile Jerry sent her order to the next man over and ushered her out of the way – it had been too long to just let Lavi stand in line for any length of time. As far as he had known, being a friend of Komui, the redhead was wounded beyond having anymore than the closest people as visitors and wouldn't be out and about for a long, long time. It seemed that the scientist had been wrong.

"Hiya Jerry!" The greeting was far too cheery, too bright, the antithesis of what the chef had been expecting. "How're things?"

For a moment the Indian man struggled to decide if a glowing smile was the best thing to wear in this case before he made up his mind: it didn't matter if Lavi wasn't supposed to be here, he was, and he needed to eat. And it was Jerry's job to feed him. With a motion that sent his braids dancing behind him, bouncing merrily from his _love_ vest, he smiled his widest, clutching his ladle to his chest. "Oh, Lavi!" His voice dripped enthusiasm and admiration; he could see the smile that the redhead wore match his level of happiness for only a moment. "What can I make for you my darling little baby Bookman?" The words, a bit more friendly than they might have been in the past, started up conversations at the front of the room – the topic of which wasn't Lavi or Tyki, nor the destruction of the front hall. Slowly, painfully slowly, the rest of the room joined in until a pleasant uproar filled the space again, a few forced chuckles sticking out over it all.

Lavi leaned in the window thoughtfully. "I dunno. Something with some spice. And two Spanish pastries if you have any. Oh, and… hm… something to drink like… um… chocolate milk. To kill the burn." His request – though slightly different from his usual order – was taken with a vigorous nod.

"I know just the thing! You go sit at a table and I'll bring it out to you, God knows you shouldn't be—"

"God knows I shouldn't be breathing but that isn't gonna stop me from partakin' of the pastime." Lavi said back with a one-eyed wink. There wasn't any malice in the statement, just a soft sort of warning that went with completely against the redhead's usual frivolous and friendly façade. Rather than prodding, Jerry grinned a little wider and reached out to ruffle the Exorcist's hair. "Aww… Jerry… now you're gonna have to wash your hands…" He warned in a soft sort of whine, falling to rest his chin on his arms on the slight overhang just outside the kitchen.

"It's good to see you back. And a little hand washing won't hurt me at all."

"But you're making me wait…"

"Oh, you won't wither in the next few seconds!"

"Dying slowly… oh… I can see the light…"

The Indian man chuckled under his breath and turned away, heading back toward the sinks at the rear of his working area. The kid was normal. Just as he had always been.

0x0x0x0

Allen realized the moment the door closed behind them that the sideways princess-carry was about the only thing that was going to be gentle about their lovemaking. He didn't know _how_ he knew, or why it was that he became tenser the closer they got to the bed, it was just how things were laid out for them. When his feet came down on the cold stone floor, away from the rug, he left his arms tangled around Kanda's neck and used them as a means to tug the taller man down into a kiss, the fingertips ghosting down his chest, a tender sort of encouragement to let go. Instead he tipped himself backward, guiding them blindly toward the mattress, the Japanese man growling low in his throat at being made to move without intention. The British boy stopped when his knees hit the mattress and pulled away, the corners of his mouth drawn into a delicate grin.

Kanda narrowed his eyes dangerously, taking a fist full of shirt in his right hand to tug his lover higher. Allen's smile widened. "You want it like that, do you?" The words were little more than a hot, moist breeze across Allen's face, and he smiled. Kanda rolled his eyes from left to right at it, almost scoffing, before he lowered his face enough press their foreheads together in a strange, disconnected hug. Allen didn't know what to make of it. Instead of asking he lifted his hands and buried them in the Japanese man's shirt, nails pressing through it to the well muscled chest beneath.

"Please," The smaller Exorcist whispered into that tiny place between them when he had thought of something to say. "I want you so close… I never want you to think I'd betray you, Kanda. If you're a part of me, and I'm a part of you, how could I? I want it to be like that. Maybe it doesn't make sense but… even if it hurts, I just…" A soft shushing sound brought Allen's words to a halt and he closed his eyes, a slow, loving brush of lips on his own the only sensation that mattered to him. The caress turned harsh and hungry in time, his mouth gasping when he had time between kisses, Kanda cradling his head in his hands and tilting it upward, the better to close the space between their bodies. The mattress came up at him suddenly, and the momentary scrape of teeth sent his fingers scratching down Kanda's back.

A strangled cry from his lover broke the kiss and the samurai looked down at him, dark hair hanging loose around his face, eyes bright with discomfort and yearning. He panted for a moment, his right hand pushing hard on the middle of Allen's chest. "Watch your left hand. If you make me bleed you'll owe me a shirt." Kanda growled at him, then moved in to lay an open kiss on his laughing mouth, wetter and sloppier than either of them were used to. With both of his hands free, however, the kiss alone seemed insufficient, so the older man buried one hand in his lover's hair while the other yanked at his shirt, none of it as gentle as he had intended.

Though Allen had taken his warning into account, his fingernails continued to run long, angry red lines across his back, as if the action would encourage him to work faster. By the time he jerked the material of the British boy's shirt away and cast it to the floor, those horrible fingernails were nothing but delicate, feather-light touches on his over-sensitive skin, tingles of salt and contact he was never quite expecting. Kanda did what he could to ignore the feeling, and focus on leaving his own mark somewhere on the column of his lover's throat. Vaguely, when the hands faltered against his skin, he wondered if nibbling at Allen's neck was as good for the younger man as it seemed to be, what with his spine bowing away from the mattress at every graze of teeth. He didn't have long to think about it before the British boy pushed a thigh between his own and pressed upward, breaking the connection of his mouth to flesh with a groan.

There were hands picking at his clothes. The face under his flushed when he pulled away, silver eyes half-hooded, mouth open in a strange sort of breathless pout. He felt the expression at least half mirrored his own face, especially once the hands that had tortured his back for so long slipped down his sides and pressed evenly against his chest, then scraped downward until they came to the bottom hem of his shirt and began to pull. With the garment cast aside he smiled – he didn't feel any different about being naked in Allen's presence than he had before.

"Hm… Kanda," The white haired boy began softly, tickling at the skin of his lover's chest with the words. The older man let him speak, though he moved until their pelvises were pressed flush, the state of his arousal obvious when pressed against Allen's so surely. "If… my eyes change for a minute… you won't try and kill me again, will you?"

That put a damper on Kanda's moment, but he managed to chuckle the idea away almost like it hadn't happened before. "Che. I only want to fuck _you_ until you scream, Moyashi. If your eyes go gold I'm getting off of you instead of getting you off." He explained before he started to lean in again for another taste of Allen's neck. The hands on his chest pushed back subtly and he stopped again, browed furrowed at the protest.

"I just want to try something. It'll only take a minute."

Kanda seemed to think about it, looking down at Allen with his eyes narrowed, before he shrugged and sat up a little higher, bending his knees around his lover's hips. "What are you going to do?" It seemed like the most logical question he could think to ask given the situation. He might have guessed, but Allen's expression told him not to.

"I'm going to make him see why I love you."

"Huh?"

Allen rolled his eyes a little, almost exasperated. It seemed to him that the more he tried to explain the less his situation made sense to Kanda, and having him ask questions didn't seem to help. He shook his head. "He doesn't like you. But if I can make him see how you look at me… maybe we won't have to worry about what might happen if I…" He didn't finish the thought, it being too terrible to voice at a time like this, and instead pulled his hands away from the Japanese man's skin and made a spreading motion, as if to explain for him. To his surprise his lover nodded and shifted forward again, the better to look down at his face with a perfectly caring expression, his mussed hair hanging in tangled strands around them both. If Allen had possessed a photographic memory, he would have used it at that moment.

Instead he took to the time to try and memorize that expression, the better to hold it in his mind forever.

"Well Moyashi?" Kanda grumbled from above him. "You want a staring contest?"

"Sorry…" Allen quirked a smile, "I was just appreciating your face."

"Right. Get a move on. I want to—"

"Yes, ok, sorry." The smaller Exorcist sighed and closed his eyes as his hands wandered up to Kanda's face, the left tangled in his hair while the right traced slowly down the line of his jaw and across the soft flesh of his lips. Kanda was still there, right under his hands, if only he would open his eyes to see him.

_Um… Mr. Noah?_ He thought into his mind, trying to summon up the lake from his dream and finding himself incapable. He could only speak into the darkness behind his eyelids and hope he got something for it. Somewhere, in what felt like the back of his neck, something _shifted_ and a shiver moved its way down his spine. Kanda's lips parted slightly against his fingers. _I know you're kind of… hiding from Kanda right now, and… I know that you don't really like the idea of feeling him or seeing him or having anything to do with him romantically, but… can you just take a look at him really fast?_ He had fallen back on his polite nature – out of habit rather than out of respect or kindness. But then again, maybe that was all Noah needed, a little understanding of his strange immortal situation.

_I shouldn't think like that, should I?_

A soft, mirthless laugh sounded in the back of him mind and he had the strange sensation that someone else was trying to make him smile filled his face. He resisted the urge.

**You want me to look at him? Why? Is he making a lovey-dovey expression at us?**  
_Because he's willing to accept you._

Silence. For a moment, Allen thought he had lost that strange voice somewhere in the very back of his mind again. _Hello?_

**Fine. But I'm not staying if he tries to—**  
_Good! I'll have you fawning all over him by the time you're trying to eat my thoughts._  
**…**

Slowly, fearing that Kanda might not keep his word, the British boy opened his eyes to his lover. For a second the Japanese man looked down at him with a confused expression, as if he didn't understand or hadn't expected what he saw, and then his face softened forcibly, his right hands carding through Allen's hair in slow, even strokes. It was a strange, unsure expression of devotion that made his eyes shine like midnight blue gemstones, flecked with gold in the sunlight streaming in the window.

"Moyashi?" The pet name took a long, slow moment to register in Allen's mind.

"Yeah, I'm still me." He nodded, and returned the slow touch in his hair with one of his own, encouraging the samurai to tilt a little closer than he already was. The eyes above him shifted back and forth, searching his gaze, and he smiled as if to reassure them. "I'm just… me and a little something more." He explained with a slow shrug of his shoulders.

Kanda's brow furrowed, pausing very close to Allen's face. "What's the point of bringing him along again?"

"Proving that you can accept his presence. Even if you don't love _him_, you still love _me_, and he being a part of me is sort of like that lime-love thing we talked about."

"You think that covers Noahs as well as… other things?"

"Well… maybe… I mean… it's possi—_Love?_" The Japanese man had rocked forward enough to press his lips to his forehead, softly, as if he didn't know if that was what he wanted to do. A gasp that wasn't his own parted Allen's lips.

**He just…**

"You're mine, Allen Walker. Every part of you. As long as you're the person I fell for, that won't change. Now," The larger man pulled away again and Allen saw another flash of uncertainty in his gaze, and then a stab of guilt before Kanda's face settled into something like a loving scowl. He wondered if his lover even knew he was fighting his nature. "If you're done proving to the ghost that I'm not a completely heartless bastard, can we get on with what we were doing?"

**Ghost?**

"He means you. Oh. Oops."

"Che."

**I have a name, nitwit.**  
_You do?_  
**Allen. My name is Allen.**

0x0x0x0

Tyki was more than surprised when Lavi came in before Marlette could show up for lunchtime rounds. Not only was he there before she was, he also came smiling as wide and bright-eyed as he had in days. At once the Noah regretted having stayed in bed when they had first woken together; having missed whatever it was that put his lover in such a pleasant mood, but decided not to mention it. Instead he accepted the Spanish pastry the younger man brought with him and sat a little higher in bed, the better to let the redhead take up the space at the end of the mattress where his feet normally reached.

The boy had more color to him than he had in weeks, and he spoke with his hands in a way that Tyki only vaguely remembered. It was odd to see the differences in him, especially being he remembered when such things had been as normal to him as watching Lavi cry at a hug, and for a brief moment he once again found himself missing the part of him that knew how to love without boundaries. He didn't know how to explain the difference in himself, how he could put words to the feeling that some part of him had made his lover _change_ and now he was changing back, but that was how he saw it. There wasn't a scrap of melancholy in the apprentice Bookman's eye, and Tyki could not help but think the missing emotion had nothing to do with him.

"So I ended up eating the whole blob of wasabi at once, which pretty much floored me. I've had it before… I don't know _why _I tried it. Maybe it was because this stuff was sort of reddish orange and last time it was green. Anyway, I'm never asking Jerry for something spicy without being clearer ever, ever again." Lavi finished his story with a lopsided grin. He had been munching his own pastry on an off throughout the tale – beginning when he had gotten out of the hospital wing unnoticed and taken off at a dead run. Tyki found the whole story rather amusing, though he didn't say as much for a moment, just chewing his sweet with both of his soft gold-brown eyes focused intently on Lavi's face.

At length he swallowed. "You are feeling healthy then?"

The redhead nodded with enthusiasm, squinting his eye shut with his smile. "I think it's about time we snuck out of here and had ourselves a shower. And…" He looked left and then right, as if expecting someone to overhear, "Maybe some… hmm-hmm?"

Tyki couldn't suppress a laugh. "If you truly are better, I would be more than willing to oblige you."

"But how are you feeling, Ty-chan? I don't wanna make you any more active than you feel like being…"

"Fine, Lavi." The Noah answered at once, and his smile just a little at being asked. "Tired. A bit… like I'm not too sure what to do with myself, but I think the things you want to do will be alright. As long as no one else gets the idea that they need to attack me with Innocence, everything will be fine." A strange idea came to him then – the urge to say something vulgar and ask for a cup of coffee – and he frowned at it. A bright thought? He couldn't imagine why something like that would happen now.

"You know Tyki… I don't think anyone is going to make that stupid mistake again. Well… we might wanna avoid Kanda until I can have a chat with him but…" Lavi waved the thought of his best friend – maybe no longer best friend – away with his left hand, forcing his grin wider. "I don't think we'll have to worry too much that. I imagine he's tied up with Allen right now, trying to figure out what to do about what you said… if Allen told him…" He lifted what remained of his pastry and ate it in a single bite, chewed with his mouth resolutely closed, as if he were digesting a thought with the sweet. Without realizing that he was doing it, he folded his arms up behind his head, and stretched, swallowed, and yawned. It wasn't until his gaze began to wander that he realized his lover was still staring at him, finishing his own treat with agonizing slowness.

The redhead suddenly felt like a creature being studied under a microscope by his lover's eyes. "What?"

Tyki cleared his throat and smiled when he was finished, the look strangely lopsided. "Lavi… are you really…"

"Ty-chan?"

The Noah shook his head, closing his eyes to the young man sitting before him. "This is a bit off topic of me but, I remember, before this happened to me, that I would hug you and you would cry on me, but then you laughed instead once." His brows came together and when he opened his eyes, they were a gentle brown, a color that Lavi hadn't truly seen in weeks. The redhead's mouth fell open. "If we go bathe together, and I hold you against me, which reaction should I expect?" To his amazement the single emerald eye that looked at him seemed to comprehend what he was asking and grew slightly round – and then it was gone, the apprentice Bookman smashed against his chest with his seeing side pressed against the Noah's ribcage.

"It still hurts to love you, Ty-chan, but I wouldn't have it any other way." Lavi mumbled into him, his arms pressed tight to his lover's sides. "I dunno why you're thinking about this _now_ but… I don't know what I'll do, Ty-chan. You're different than you were, but so am I. We still… _fit_. You like it when I cry the same that you liked it when I laughed so… so…" To Lavi's surprise, the arms that came up around him were slow and gentle, exactly how he remembered them, warm and comforting in a way they hadn't been the night before. It made him squeeze a little tighter. "Which do you _want_ me to do? Is that why you're asking?"

The body under Lavi shifted and Tyki returned his embrace more surely as he shut his eyes to the room; the apprentice Bookman had seen right through him. Instead of answering with the confused words that formed in the front of his mind, he tried to remember what he might have said, if not for the dark and the light all meshed together within him, neither groping for control as much as agreeing with what had first came to mind. It didn't make any sense to him. With the smaller man pressed to his torso and both of his hands pushed into his skin, there were too many ideas and too few words to express them. "Lavi… before… I wouldn't have hurt you like I did. I wouldn't have let you go this morning without me. I wouldn't want you to hurt while you loved me but… maybe I'm not who I was. Maybe it isn't that there is no division between the light and the dark anymore, maybe the light is gone. How can you hug me when that could be true? How can you bring me food and act as if nothing has changed at all? It doesn't make sense to me. You should hate me. You should want the man back who saved you from my family before." He stopped and looked down at Lavi suddenly, feeling warmth on his chest that hadn't been there before. He was slightly shocked to find a hand pressed hungrily to his skin, pushed up under his shirt, gentle and soothing. The boy glanced up at him with tears in his eye and smiled.

"You're the same, Ty-chan. You aren't _exactly_ the same, though. You're more inclined to do what the dark wants." The redhead moved his head up to press on his lover's throat and took a deep, shaking breath. "When… the last time I changed personalities – when I went from Deke to _Lavi¸_ I would still _think_ like Deke sometimes. It's kind of like that, I think. You're… sorta comfortable being dark because you went _back_ to being dark for a while. So now that you can be anything you want to be, you end up trying to be white and still acting dark because that's your new comfort zone. You follow?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Gah, never mind. Just hug me."

The Noah let out a low, rumbling laugh and did as instructed, petting one hand through the top of Lavi's hair with a little grin. The younger man continued to look up at him and smile, willing himself to keep that expression regardless of how he really felt at that moment.

"You know, Marlette will be around sometime in the next hour." Tyki commented matter-of-factly, and slid his right hand down a bit to brush under his lover's left eye, feeling along the bone until his thumb rested at the boy's temple, framing the side of his face half-gently. "The two of us could bathe before then, if you'd like. Just leave a note and let her lecture us later?"

"Now you're sounding not-dark."

"Not an answer…"

Lavi laughed without sound and pushed himself higher, just close enough to graze his lips on his lover's. The response was immediate and predictable, pleasant and soft, lacking in nibbles and bruises. It was a perfectly delicate kiss, and breaking it seemed to only lead them into another, deeper and more aggressive, Tyki's teeth catching on the inside of the younger man's lip before they moved to the edge of his jaw, then played down the slope of his throat, drawing a startled sound from deep within the redhead's chest. In a moment of recklessness the apprentice Bookman let out a loud, low moan, hardly muffled against his lover's touch.

Tyki's mouth split into a hungry sort of smile against Lavi's skin, a chuckle in his throat. "How about a cold shower, _Amante?_"

"You fucking sadistic bastard." It might as well have been a confession of love for all the venom in it. "Get me all ready for touching and teasing and fucking and then just… _take a cold shower._"

"Well… we could take one together."

"Dirty old pervert."

0x0x0x0

**I am not going to sit here while he does this to my Allen.**  
_You can go back to hiding now…_  
**He kissed me on the forehead! How can he do that and then… just… you…**  
_He loves me. If you could try loving him, he might learn to get over—_  
**Love… but I only…I love… people.**

Kanda, having returned to his slow oral exploration of Allen's chest, smiled softly at the little giggle that parted the boy's lips. He couldn't see his lover's irises, not with his eyes shut the way they were, but he could sense every twitch and hitch in his breath, hear every appreciative sound he let leak from between his teeth, and they were all perfectly _right_. There was nothing guess-worthy about the incessant fingernails pressed into Kanda's shoulders, and the loud growl in the white haired boy's throat; they were exactly the sort of thing he would have expected from closing his teeth rather harshly on the russet nub of an erected nipple.

"Love…" The smaller of the two rocked his hips invitingly, though his eyes remained closed as he did it. "Now?"

"Che. Patience."

_You love people?_  
**Yes. That's why the last me chose you.**  
_What do you mean?_  
**To keep what I love. The job of an Exorcist is to defend humanity from Akuma, is it not?**  
_But… I decided to become an Exorcist after what happened with Mana. Master found me and—_  
**I told him where to find you, did you know that?**  
_What…  
_**But you just keep telling yourself that. Keeping moving forward and creating the path you're walking. There's no such thing as fate or manipulation.**  
_What are you saying?_  
**Souls can't be used as pawns to fight wars regardless of their will.**  
_What are you getting at?!_  
**I'm saying that **_**you**_** never wanted any of this! I did! It was me! This is what I made you do! You are **_**my**_** AKUMA.**

"You're lying…" The words were so soft Kanda almost didn't hear them. With a furrowed brow and a wet popping sound he dragged himself away from his lover's chest, coming up to look at the boy's shocked open eyes. They were a swimming sort of silver-gold, like the two metals had melted together, soft and burning and shimmering with unshed tears. Without thinking about the potential for horrible thoughts behind those angelic eyes, Kanda reached out to card his fingers through the younger man's hair, holding his gaze as tenderly as he could without feeling as if he had betrayed his own feelings.

_It doesn't matter if he's like Tyki. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter._

"It doesn't matter, Moyashi-kun. I love you." He whispered in a voice that Allen didn't seem to comprehend. "Now please, _please_… don't talk to him anymore. Not when I'm making love to you."

"Making… love…"

"Allen?"

_Has everything I've ever done been a lie?_**  
Not everything.**  
_If you've decided all of this for me then… what is mine? What did I do on my own?_  
**HIM. You picked this one all on your own.**

"Kanda!" With a start the white haired Exorcist threw himself at the older man, kissing at him and sucking at whatever he could find, one hand fisted in his hair, the other hooked possessively around his shoulders, drawing himself upward. He felt his lover recoil in surprise but he didn't care, he couldn't think about that right now, not with his teeth on the junction of Kanda's neck and shoulder and his hips thrown forward so the straining fabric of his pants rested on the older man's thigh. "Please… if there's only _you_ then… then…" By the time he began to speak his lover was responding to him, gently dragging his fingers over Allen's ribcage, bruising the skin of his left shoulder. It drew Allen like a bow string against the mattress, arching into Kanda repeatedly, a plea always on his lips.

"What's a lie, Moyashi-kun?" The Japanese man asked the underside of his lover's jaw while his fingers worked at his pants buttons. When they were open he tugged them leisurely down to Allen's knees and left them there, too distracted by the only half-careful rake of fingernails on his spine, and let out a slow, husky whimper. Even if he was the one in control again, even if it was him dictating what went where and in which position, it was Allen who cued his decisions with his fingertips. "Tell me, Allen."

The white haired boy let out a mirthless, painful laugh. His eyes were silver as they traced the line of Kanda's boy in a single sweep, pausing when they found his lover's face. Telling Kanda, telling the one person who was going to refute it, wasn't what Allen wanted at the moment. "It doesn't matter. You're mine. All mine. None of you is for him right? Everything you are is for me?" The questions were stupid and he knew it, so he shook them away, taking his lover by the leather of his belt. "Never mind. It's stupid, Love. I can explain it to you after… I'm just… happy to be with you." When he said the last he snaked his lover's belt away and hooked it playfully around the back of his neck, using at as means to jerk him closer. "Now?"

"The longer I go on the saner you get."

"That is totally not true!"

"Really?"

"_Kanda! Touching that is teasing!"_

The Japanese man chuckled, loud and deep, and lowered his forehead to Allen's, a strange expression on his face. "Can I do you from behind then?" He asked in a whisper, the blush he got in response left his own cheeks feeling hot.

"W-why would you want to?"

"Because you'll scratch my back off if I fuck you on yours."

"You just want my face to explode, don't you?"

"Oh no…" As he said it, he guided Allen's hand back to his pants, leaving the belt draped lazily over his nape. He helped the smaller boy's fingers with the fasteners until he got the idea, and then toyed absently with his chest muscles, following an ever changing pattern with his free fingers. "If I wanted that I'd just hold you up by your ankles using my superior height." He joked a little more loudly.

Allen shook his head a little as he tugged his lover's pants as low as he could get them from his angle. "I won't scratch you…"

"Then blindfold me."

"Fine, you can do me from behind. _Hentai._"

"Good wife."

Allen harrumphed, annoyed that his lover hadn't been insulted by the word _pervert_, and yanked his hand down a bit more, tugging pants down with them. To his surprise, Kanda helped him scoot them lower and eventually off, leaning over him with a strange, thoughtful expression on his face. The kiss they shared lacked any sort of pattern; Allen pushed back with his tongue to show his urgency rather than teasing playfully or reacting with a shy brush of uncertainty. A hand tangled in his hair because of it and jerked his head back, exposing the column of his neck for a half-painful press of teeth against his jugular.

He wanted to curse. He wanted to haul off and use a word that expressed both pain and enjoyment at once, something vulgar and completely informal, something that would make Kanda pause.

It wasn't a very _Allen_ reaction, he knew, but maybe all of _Allen_ had been a lie.

He decided to go with the most pause-worthy word he knew.

"_Fuck."_

His lover's mouth blew a laughing raspberry across his skin and he found himself frowning at it, irked with the Japanese man's response. Sure, his tone had been terrible, but that was no reason to laugh at his attempt. A pair of gentle hands came down on the mattress to either side of his head, leaving his hair alone, and he pushed up slightly on the chest that hovered over his own, refusing to focus on the too amused expression looking down at him.

"Moyashi."

"What Love?"

"Now would be fine." That hadn't been what Allen was expecting at all, but the way it was said let him know he needn't worry. He threw his arms up to twine them around Kanda's neck and pull himself upward, grinning. Kanda chuckled a little, groped for what he knew they needed as his lover pushed himself up a little higher and slowly, lazily, rolled onto his hands and knees with a thoughtful backward glance.

Kanda sat on his knees with the bottle of oil in his hands and swallowed thickly, eyes wandering without rhyme or reason across the expanse of flesh Allen had unwittingly offered. Without doing anything with the bottle in his hands and moved forward, pressing his chest into his lover's back, and kissed the mouth that turned back to greet him hungrily. _"Love…"_ The word was whispered against his lips, soft and far less certain than their previous conversation had been. He cocked an eyebrow in an effort to make Allen continue. _"If I asked you to… never mind."_

"If you asked me for something and I could do it for you, you know I'd try."

The British Exorcist smiled but there was no mirth in it, and he rocked his hips back as if to remind his lover what it was they were supposed to be doing. "We can talk about it when we're not naked…"

"Che. Or when we _are_ naked… tangled up together…"

"Sore and pleasantly worn out…"

"Yeah…" As Kanda nodded he worked the cap from the lubricant and poured a bit onto his fingers. The entire time he leaned into his lover, keeping them pressed close enough to _feel_ his heartbeat move down the younger boy's back, a strange sort of rapid cadence between them. With his fingers moistened he lowered them down between them and hooked his left arm around the white haired boy's waist, then moved his hand with slow, gentle movements, though faster and less cautious than they had been in the past. Allen bowed at the touch, then melted against the mattress with a moan. It was a reaction Kanda hadn't really been expecting, and he drew his clean hand away to pull him up again by pressing in the middle of his chest, gentle but still insistent. The white haired boy took the hand in his own and guided two fingers into his mouth. At first the samurai didn't know what he was doing, and then he _felt_ it – the same patterns and motions that Allen would have used with his length were working on his fingers. He cursed lowly at it, working his hand faster at the encouragement, and pressed himself up to nibble the shell of the boy's left ear, which in turn drew a started whine from Allen's throat. It continued for a long time like that, his breaths hot and focused down the side of his lover's face, the occasional whimper breaking wetly around his fingers. Sweet nothings and little confessions found their way out of his lips; Allen turned the color he always did when embarrassed, silver eyes squinted nearly shut at it all.

When his third finger slipped beside the other two with no reaction apart from a needy plea for more, he slid his wet hand away from Allen's mouth and gripped his chin, guiding them into a somewhat sloppy meeting of lips. There was a hand in his hair, pulling him down, while his lover's left palm found a place to grip onto the sheets for leverage.

That was all the encouragement Kanda needed anymore. Panting, and holding his lover's face so he could still see it, he moved his right hand away, which slipped with a rather unattractive wet sound to the bed beside him, before he one handedly coated his length with more oil and leaned in again. His lover's eyes widened before nearly shutting, and a small, almost unnoticeable spec of gold flashed around his irises.

"_Moyashi…"_ The last letter was hardly breathed across the boy's lips, Kanda losing himself to the sensations running rampant through his body. The eyes that looked at him then, silver again, were filled with a gentle sort of emotion that he couldn't name, and Allen leaned back into him despite his already gradual inward process, driving the breath from his lungs.

"It's ok…" Allen breathed at him, nearly without sound. "He doesn't much like the idea of… you doing… this to—me. He can shut the _fuck_ up for all I care."

"That's kind of rude of you, Moyashi-kun."

"He made me angry. Let's not talk about it. Please… _Yuu…_" He rocked back again, forcibly, and made his own eyes slide shut again with the motion, moisture gathering at the edges of his eyelids. That was all the cue for more that his lover needed. They moved slowly, first apart and then together again, his right hand tangled at the back of Kanda's neck, left just barely touching the sheets in front of him, body bent half over to accommodate them both. It was a bit awkward – it made him feel smaller in relation to his lover than he knew he was – yet he couldn't deny that it was better than shredding the skin of his lover's back the way he was the sheet between his fingers, even if the angry part of him wanted to. "Don't—"

"I know." Kanda pushed him forward more and moved with more force, until he felt the smaller man tense and clamp at him, a harsh whine in the back of his throat and a twitch in his feet. "Can you… _look_ at… m-me while I…"

"I'll try." The British boy agreed with a sideways nod. The hand on his throat fell to his hips, holding him steady, and his lover cued a rhythm much faster than he had been expecting. It almost hurt, almost, and he turned away, mouth open, left fist clamping the bedding tighter. It might have been better that he had broken his promise to try looking – with so many sensations, with so many thoughts, he couldn't say what color his own eyes were with any level of certainty. Lips and teeth and tongue played over the back of his neck and down his left shoulder, their pace unfaltering, the hips slamming into his so sure and solid and exquisite he didn't even think about helping. Every thrust sent his mind riding on a wave of euphoric blankness, sweet and distant and utterly fulfilling, and the best part was know that this was still Kanda doing it to him, driving every dark thought from his mind, scaring away everything but the light.

_I love him. I love him so, so much. And this is just one more reason to._

The dark was silent in response.

His lover growled deeply, and teeth closed on the tip of his right ear. A cry of surprise bled from his lips, his hips gave a savage jerk, and he yanked the sheet toward him – it didn't get very far at all. Kanda's left palm, about the same size has his, landed on the back of his hand and wove between his fingers from behind, sharing his grip on the sheets. He almost couldn't hold himself up with the hand that had been holding his hip working at his engorged erection, no more teasing than it would have been for the man it belonged to.

His right hand gave a jerk, still tangled in Kanda's hair, and the mouth that had been on his ear panted against the side of his jaw, hot and hurried. His eyes shut to it, just as he managed to turn his head and press his lips to his lover's.

"Will you come for me, Moyashi?"

"_Love!"_

The Japanese man snickered, nipping at the edge of Allen's lip. "You blush… the way you always do." He breathed, trying to speak and not lose pace and failing at the first. "Close?"

Allen swallowed and nodded rapidly, the moisture in his eyes leaking from the corners without him able to stop it. Their already quick pace increased suddenly, ruthlessly, and he arched into it, the press of flesh against his prostrate rapid and undeniably wonderful. That, coupled with the hand stroking vigorously at his length, and the tease of a hot tongue on the lobe of his ear was too much – he couldn't focus on anything besides the hot, tight spasm in his lower abdomen that teased every muscle in his body and lifted his voice in a hoarse, almost voiceless cry of release. For a moment the room swam in front of him, foggy from tears and white washed with orgasm, only the continued thrust of Kanda's hips breaking through the haze that gathered in front of his eyes. His lover's release sent him sliding down against the mattress, head thrown back at the heat that filled him.

The moment it was over he collapsed, shivering and sweating and panting with a restlessness that was uncharacteristic of him. Kanda slumped into him, pinning him for the moment to the bed. He didn't mind the weight, or the heat, or the sticky sensation on his back – but the sheet of ebony hair on his shoulders was a little annoying. He didn't let it bother him.

"Is it me or… does sex get better the more we do it?" Allen rasped almost silently. Kanda chuckled again, running his left hand down the side of his ribcage at a pace that didn't help with the trembling aftershocks that filled him.

"It gets better. Usually." He admitted dryly, and rolled from Allen's back with a groan, hands still clasped half-desperately. With his body removed from the smaller boy's back, he expected to be hugged and cuddled, bodily fluids and nakedness less important than their desire for closeness. It didn't happen. Allen stayed where he was; face turned away, breathing in slow, deep breaths, his fingers closed almost painfully on Kanda's. The Japanese man frowned at it and furrowed his brow, not understanding. "Allen?"

"Gimme a sec."

Kanda waited.

_Listen to me._ Allen thought into the back of his head, trying to be calm. He was never angry – it wasn't nice to be angry – but this was different. It was worse than when he had wanted for only a moment to murder Uri for hurting Kanda. _I don't care if you've made every choice for me, I don't care if you don't like Kanda, I don't care if you'll help me if I leave him – you will not speak to me when I am in his arms. You don't exist. It's just the two of us, him and I, and you have nothing to do with it. That means you'll keep your eyes to yourself and keep your mouth _shut_, thank you._

**Oh? Whatever will you do if I don't?**  
_I'll stab us both. It might not work but if it does, you'll die._  
**I wonder if that's a form of suicide…**  
_I don't care! Just leave me alone!_  
**I can't leave you alone.**  
_Yes you can! Stop talking!_  
**Even if I don't talk everything I think we think.**  
_Prove it._  
**I'm thinking of a color.**  
_**Red.**_

"Get out of my head!"

"Allen!"

All at once the British boy curled in on himself gripping the sides of his head between his palms, eyes wide. For a moment Kanda fought with himself on how to reach before, with a curse and a growl, he moved forward, taking the boy by the wrists and yanking him into a sitting position. Allen didn't seem to see him at all, his wide eyes unfocused, fingers pulling at the edges of his hair.

"You were quiet until I knew you were there so why do you have to _talk_ now? Even if I think what you think… you didn't pick this for me. I've thought on my own. And if I didn't know you were there… if we could just… I don't—" Allen stopped suddenly, his gaze at last finding Kanda and staying on him, drawing him in almost thirstily. Horror spread across his face, eyes brimming with tears. "Kan-da... was I… talking out loud?"

The samurai nodded.

"I don't think I can… do this…"

"Do what, Allen?"

"He's… everything I know, everything I believe in, he's… negating it all. Everything. I can't…"

"He's lying."

"No he's not. That's what I can't…"

Kanda pulled on his arms, hard, and dragged the smaller man against him, cupped the sides of his face, forcing Allen to meet his eyes. He spoke right over the top of his lover's protests. "Calm down and pay attention for a minute, damn it." He growled, eyes flicking back and forth between Allen's. "You both love people, don't you? You both want to save them? You both want to kill the Earl?" He paused to breathe, wiping away his lover's tears. "Then what the Hell does it matter what you believe or what you know? As long as you want the same thing, can't you just stay who you've always been and do it how you are?"

"_No."_ Allen answered at once, shaking his head. "There can't _be_ two people in the same head, Love. Even if we try to cooperate and understand each other, the two of us… we can't…"

**Can't…**  
_**We…**_

A knock sounded at the door.

0x0x0x0

_Marlette –_

_We've gone to take a shower. And see Komui. And stuff. Maybe not in that order. Anyway, we're  
both healthy, so don't worry (Tyki wants me to change that to fret for some reason) over us too  
much. You can blame us for disappearing. If the Matron blames you, I'll have Ty-chan walk in  
on her through a wall or something. You know, like revenge._

_Thanks for understanding!  
Lucky _\(o.o)/\(-.-)/

_P.S. Tyki thinks it's silly of me to put our names together like that and would like it mentioned. He's so old._

Looking at the note he had folded and secured to his pillow with an empty milk glass, Lavi smiled. Tyki gave his elbow a little squeeze, perhaps out of appreciation or out of encouragement to move, and leaned into his shoulder, the larger man's chest pressed solidly against his sore shoulders. He had never felt quite like he did in that moment for the Noah standing behind him, his face nuzzled into the corner of his neck, but he didn't say a word about it – trying to explain his undying affection would most likely only make climbing into the shower together awkward.

"_I love you. I really, really love you."_ The whisper in his ear could not have been said at a better time and he smiled at it. Even now, with Tyki more willing to give him pain and less willing to understand his frustration, he couldn't say that their bond was any less powerful than it had been weeks ago. If he reached out with his mind and prodded the space between them he had allocated to Tyki's feelings, he could very well read his emotions as plainly as he could his own. Most of the time. Sometimes his were more complicated than his lovers.

"So, lover who loves me so much he's going back on his rule on admitting it where other people can hear," The redhead chimed back at the Noah, tilting his head with an even wider, almost goofy grin. "You want to hit the communal bath area, or use mine?"

"Which will allow me a hard surface to press you against?" Tyki inquired boldly, his arms tightened in another little miniature hug around the redhead's ribcage.

The apprentice Bookman laughed, rocking back on his feet to bring them closer. He half expected the Noah to reach down and bite him for some reason, but the taller man only rubbed his face on the side of his neck like a cat would, his fingers tangled in all of the clothing he could reach. "Mine then. We'll be reprimanded if someone finds us borrowing bath oil for _that_." As he spoke he found himself spun on his feet – or maybe dragged in a circle by his waist – until he faced the door, Tyki propelling him steadily forward by his hips. "Horny, Ty-chan?"

"You have no idea…"

With a roll of his eyes Lavi stepped away from his lover bit, the better to move without tripping, and pulled open the door, Tyki's fingers still trailing his hips as they stepped into the hall. If anyone had seen them at that moment, sneaking down the hall like a pair of naughty teenagers, they might have been able to lie their way out of it with nothing but blushes and swift nods, Lavi thought. It was obvious what they were up to from the way they turned around corners to the press of his lover's fingers on his hips, and the knowledge only served to make him smile. When he looked back at Tyki – using the stairs as a reason to take him by the hand and meet his gaze – the expression was mirrored on his lips, eyes laughing with a sort of boyish happiness that the redhead didn't ever remember finding in him. He realized then, as they started silently down the stairs together, that maybe the line between dark and light had never really mattered at all – not if Tyki could smile with his irises that tawny brown and lift his lip over his slightly too fang like teeth in amusement.

"Ty-chan, you're… happy aren't you?" The apprentice Bookman asked despite the fact that he already knew the answer.

"You're walking. That puts a spring in my step like you wouldn't believe."

"What kind of spring?"

"Hmm… a playful kind, I suppose. I believe I would be equally fine tying you up or not at the moment."

"Ee… you're making me blush."

"No, I'm making you _glow._"

Lavi growled as they came to the bottom of the steps and gave Tyki's hand a little yank, bringing them together at the hip. To his surprise the Noah draped an arm over his shoulders, not possessively but instead protectively, as if the two of them could drift apart without it there.

"Don't be like that, Amante."

"Like what?"

"You gave me that '_please tease me more'_ look."

The redhead shook his head and steered them toward his room a little more hurriedly, just because it seemed the only course of action open to him. They passed a Finder who glared at them, but the halls seemed barren otherwise, no scientists or maids or nurses to interfere with them.

It most likely helped that he was taking the least known route to his room.

They arrived at their destination with little if anymore conversation between them, a fact that reminded Lavi of the time his lover and first thrown him into the door and then tied his hands to the bars of his bed. He shivered involuntarily at it. How long had he been in the hospital wing? His stays had started to bleed together in his mind a little, each one losing its distinction in his memory. That didn't happen a lot. Being a Bookman pretty much made sure that it _never _happened very easily. But running around and sneaking, the slight pain in his ankles from not using them so long without having stretched too much first had left him just less than drained, so it wasn't too surprising.

Tyki closed the door softly, tugging him toward the bathroom.

It didn't look like he'd be picking out clothes for the day at this rate. Or doing much else, really. The Noah took a moment to kiss him before he took the initiative and started tinkering with the controls in the shower, a little thoughtful smile on his lips. The redhead didn't mind at all, and pushed himself up next to the sink to lean against the thin strip of wall that the mirror did not quite reach, watching his lover lean over and adjust the temperature like a scientist testing an important experiment. It made him a little nostalgic, memories of Tyki's own bathroom flitting to the surface of his mind before his own brown and white tile chased the thought into the back of his head to linger where he could hardly feel it – where it couldn't conjure unhappy memories of its own volition. Finding pleasure in his own pain didn't change the fact that what had happened in the Noah mansion had been against his will, and the recollection would likely ruin the mood before his lover could even set it.

"Lavi?" The sound of his name made him flinch a little, eye popping open at once despite that he couldn't quite recall when he had shut it. Tyki was leaning very close to him, a hand on either side of his knees, eyebrows pushed together as if concerned. The dark seemed distant. "Are you alright?"

"Mmhmm." He answered without even thinking about it and lifted a hand to twine his fingers in the taller man's curls. They were longer and less pronounced, but he could still run his hands through them in appreciation. "Kinda tired." He admitted with a little lift of his lips. The man in front of him frowned more deeply. "I went to the cafeteria – ran part of the way – ate, ran back, sat with you, wrote a note, walked here… all that running must be a bit much so suddenly." He offered softly.

"Or maybe you tore something and you're bleeding out internally."

"No, I think I've had enough internal bleeding to know when I'm tired and when I'm dying."

Tyki rolled his eyes and touched the side of his face with his right hand, stroking it in a way that Lavi had come to expect. The redhead let his eye fall shut to it, breathing deeply, and sighed at the soft brush of lips against his own. The steam from the shower had begun to fog the room, the heat a subtle reminder of what the older man wanted and how much he could use a bath. Instead of saying anything about it, however, he pulled the Noah a little closer, pressing their mouths together with a bit more fervor, inviting his lover for more with a slow parting of his knees. Swift fingers tugged at the back of his collar, stealthily divesting him of it even before he could raise his arms to assist in its removal. It made him laugh a little against his lover's mouth, his hands tangled in the suddenly loose strands of his hair.

"Lavi…" The name was spoken against his throat, hot and low and whispered, a line of goosebumps seared down his right arm at it. There were fingers on his chest, pulling at the last of his bandages experimentally. "Are you alright under this?"

"Uh huh…" The redhead breathed back at him. While he spoke he worked at Tyki's shirt, eye sliding shut as he did. The touch of skin against his own had been missing for so long that he didn't even know what he do now that it was right there, fingers tracing the scar in the middle of his chest.

Tyki pulled away long enough to take off his own shirt before he moved forward again, his palms pressed to the ridges of the younger man's collar bones. _"Amante…"_ His tongue graced the hollow of Lavi's throat before he bent his head forward, pressing his face into the curve of his neck with a sigh. "I've missed being able to touch you, Lavi. I've missed having your skin right there where I can touch it whenever the hell I feel the need to." He went on as he draped his arms around the redhead's hips and gave his pants a tiny little downward tug. _"God_ the ideas…"

"Ideas?"

The Noah nodded rapidly. "The things I _want_."

The apprentice Bookman let out a shaky little laugh, tilting his head back with a smile that squeezed his left eye closed entirely. "How about we start with wanting to be clean?" Lavi suggested with a sideways tilt of his head that left his hair hanging over his eye patch limply. Tyki leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips.

"Yes, that was the plan, wasn't it? You wouldn't mind if I did some of that with my—" The Noah found himself cut off with a hurried enthusiastic kiss and hands gliding down his shoulder blades, hungry and yet slow enough for him to draw softly away before they slipped into the back of his pants. They did cross the line of his waist despite his retreat, however and he smiled at it a little. Even now, having been through so much he felt that he and Lavi had never been apart, his lover could surprise him.

"I'll try to stay awake for what you wanna do after." The redhead whispered into his shoulder between kisses. "If I conk out, you can't have your way with me until I get up."

Tyki laughed as he stepped away and pushed his pants to his knees before he kicked them away, still leaning just as close to his lover as he had been. "After all this time I wouldn't dream of not having you feel it." He reached out and took the smaller man's hands as if to guide him away from the counter, and smiled when the redhead followed his lead. They had to let go while Lavi removed his last remaining garment, but they continued to touch afterward almost constantly. Tyki gave him the benefit of enjoying the hot water on his hair first, rivulets of moisture hugging every contour of his form, Tyki's fingers wandering them with a sort of reverence that only invited Lavi to lean against his chest and sigh. Like that, his arms draped around the smaller man's shoulders, face pressed into the skin of his neck, and hot water wiping away the grime that their sponges could never quite seem to reach, he could forget the horrors of what they had been through – what he had caused – and simply enjoy their closeness without qualms or regrets.

Lavi swayed on his feet before he rocked back against his lover, his left eye closed to the stream of water pounding against his face. "Oi, Ty-chan," He reached up and touched his eye patch, not opening his other eye when he spoke. "I feel… kinda dizzy."

"Lean on me then." The Noah said at once, and tugged him backward.

Lavi let out a harsh sort of giggle, his head tilted back into Tyki's shoulder, as a hand ran down the front of his chest, pausing at his stomach. That tiny bit of contact made him shiver as he brought his hands up behind him and closed them around the back of his lover's neck. It was a strange sort of position to be in while in the shower, and it was stranger still when the Noah bent to kiss his mouth, guiding him into wall beside the stream of steaming water. Dizzy or not he could not stop Tyki for maneuvering him around so he leaned on the wall, a hand on his left hip holding him steady.

The redhead didn't need to ask what his lover intended. Intensions were the least of his worries when the Noah first pressed him more firmly against the cool tile wall behind him and then sank to his knees.

Tyki kissed the hollow of his left hip, and lapped it slowly with his tongue as if to catch the falling drips of water there. From there he moved to the junction of thigh and hip, sucking gently, a smile playing on his lips at the sound the action incited from his lover's lips. Lavi's knees buckled even as his lover's palm began to coax an erection from him, a startled moan forming in his throat. Tyki grinned wider. "Shall I do this slowly, Lavi?" He asked with a press of his lips against that steadily hardening flesh. "Or would you rather I trust my gut?" Even as he finished the question he lowered his lips around the tip of his lover's member, the warmth of his mouth drawing a sound like a gasp from Lavi's throat. The redhead's fingers tangled in his hair but didn't pull him forward like he thought they would – instead they pushed him steadily away.

"Wa-wait!" Lavi breathed, trembling from his feet to his blushing face with the word. "Can we… I want…"

"Yes?"

"Just…" Lavi pulled a bit upward with his hands and his lover followed the motion until they came face to face again, sharing the heated pour of water from the novel beside their heads. "It's not the same." He explained in a panting breath, "I want you to… you know… I wanna… just…"

"Since when are you shy, Lavi?"

"Shush. If we're gonna have sex then let's have real, my-legs-around-your-waist sex, ok? Four times. Take naps in between." He nodded at the end of his suggestion, ignoring the amused look that Tyki gave him. "And start now. I'll just… put my arms here…" He hooked his hands around the back of his lover's neck and leaned back, pressing his shoulders against the wall, "And lift a leg, you hold onto me and… you know… kinda—that's my butt you're groping."

"Oh? I hadn't noticed." Tyki chuckled down at him before he rocked his pelvis forward, which in turn tightened the grip around his shoulders. "Though… we don't exactly have your little present in here, now do we?"

"Water?"

"Oh, that would hurt, I'm sure." The Noah breathed across the side of Lavi's neck, tickling the fine wet hairs there. The redhead tilted his head back to the touch, shivering, and let his short fingernails bite into the skin of his lover's shoulders, just enough to be painful. A growl of desire filled the younger man's throat. "I suppose you would like that, wouldn't you? You would like it if I didn't care that it would hurt." He whispered the words against the redhead's throat before he closed his teeth on the nearest available bit of skin with enough force to bruise it, then pulled away, lips trailing slowly up the side of his lover's neck. The words he had meant to say were forgotten, lost in the slow exploration of Lavi's throat until a hand came up behind his head, tangling his hair in the water. "Do you want it, _Amante?_" His voice caused a hitch in the young man's breathing that he didn't miss. "I will if you want me to." He added more softly.

Lavi shook his head, flinging water on them both. "No, if you don't want that then I can wait. It's just… you've got me all… you know…"

"Being timid doesn't suit you."

"Being a cock tease doesn't suit you, either."

The Noah laughed, his face suddenly very close to Lavi's. The redhead matched the sound with a small smile, his arms loosened a little, and he sighed, spreading slightly cooler air across the older man's chest. Tyki leaned down enough to draw him into a hug before he turned them both into the water, turning it slightly colder with his free right hand. The boy against his chest let out a little laugh of understanding and reached for the nearest bottle of shampoo with slightly shaky fingers. "When we're out…" Tyki began, but stopped when a hand came up and plopped soap in his hair.

"I'm taking a nap."

-- -- --

**Once again:**

**THIS IS RELATIVELY UNBETA'D. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE BETA'D VERSION, CHECK ASSHAT PRODUCTIONS TOMORROW-ISH. MY BETA IS AWAY AND I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO LOG IN TO FF FOR A FEW DAYS TO MAKE ANY SUGGESTED CHANGES. TY FOR UNDERSTANDING.**

**W00t! 100 chapters! Holy crap!**


	101. Facing Reason

**Long… sorry… does anyone want faster updates and smaller chapters? I might be able to pull that off… And… I think this has about two chapters left. 8D W00t!**

**I know it might not SEEM like the end is THAT close. But it is. Really.**

**I do not own DGM. Still.**

**WARNINGS: Naked men touching. And half clothed man/woman relations.**

-- --

Facing Reason

Allen was breathing too quickly, his face too pale, his hands too cold in Kanda's. The black haired Exorcist saw what was coming in the way his chest fluttered and tried desperately to stop it, reaching with his fingers with a sound of negation on his lips, but there was no way to talk the white haired boy out of fainting in that moment. By the time he had brought his lips to the side of his lover's temple and cradled Allen's face in his hand, it had already happened. The British boy had gone from lively if somewhat insane to dead weight against him, breathing in slow, unsteady waves.

The Japanese man ignored the second knock at the door while he laid Allen against the mattress and made his way to the bathroom for a towel. He soaked it liberally with warm water before he cleaned himself, rinsed it, and went back to his lover, tender with his touches in a way he hoped would be appreciated later. When he had finished he cleaned the boys face with the corner of the sheet and kissed him again, softly, before he finally pulled the blankets over the smaller Exorcist and found a long winter coat to throw over his shoulders. By then a third and fourth knock had struck the door, both louder than the first two. He didn't care.

Kanda opened the door and slipped out of it in a single motion, holding his jacket shut so only a short swath of his chest was exposed to whoever had come knocking. He was somewhat surprised to find his mother and sister standing before him, both of them frowning, both of them tired. He had never felt more naked under his coat in his entire life.

"Why…" He started in a whisper. The fingers of his left hand graced the door behind him, leaving more of his skin to their eyes. "Why are you _together?_"

Hiroko looked up at her much taller daughter before she reached out and touched Kanda's right hand, her expression stayed perfectly downcast. Her hand, normally cold, felt warm and loving against his skin. "We need to talk to you and… Whore… _Allen_-chan." She said at length, and gave his hand a little squeeze. "You're fucking slut of a sister and I have put aside our differences for sake of convincing you of it."

"Convincing me of what?" Kanda pulled his hand back with a glare, but Hiroko held firm, scowling.

"Where's Allen, first." Yumeko was _very_ close to their mother, closer than was natural, comfortable, and the lizard on her shoulder teetered despite its hold on her ear. On top of already feel naked, Kanda felt very cornered. This wasn't like them.

He rocked back of his feet before he rocked forward again, summoning his very best glare. "He's sleeping, and he needs to stay that way. He's got a lot on his mind," _Like…oh, another mind,_ "So I won't wake him. If you need something, tell me what it is and I'll bring him to you when he's up." The words were laced with defense and sprinkled with real anger – backing him against the door had put him in a bad position and it tickled at his darker instincts, willing him to lash out with violence. In the back of his head he felt something tell him that that _wasn't_ a good idea, but it wasn't any thought of his own, an idea he would have thought up by himself. The blood ran out of his face when he realized it, gathering somewhere in his gut.

"Yuu-sashi?"

A desire to be non-combative filled his chest and he shivered. A wave of _politeness_ followed, the poignant yearning to be apologetic for his silence, a sick sort of twisting of his anger sent the feeling pointing at the anger itself, so that he didn't want to use it as resolve. He felt sick. His manipulated emotions were almost as bad as an earthquake roiling under his feet and he pitched at it, the hand he had kept on the knob pressed to the side of his head.

"Yuu-kun?!"

If he had ever wondered what it was like to be Allen, he knew now. "I need to…" There were hands on his shoulders, under his arms, and he found himself putting his weight on them, unable to control both his body and his thoughts at once. He remembered something that he had never been told in so many words about a bond between the two of them, a line of connection that was what enabled Allen to read the languages Kanda knew. All he had to do was sever that connection somehow, not that he even understood it, and he would be free to drift in his own untouched mind again.

_How do I…_

"Need to what, Ototo?" The question disrupted his thoughts and he jumped at it. He was still in the hall, but he didn't feel like he was in the hall. He felt like he was lying down. Everything was really very strange.

Kanda swallowed thickly at the question. Ototo? Yumeko hadn't called him that since she was ten. "Sleep." He answered vaguely. "It's complicated. Come back later."

"You fucking—"

"Wait." There were hands on his face, tilting it upward, and he saw his older sister looking down at him with round, thoughtful eyes, blinking rapidly. He almost didn't want to draw her calculating face into focus. "You said Allen is sleeping right? You said you need to sleep? So what Tyki said then… about the thing… it's true and you're like Lavi. The way you affect each other is the same as it is for them and you're just now starting to realize it, but rather than taking it in stride like they did, you're fighting it off. That's why you're like this. I need you to listen to me even if you don't think I have any idea what's going on, ok?" Yuu stared at her, acting as if he didn't _want_ to listen but his ears were doing it all the same, and she went on with a breath. "I _know_ that you don't want to think about Allen being a Noah, but you have to accept it. Just… take what he's giving you."

"Take it?"

"What do you want right now?"

"To sleep. And to say… I don't want to be forgiven?"

-- -- --

Tyki wrapped Lavi in a bathrobe the apprentice Bookman had claimed never to have seen before, and more or less carried him to the bed, very much aware of how desperately Lavi needed his rest. The Exorcist held him close when he had slid the boy under the blankets, breathing in his scent almost silently, eyes just barely open to the room. It took little more than the brush of his fingers through the younger man's hair and the press of his face into the crook of Lavi's neck and the boy was sleeping, eye gently shut, mouth softly open. For a time the Noah sat beside the redhead, tucking him in, and just studied his face in the light. He didn't look nearly nineteen. He didn't look any age that Tyki could think of. He just looked perfect.

_At what point does love become worship, I wonder,_ Tyki thought with a quiet little sigh at his lover's sleeping expression. The Noah had watched the apprentice Bookman sleep for more nights than he could count, but that didn't change anything, he still enjoyed the slow fluttering of the boy's gaze beneath his eyelid and the absolute _trust_ he showed in his dreams. Now that the redhead was no longer plagued by nightmares, Tyki didn't really need to be there to watch him wander the never ending expanse of his dreamscape, stroking his hair and humming soothingly when the redhead stirred. He did it anyway now. He did it because touching, no matter if the level of pleasure was different, felt the same as it always had.

"_Ty-chan…"_ The name was whispered by those sleeping lips like a prayer. The Noah expected the redhead to ask for him, to plea for safety, to wake with a jerk like always, but he didn't. A smile spread across Lavi's lips and he sighed, tilting his head toward Tyki's fingers. _"I baked a cake…"_

The Portuguese man laughed lowly before he leaned forward enough to place his lips on the redhead's cheek, warming his skin. He laid himself down on the outside of the covers and continued to listen to the younger man mumble in his sleep, trying to ascertain what it might be he was dreaming about.

"_I dunno what kind… the yummy kind…"_

"Chocolate."

"_Everybody likes chocolate…"_

Tyki snickered under his breath and laid his right hand on Lavi's chest rather than in his hair, running his thumb over the fuzzy fabric of his robe. Given any amount of time he would most likely fall asleep himself, just feeling the waves of comfort roll off of his lover and break against his mind ever so gently. Staying close, placing his fingers just so against his lover's garment, left him open to the tiredness that the redhead felt, tugging gently at the edge of his awareness. It didn't matter if the Noah hadn't done all of the things that his lover had, nor did it matter that he had slept more than half the day while Lavi had been away, it only mattered that he was close enough to feel sleepiness sinking into his bones as if it were his own.

Tyki didn't want to sleep, but he didn't want to break that connection either.

"I suppose it can't be helped…" He breathed, and his thumb stilled its movement, brushing the flesh of the redhead's chest. A curious hand came up and touched him just over his heart; he had been in such a rush to see his lover comfortable that he had forgotten he was only wearing a towel himself. It didn't matter. It was too late to fix it now.

"_Love…ou…"_

"Hmm… me too."

-- -- --

"I hate your guts sometimes."

"I hate that you're killing me."

"I am _not_ killing you."

"Oh? Tell me that in five years when I have black lungs and your smoking in my hospital room."

"Since when are you this whiny?"

"Since I grew tired of you acting like fifty year old child."

"I'm _not_ fifty."

"Just stop smoking before we get there, please."

"I just started this one. It would be a waste."

"It's not like you paid for it yourself anyway…"

"Oh look, too late, we're here. I'll just have to smoke it."

"General Cross Marian."

"Supervisor Komui Lee."

The Chinese man paused, narrowing his eyes at the slightly shorter red haired man, and sighed deeply. "Never mind."

The two were standing in front of a door like any other in the long hall of rooms, shoulder to shoulder, looking at it thoughtfully, frowning. For a time they continued to do just that, Cross pulling at his cigarette on occasion, Komui rocking on his feet. The General was thinking of ways to get out of this part of the assignment and _go_ while the scientist contemplated how it was he might go about the next few minutes of his life. Komui was descent at confrontation, but he wasn't one to search for it. Starting with '_you should both be in the medical wing'_ wasn't going to get him anywhere.

Cross knocked.

Komui glared at him momentarily and tried to calm himself. Maybe he could start with a smile.

On the other side of the iron ribbed door a growl sounded, followed by the squeaking of mattress springs and a soft curse. There was a sound like feet on floor and another door opening before there was soft little moan and a quiet whisper of words. A soothing tone. Something thumped. When the shorter man began to look like he might knock again the door opened a crack and a brown-gold eye peaked from behind it, narrowed by a forced smile. The Noah was shirtless, barefoot, his hair damp, the bandage that had been on his side long discarded. The places that Innocence had struck him – especially the slash across the middle of his chest – sported faded white marks that weren't scars so much as brands, just distinguishable against his slightly gray-olive skin.

"Oh, this must be about us leaving the medical wing." The Noah whispered at once. To Komui's surprise he pulled the door open enough to slide in front of it and shut it gently behind him, dark eyes darting back to look as he moved. "We're terribly sorry about that, but it really couldn't be helped. Keeping us cooped up like that, even together—"

"That's… not really why we're here." Komui muttered under his breath. Cross blew a streamer of smoke between the two of them and Tyki turned his eyes up to the General, frowning. The red haired man lifted his visible eyebrow and took a deep breath, flicking the ashes of his cigarette to the floor.

"Have we met?"

Cross could have laughed but only managed a snort. "I shot you."

The Noah nodded, solemn. "Thank you for doing that. I would have killed Allen Walker otherwise."

"Cigarette?"

"If you would be so kind," Tyki smiled at the General and accepted the offered tobacco; Komui stared at them both as if transfixed by their motions. It seemed as if the two had done this a thousand times, or they shared a common bond that went deeper than their cancer causing addiction. Two men cut from the same canvas and set in different frames, perhaps. The Noah reached into his pants pocket – black slacks – and fished out a box of matches with which to light his knew oral fixation, then leaned against the wood of the door behind him, casually. A strange sort of smile split his face, too wide, and yet with a perfectly human emotion dancing behind his eyes. "Between being wounded and being with a person whom has a distaste for smoking, I haven't had one in… weeks, I'm sure."

"Glad to kill you, Tyki Mikk."

The Noah chuckled and grinned, pulling the cigarette from between his teeth. "I believe it's a bit more like assisted suicide, Cross Marian."

"Hmph."

Komui cleared his throat in an effort to bring the conversation to the point at hand. The two other men looked at him, seeming rather at ease with each other, and each cocked an eyebrow as if to ask what he wanted. "We need you and Lavi to come with us to my office for a moment. We're… having a bit of a conference on our current plan of action and we need you two there for… certain reasons. Could you get him?" The scientist gave his very best smile to the Noah, and found it rather uncanny feeling when the look was returned to him with a strange genuine twist. Tyki, it seemed, harbored no ill will against him, and saw only the man set on defending him and Lavi from the greater powers of authority, missing the darker aspects of what he felt and thought. Komui was a bit thankful for that, having a like for his internal organs.

"He's… had a very busy midmorning, actually." Tyki said honestly. "So he is sleeping at the moment."

"Busy?"

"He ran from the medical wing to the cafeteria and back again."

"He _ran_?"

The Noah nodded, speaking with his cigarette between his teeth. "As fast as he could. It's done him some good, actually. I haven't seen him smile this much since…" Tyki shook his head, wet hair bouncing with the motion, and forced away the memories that plagued him. "A long while. He's _fine_, Komui. Don't look so terrified. But I think it would be best to let him sleep for at least an hour before I wake him. I would hate to have him dozing off during something so important and… even if the running made him happy… he needs rest as well, does he not?" The Noah sighed, shaking his head a little, tiredly. "I'm sorry but… when he is tired I am tired and… it might be better if I took a nap myself." With that said he gave another enthusiastic look of mutual understanding and tilted his head to the side in an almost Lavi-like fashion, winking without actually managing to do so. Tyki had never made that face at Komui, not on a bright day and not with his hand in his lover's chest, but it didn't seem foreign or out of place or broken like Komui would have made it. The smoke curling white-blue from the end of his cigarette was the only thing out of place.

"There's no way to wake him?" It was Cross who whispered the inquiry.

"It is possible, but it is not the most logical course of action, no." Tyki explained, lazily leaning back harder against the door. "Then we'll both be tired."

"Well…" Komui pursed his lips, thoughtful. "I suppose there's no harm in waiting."

-- -- --

Kanda didn't understand half of what Yumeko told him, and even if he had there was little chance he would have taken it into account at the moment. He was too busy trying to remember how it was the doorknobs worked and why it was that his eyelids felt like lead, what purpose there was in even getting back in the room where Allen was. He wasn't on autopilot, it was worse than that. Someone had tore away his ability to think and left him without only a list of desires to run on, none of them really his own.

"Yuu-to…"

"Not now. I can't now. My head is going to explode if I don't get in there."

"Why?"

"Because I want… because _he_ wants to sleep right now. Just… why can't I open the door?!"

"You aren't touching the knob."

The words made him realize just how out of it he really was, just how not _here_ so much as _there_ his mind had gone. It was strange, disconcerting, and he reached out to open the door without thinking otherwise. Just when his fingers had found it, just as he turned it with his fingers, a hand found its way to his shoulder and distracted him, making him pause. Almost dreamily he looked back to see his sister looking down at him with a concerned look on her face, eyebrows pushed together over his gemlike eyes. He wanted to reassure her. He also wanted a hundred thousand other things that he didn't really want.

"Just let me go," His mouth did as he told it though. The words came out oddly slurred, almost broken, and he moved his right hand to his chin to muffle them a little more and spin the web that he might physically be ill. It was a lie. Nothing was wrong with him besides the fact that he was looking at life through an awful mental fog. "I'll be fine, I just…" His hand moved to his forehead and he blinked, rapidly. "Need to _think_ about some things. I can't _think_ at all standing here." He opened the door but found that he couldn't go forward with her hand on his shoulder and so turned to her, almost incapable of understanding what she wanted.

"You get it, don't you?" She asked hurriedly, low and cold, her fingers digging subtly into his skin. He comprehended what she meant at once.

"Yes. Even without your rant earlier, I understand _who_ Allen is. I don't care. He needs me."

"Then forgive Lavi for doing the same Goddamn thing you are." Yumeko's words didn't sink in at once, too sudden and seemingly uncalled for, and so he just blinked at her, sapphire eyes filled with something akin to curiosity. After a moment his expression became one that was half understanding and half angry, his jaw set, eyes nearly closed they were so narrowed.

"Che. You don't understand. If he loses himself, enemy of the Order or not, I'll _kill_ him. We agreed on it. The _traitor_ you want me to forgive is with that Noah knowing that he isn't human anymore."

"Then it's not _if_, Yuu-to, it's _when_."

"I know that!" The violence response to push her against the nearest wall didn't work out properly and he ended up closing the door so he could lean against it, breathing deeply. For a moment he wished that he had Mugen if only to clench his fingers around something while he scowled. Without it he was left raising his voice in anger and defiance, pain and tears burning just visible behind his eyes. "It doesn't matter! I've lived more than half of my life knowing that it would end sooner rather than later, so why would this be any different? If he turns, he turns, if he doesn't, he doesn't. I'll either live with him or die with him depending on that." He shook his head and closed his eyes, the room suddenly even foggier than it had been only a moment ago. "You don't understand it yet, you _think_ you do, but you don't."

Yumeko stopped Hiroko from speaking with a hurried turn of her eyes before she took her younger brother by the shoulders and looked down at him, his eyes still closed to the light. "What don't I understand Yusashi? What do I think I know?"

"You think you understand what it is to love one of them, but you don't. Do you know what will happen if Allen dies and I live, Nee-san? That _bond_ we have will turn _me_ into one of them, and there's only one way I can stop that." Kanda opened his eyes and looked upward with surprisingly clear irises, as if he no longer needed to sleep at once. His hands shook when they moved to take a hold of hers. "When I kill him – and I will kill him because I love him – I'll kill _me_ too. It's... the only way to stop this from ever happening again. The cycle has to stop somewhere." He rocked backward and the motion brought his shoulders into the wood harder, his face turned from Yumeko to Hiroko and back again, not really seeing either of them. With cold fingers he combed at his hair in an effort to stay focused: a wave of exhaustion had hit him like none before and it threatened to make his knees buckle even before he could make his point. Allen, he knew, had to be sleeping like the dead inside.

"Lavi won't… he doesn't… he _loves_ the Noah, not the man. That's the difference between us. I bet it makes him happy – the thought that he'll inherit a part of that monster when he dies. I can't forgive him for loving – helping – that _murderer._" He rubbed at his face again before he reached back for the door and took the knob once again in his hand, blinking rapidly, breathing slowly. This time, when he turned it, the door came easily open with nothing but a push of his hand and he made to step through it without another thought or distraction. Allen was still lying in bed with the plain white sheets pulled up to his shoulders, though he had rolled enough to leave the wall side of the mattress an open invitation. Just looking made Kanda feel like he _belonged _there. He had to be there, by Allen's side, no matter the cost. "Convince me of otherwise later." His voice came out in a small whisper and he moved forward, aware that Yumeko was stifling a protest beside him. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Lavi and Tyki didn't matter.

"Yuu-chan."

_That_ mattered.

With a hard glare he looked back and upward at his taller sibling and let all of the hatred he had for that nickname fill his eyes. For a moment he didn't think about how much he wanted to sleep or how polite he wanted to be, he only thought about Lavi.

His best friend Lavi. The only person he had ever talked to about Allen and still referred to him as _Moyashi. _The one who had written that horrible blasphemous poem for the sake of making Kanda's heart soften. He wanted, if only for a moment, to let go of everything and just have the redhead there the way he used to be, teasing him with feminine honorifics and touching his hair, saying irritating things and pointing out every dirty pun or innuendo that a sentence could offer. Kanda missed it. Since the day the redhead had died for two minutes and his scent permeated Kanda's coat because of it, the Japanese man had wanted nothing more than to see him and know that everything was alright.

But for the instance of memory lapse and the actual moment he was being hugged. At both of those times, he would like have rather come home to a battered and bloated corpse than admit that he had missed the stupid brat.

"If you leave…" He took another step into the room, pulling the door a bit behind him. "I'll think about it."

-- -- --

Tyki almost fell asleep with the cigarette burning in his hand. It was a different brand than he was used to, heavier, but between the familiar curl of smoke around his face and the way Lavi slept so quietly beside him, curved against his shoulder in silence, he could hardly help himself. He finished hurriedly and ground out the flame on the stone of the floor, saving a good fourth for later, before he laid the deadened stub on the nightstand and moved to embrace the slumbering redhead. Almost at once his waist was encircled by a pair of all too willing arms, his lover's face pressed to the turn of his chin, a boyish grin on his features. Lavi woke enough to invite him under the covers and snuggle closer without opening his eyes, blind side pressed against the Noah's chest.

"M'bout time you got here…" It was little more than a half-silent growl from the apprentice Bookman.

"Sleep, dear." Tyki followed his arms around the smaller man's shoulders and found himself rewarded with a little kiss on the skin of his chest, hardly more than a brush of lips against flesh. He smiled at it a little, glad for the bit of personal comfort.

"Why're you wearin' clothes?" Lavi's voice mumbled up at him in an unamused fashion. Tyki laughed softly at it and shook his head, his fingers found the back of the white fuzzy bathrobe his lover wore and fisted in it, appreciating the soft feel against his hands. Smoking had put him in a strange sort of mood in which he wanted nothing more than to cuddle with his sleepy lover, with clothes or otherwise. Lavi's arm from his side and his shoulder and Tyki turned his face down into the thick red hair that otherwise would have only tickled at his chin, still wet and fresh from their shower.

"Would you rather sleep naked together, _Amante?"_

"Not important… naked, clothed, still you."

"I suppose that's true. Are you going to talk or nap, Lavi?"

"I'ma cuddle without lookin'."

"Sounds like a plan."

The younger man let out a little laughing giggle and leaned all of his weight on the Noah, smiling even in his tiredness. Tyki did not bother to tell him that there was an imported meeting waiting on his recovery, it would only have made him restless and that was not what Tyki wanted for his lover. Instead he calmed himself, taking on a bit of the boy's exhaustion – or at least _trying_ to. They sighed in unison and he felt a smile tug at the edges of his lips, warmth and comfort spreading across his chest and out to his limbs, weighing him down, bogging his eyelids, driving him much too quickly toward the edge of sleep. He felt Lavi straddle the precarious edge of wakefulness, clinging ever so delicately to his chest like a dewdrop on the crest of a leaf. It was nice of the younger man, if a bit overly romantic.

_I suppose that this is better than anything else we might do with our time,_ Tyki's mind whispered to him as his eyes fell shut. _As wonderful as it is to touch him, to be _inside_ of him, to feel him that close, this is more demanding of trust than that is. The pleasure is different, but the love is the same… the… love is…_

_Oh, what does it matter? I am happy._

With the thought and a hardly audible sound of self-amusement, Tyki took in a breath and sighed it out in sleep, fingers just a bit less forceful on his lover's back in dreams. The two of them stayed like that, curled gently together, content and sharing the same rhythm. The orange blanket that covered them did not move in the growing noon light.

-- -- --

The strangest thing happened when Kanda came into the room and moved in a half daze to the bed. The tiredness, the strange desire to be nice, the feeling that his head was going to explode the moment he sat down, all faded away into the back of his mind, weighing him down ever so softly. Rather slowly he slipped under the covers next to his tussled lover, and ran his fingers through first his own hair and then the younger boy's, and paused when his lover's eyes blinked slowly open. Those silver irises were nearly soulless in the afternoon light, unfocused, so Kanda did not stop his slow caress of the British Exorcist's forehead.

The white haired boy shifted, bringing his body into close contact with Kanda's. Words were unnecessary in the moment that he drew himself up enough to turn his face into the corner of the samurai's neck and tremble, neck and shoulders exposed to the afternoon light.

Knowing what the boy wanted, Kanda reached down and looped one arm around Allen's hips while the other circled his shoulders, pressing their chests flush. A leg snaked between his and bent around his knee, bare skin against the fabric of his hastily darned pants. Another shiver took Allen's shoulders and his bare left hand pressed to the skin just over Kanda's heart just as small, hot tears began to fill his eyes. The Japanese man didn't wipe them away. He curled his arms just a bit more tightly and swallowed the lump in his throat, a lump that he did not truly understand the meaning of.

He searched his mind for some idea of what he could do, what he could say, where he could run his fingers to soothe Allen's silent sobs. Stories had always been what the boy had asked for but now, with the thick light of summer pouring in the window and the dust flurries dancing slowly in front of his eyes, he didn't think he knew one. With his lower lip between his teeth and his eyes closed, he breathed slowly through his nose and out again, reaching for anything, any idea that Allen might want.

'_It's not getting better, is it?'  
'Nuh uh.'  
'I don't… I mean… there __are__ things to talk about but I don't want to bore you. Any other ideas? Allen?'  
'You – could… __sing.'__  
'That is a horrible idea.'_

The memory filled his mind with vague ideas for a moment until, distantly, he thought he heard something flicker like a _note _in the back of his mind. He knew that note, if only because he had heard Allen hum it so much, and he could, if he tried, match pitch with it effectively. Without thinking about it beyond what he already had, Kanda closed his mouth entirely and, softly, began to hum.

For as loud as the Japanese man was most of the time, the song came out nearly silent.

Allen still heard it.

"Thanks," Allen half growled into his chest. "Yuu."

-- -- --

"Hiro…"

"Che! We have a meeting in about an hour, you _really_ think you can smell my hair _now_?" Hiroko looked up at the General with her left eyebrow held high above the right, delicate features drawn into an irritated frown. Cross enjoyed the fact that she could seemed narked with him and yet still look at him with laughing, narrowed eyes, her fingers just lightly touching his hands as they pressed against her stomach. It was strange to him, the fact that they could be so close and yet so far away, intimate and yet fully clothed. It all drove him to wonder what, if anything, was in the future for them.

He had his face pressed to the back of her head, just so he could see over the line of her hair and look at her eyes reflected in the bathroom mirror. She had showered. He could smell it. "I'd like to… if you don't mind…" And he moved his face downward enough to press against her neck, his facial hair just brushing at her skin.

"Are you… trying to…"

"Hiro…"

She turned and met his eyes, fire burning behind them. "Fuck it Marian, at this rate we're not going to have sex unless I force you. Make up your mind." Almost at once he kissed her, deeply, and she pulled him closer, looking up at his dark eyes with a strange sort of frown to her lips. "I'm not grieving. I'm not angry. I'm… I…"

"The day you're speechless in my presence is the day the world ends, I'm sure."

"That's it. I've made up your mind." Hiroko pushed him backward suddenly and his spine connected rather painfully to the wall, leaving his eyes wide, glasses crooked on his face, her fingers tangled deep in his hair. With her that close, and not trying to seduce him as much as she was shredding his clothes from his body, Cross could do nothing but let his instincts lead him. With his right hand he touched the back of her head, gently, carding his fingers through her hair, his left moved into the sleeve of her yukata, sliding to the curve of her elbow. Aside from the time she had been half naked beside him, this was the closest he had ever been to touching those small round breast she hid beneath the folds of her clothes.

Parting left him breathless, his heart fluttering away in his chest for some reason, and he let her lift his shirt from his pants and touch the skin of his stomach. It had been _months_ since he'd been with a woman, longer than he'd gone since he had started having sex at all. And now, with his fingers tugging at the tie of Hiroko's clothes, he became keenly aware of it. Keenly aware of skin under his fingers.

"Marian," Her voice, normally so grating and irritated, sounded like the lush lap of a wave against his cheek, her lips just as sweet against the bristle of his beard. It was so _much_ to have her do that little thing, almost too much, almost too far, and his eyes fluttered shut, left fingers trailing to gently cup the side of her right breast through the sleeve of yukata. The taut flesh there had not suffered as he thought it would have from three children, still as subtle and smooth as he would have expected from someone untouched – but he didn't analyze it. Instead he tilted his face a bit, feeling soft breath on his jaw, and worked his hand into a slightly more sure hold, thumb pressed just below the nub of a nipple.

Hiroko was going to kill him when it was over if he knew anything. But if he stopped them now, he wouldn't see ass again until he came back from his wonderful suicide mission to destroy the akuma plant. And then she'd kill him after they did it then.

_Since when am _I_ monogamous?_

The thought was there and gone with the brush of fingernails on his chest, that open mouth pressed to the bump of his Adam's apple.

He couldn't stop the moan that growled from his throat.

"After what you said about lying," Hiroko breathed across his chin, "I couldn't get the thought of this out of my head anymore." She continued, fingers ghosting over the turn of his hips. "That Noah and that boy – the ones that had a hand in Hito's death – you wouldn't just lie to save them, would you? Not without reason. You did it because they, just like your fucking _son_ and mine, are so in love with each other they can't even _think_ without each other, hm?" Her body pressed to his and his fingers graced that sensitive nub, pressing it lightly between them. "You have a heart, Marian. I can't stop thinking about that, either." She admitted, and he opened his eyes down at her, surprised to find only the smallest of blushed on her cheeks.

"What makes you think that?" He croaked, right hand on her boney left shoulder.

"Because if it was only about taking that Labi or whoever, you would have just stolen him. It's not like you're going to live much longer anyways."

"You really think I would do that?"

"Shut up, you're wearing too much." Her hands yanked violently at his rumpled black coat, pushing it over his shoulders even before he could try to stop her. And he would have tried to stop her. Hiroko, for some reason wasn't someone he wanted to just _fuck_ like all the others.

"Wait…"

"No, no waiting. You're dense. I get it. Now do this for _me_." Hiroko almost growled at him, his jacket hit the floor with the words. He tried to shimmy away, to pull his hand from her pert breast and swallow, but she held him firmly against the bathroom wall, trailing her right hand to his thighs. "Don't you fucking slink away you little shit, listen to me. I'm not giving myself to you. I'm not letting you have at me. This is me taking what you want to give to me, Mari. So tell me," Warmth touched his face and he realized that her hand had gone upward, catching his bare cheek in the hollow of her small palm. His eyes gravitated to hers and locked, resistance as pointless as trying to think under that gaze. "Will you give me what I want? Can I have you without kicking your old wrinkly ass into submission first? And I don't mean being naked together. If we do this…" Delicately her fingertips found his lips as her own quivered ever so gently. "I'll go with you wherever you decide to go." Finishing left her far less confident than she had been at the start but her hand remained as it was as if it held him silent.

"It fucking sucks that you make me happy." She whispered in a voice that made him smile.

Gingerly, with fear in his gut, Cross reached down and touched her chin enough to lift her lips to his. It was a short kiss, nothing like what they had shared before, but he knew what it meant this time. He knew that there would never be another like it. Pulling away he grinned at her again, caressing the side of her face with his fingers. "Then let's try France."

"The language is ugly."

"Germany. They have good beer."

"And it's cold."

"Is there anywhere you _want_ to go, Hiro?" Cross asked the question without really expecting an answer: Hiroko was one to say no to something without having a decent alternative and he knew it, if she had even thought about the possibility of something he hadn't suggested would astound him.

"Italy." She answered at once. "Because the Vatican would never think to find you under their rug, hm?"

"Smart woman…"

"Cunning. It's a better word."

"Hiroko admits to being a fox, eh?" He teased, but Hiroko did not take offense like he thought she might. Instead she lifted herself on her toes again to kiss his left cheek, lips warm against his skin. Her hand fell back to his hip to toy with the fabric of his shirt.

Violently Hiroko jerked the garment open, almost ripping it, and guided him forward, eyes tracing the dips and curves of his chest. Her gray gaze on his flesh made him shiver, the way it lingered on the smattering of flame colored chest hair and below the hollow of his throat, the way it followed the curve of his ribcage to his navel – he felt dissected and studied, yet appreciated at the callused palm against his abs. She was looking at him not as an object but instead as a living, breathing thing under her hands, and it was that aspect of her touch that pulled first his right boot and then his left from the floor in the direction of the bedroom. This wasn't like it had been before, when he had been thinking about what he wanted and how _fragile_ she was, how hurt they all were, how much _he_ wanted her. Now, with Hiroko's hand pushing his chest toward the mattress, he finally understood that his reluctance had never been about her intentions. They had been about his own.

"Hiro are you…" Cross' back hit the comforter with a bit more force than was needed. "Are you _in love_ with me?"

-- -- --

"_Black, black, black is the color of my true love's hair,_

_His lips are something rosy fair._

_With the purest face and the strongest hands, _

_I love the grass whereon he stands._

_I love my love and well he knows,_

_I love the ground whereon he goes_

_And if you no more on earth I see,_

_My life will quickly leave me…"_

"Hush…"

"_I go to the Clyde for to mourn and weep,  
But satisfied I ne'er could sleep.  
I'll write him a note in a few little lines,  
I'll suffer death ten thousand times…"_

Kanda reached down and touched his fingers to Allen's lips, stilling them. The British boy looked up with his still soulless looking eyes and blinked, not seeming to understand. It was the same as he had been the first time the music had stopped in his head, only it didn't seem to bother him in quite the same way it had before. Rather than crying he sang the lyrics himself, replacing the sound with his own voice.

The samurai did not like it in the least. He wanted, more than anything else, just have his lover back how he had always been, smiling and functioning and _normal_. "You don't need to sing, Moyashi. You don't need to hear the music. _Not_ hearing it is good, you know? It means you're farther apart than you were. What are you—" Kanda stopped talking at the press of lips against his own, the sight of Allen's eyes shut to him, his expression perfectly neutral. When the boy pulled away he was smiling softly, his silver eyes hooded but sure.

"I love you." Allen whispered. It was such a simple thing, the way he said it, and his hand pressed softly to Kanda's chest. "Now I need you to do something for me, alright Love?" His eyes opened a bit more, tear reddened, determined like Kanda had only seen them on occasion. Kanda nodded a little, waiting for his lover's request. "I know that… you blame Lavi for what happened. He fell for Tyki, he had to have told him how to find the tower, he hid a Noah's identity until he couldn't anymore, and if he hadn't done the first two – if he hadn't fall in love with Tyki, Hitori wouldn't have died. But… we're not any different are we?" Allen blinked a few times and his hands found the sides of Kanda's face, tilting it down to him. That way he could speak to his lover's lips, searching the samurai's eyes as he went on. "You didn't know that I'm one of them but you've decided to stay with me, to _accept_ what I am and what I'll give you, right? So… if that's true…"

"Moyashi—"

"It was _me_, Love. I attacked Tyki. It's just as much my fault as it is Lavi's, so you can't hold it against him if you don't hold it against _me._ The same for Tyki. Tyki and I are the _same_, Love. We're _both_ Noah. We're _both_—_"_

"It's _different_; you've never _worked_ for them."

"Then why do I remember how to use the Ark? Why do I _love_ akuma? It's not human, Kanda, it's something _else_." He was speaking quickly now, half-desperate, and his features reflect the fear in his voice very subtly, in the twitching of his lower lip and the narrowing of his eyes. "I know you don't like it – I don't like it – but going on like this, being with me and not forgiving them for what they are… it makes you…"

"Che. What, Moyashi? A hypocrite?"

"Yes, Love. A hypocrite." Allen answered softly. Kanda pushed him back a bit, reluctantly, but didn't move enough to stop touching him completely. It was good to keep the Japanese man close, even if he could already hear the argument coming.

Kanda scowled as hard as he could. "What should I do then? Leave you? Bullshit. You haven't lost yet."

"Oh, so you can leave me when I do? Thanks, Kanda."

"That's _not_ what I meant."

"Then tell me, what did you mean? Maybe it would be easier on both of us if we were honest, hm?"

With a sneer the older man pushed the younger away, fire burning behind his eyes. What he was mad at wasn't all that easy for him to figure out but the emotion was there, eating away at his desire just to be thankful that they were both alive and together. It made him grab a handful of sheets as he sat up and tuck them rather violently around Allen's naked form. "I meant that you aren't _evil_. If what Komui sai—"

"Tyki isn't evil either. Misguided, maybe, but not _evil_. He has done evil things but he's not—"

"You _saw_ what he turned into! How can you sa—"

"How do you know I won't turn into worse!?" Allen yelled the words, pointless anger matching his lover's with every word. It was strange but he felt oddly like the fire was feeding off of itself, Kanda's emotions so close to his heart that he began to feel them as his own. The thought was almost creepy, almost, but that he hoped his own logic and fear would affect his lover the same way, though he doubted it was possible. His words, however, left the long haired man speechless, both of his eyes wide, mouth opened to protest. It was his chance.

With both of his hands now on Kanda's chest, Allen swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "You can't have it both ways, Love. So please, please… forgive them. Not for Hito's death, you know as well as I do that that isn't what's bothering you. If that bothered you, you would be mad at me for it, and yourself. You need to forgive them for being what they are. If you can't forgive them for that, how can you love me?" His eyes flicked back and forth, searching Kanda's, and he stiffened at the touch of hands on his spine, drawing him into an embrace. His heart seemed to tremble at the feeling of love that went through him with the touch, delicate and warm and breakable. It made him want to cry and smile without even hearing his lover's answer.

"I… understand what you're saying, Moyashi." Kanda breathed against his hair. "But I don't know if I have the ability to forgive them. I will… try." He whispered, and took a long, deep breath of Allen's scent. That, even now, was the same. He snickered lightly, a strange thought coming to mind, and gave the British Exorcist a little squeeze as he spoke, more loudly this time. "You aren't thinking of throwing Lavi a surprise party and I need to forgive him so I can be dragged along, right? Because that happened when Lenalee tried one year and I swore that it would never happen again."

Allen chuckled, but the sound was dulled by the press of Kanda's chest against his face. "Nothing like that, Kanda. I swear."

"Good." The samurai shifted, bringing Allen's temple to his lips, and sighed, eyes falling shut. Maybe it was a bit much of a mood swing, but he felt suddenly happy to have the British boy talking to him, holding him with skinny arms wrapped around his chest. "Are you… feeling better?" _Saner_ didn't seem like the word to use so better would have to suffice.

"Yeah. It comes and goes." The British boy answered honestly. "I think it might have scared him when I freaked out like I did. Maybe… he'll just be back there without saying much of anything for a few years with some luck."

"A few years?" The Japanese Exorcist couldn't imagine why Allen wanted just a few more years of having his mind to himself, couldn't find the answer in the pair of silver irises that searched his face as if he were stupid. And then, when he caught the little downward frown to his lover's lips, he understood. The lotus, his own life, would likely run out in just that amount of time, and his lover wanted to be with him. "Allen… I won't let you do that. Not if you're planning what I think you're planning."

"Hypocrite."

"_Shut up_. Just tell me."

The white haired boy sighed and leaned against his lover's chest. "Without you… who will inherit my will? You have to die after me, or at the same time, Love."

The situation clicked for Kanda. For the first time since Allen's lecture on forgiveness had began, he understood just how it was that he and Lavi could be held in comparison regardless of who had known what, when. They were both waiting, just holding their breath for the day when something happened and the Noah invaded their minds the way it hand their lovers'. The thought of losing himself and Allen at once left Kanda chewing his lower lip in dislike of the idea, but the thought that both of them, Lavi and himself, could turn if anything happened to Tyki or Allen, was worse.

_What if I'm not like him? What if I can't stop it from hurting people? What should I do? Keep them safe? Or kill myself to save everyone else?_

"Kanda?"

"We're going to win this war before then. We're going to kill the Earl once and for all. And I _will_ have enough life left to find my father and make him take the spell off of me. It's the only course of action that we have."

"Love…"

Kanda frowned at his lover, determination obvious in his features. "We're growing old together, _baka_ Moyashi. Learn to deal with it."

-- -- --

Lavi woke with a swath of hair covering most of his face, none of it his own. The dark strands seemed almost black in the dim light, even more so of the ones that had been unlucky enough to wander into his mouth sometime during their nap. He couldn't tell how long he had slept for, but the sun was quite a bit lower than he had expected, just peering in the window with the last red-gold rays of evening. With blinking eyes and a sleepy smile he rolled enough to press his back to his lover's chest and grinned at the arms that wrapped at once around him and drew him closer, protecting him from whatever it was that had forced him to wake. Facing away he no longer had hair in his face, but he did have all of the closeness he wanted behind him in the form of a back, and in front of him in the form of his lover's arms. It made him almost laugh how much comfort he took from each of them.

With a little sound of an inward breath, Tyki conformed to the shape Lavi had picked as the most comfortable, clinging as if not even the strongest force could move him. This, the apprentice Bookman realized, was just as good as so many other things. Better than sex in some ways. Intimate without being smothering, loving without the worry that one of them might start to lose his mind during the act. He could just be.

"Just another hour," Tyki whispered into his ear, warm air spreading moist and hot down the line of his throat. "And then we can get up and go…"

Lavi fought down a snicker and closed his eye, smiling wider. "Ok. You're super clingy for an evil guy, just so you know, Ty-chan." The redhead muttered, and grinned wider at the laugh that got him against the side of his neck.

"Who said evil can't cling? Or love? Or cuddle?"

"Someone who never met you, I'm sure."

"You tease me. Quiet."

With a little sound of amusement and a gentle turn of his head, Lavi brought his mouth to the corner of his lover's. It wasn't an outright kiss so much as a teasing little touch of warning, a gentle show of affection that meant more to both of them than it should have. The redhead left his mouth there for a long moment, just feeling the slightly tensed skin of his lover's lips against his own. Perhaps it was a promise. A vow that if Tyki wanted him, Lavi was directly against him, waiting for a better kiss.

"Ne, Ty-chan…" The redhead whispered against his lover's lips, cocking an eyebrow half lecherously. "You wanna make out for a little and see if one thing leads to another?" At the words a hand came up from his chest and covered his face, turning it away from the Noah. "Oh, c'mon, you know you want to…" His lover groaned and a face pressed into the turn of his neck, eyelashes dancing a soft line of butterfly kisses against his skin.

"You're incorrigible."

"You're hot?"

"And tired."

"There is no such thing as being too tired for sex."

"Really? There's too wounded but not too tired? Who would have thought?"

"Ty-ki…"

"You sound eerily like Rhode when you that."

Lavi snorted, hands clamped on the one that still covered his face. "Right. Her taller male clone. Sure." He dragged the hand away from his eyes and rolled enough to pull the Noah against him, uncaring about the tickle of hair against his forehead. "Actually, that's kind of gross considering that you're related."

Tyki chuckled and pulled Lavi's head beneath his chin, enabling him to loop an arm behind the younger man's shoulders and touch the back of his head. "Are you going to sleep, or try to seduce me?" He asked, and smiled crookedly at the press of fingers against his naked back.

"We'll see." The redhead answered, and bent his neck back enough to bring his lips into contact with Tyki's throat. The Noah pulled away and Lavi followed, nipping at the soft skin under the older man's jaw, a little growl in the back of his mouth. For a moment Tyki resisted him, turning away, and then he felt lips on his own, a hand looped gently around his left wrist, fingers buried in his hair. They shifted until he was looking up at the ceiling, Tyki's tongue gliding across his Adam's apple. "Besides, touching can lead to sleeping…"

The Noah snorted a laugh into Lavi's skin. "If you touch me and I leave the bed, sure…"

"Like that's gonna happen now that you're licking me…"

"Could. I have self control—"

"Lies and blasphemy!"

"Just… not at the moment."

With a soft chuckle, Lavi reached up and pulled the Noah's face to his own, the better to place a slow, passionate kiss on his lover's lips. It cued the brush of a hand against his chest, following the v-shaped line of his bathrobe until it came to the knot of his belt, tugging at it the same time as his teeth tugged on the Noah's lower lip. With a throaty moan the redhead writhed against the mattress for a moment, his palms on Tyki's hips even before he knew they had moved. The Noah moved to the side a bit, leaning his weight on the curve of his lover's hips.

Lavi shivered at the press of a warm hand on his right thigh.

"Jesus, Ty-chan, you think we can do this without any teasing or anything?" He mumbled, and then gasped at the brush of fingers against his length, steady yet seeming not to know what exactly they wanted. The Noah leaned down enough to kiss the underside of his jaw, the up to his earlobe, fiddling with the earring the way he used to. Memories, coupled with his own current position, lead the apprentice Bookman to tilt his head back against the pillows and sigh, a line of goosebumps all down the length of his side. _"Please…"_ The word seeped from his lips and teeth closed softly on the turn of his collar bone.

Without responding to the words, Tyki moved himself over the redhead, holding himself up with one arm while his right hand moved from thigh to stomach to chest and back again, parting his lover's robe as it moved. The hooded green eye that looked up at him was purposefully searching his face for something, needy and full of an emotion that made him smile ever so softly down at the apprentice Bookman. Gently, with a suddenly curious expression, he lifted his right from his lover's skin and placed it on the mattress, the moved his left hand to the side of Lavi's face to lay his thumb on the fabric of the boy's eye patch.

"What are you doing?" Lavi whispered up at him, but his tone was not in the least bit defensive or frightened.

The Noah tilted his head to the side and frowned. "I want to see your whole face." The answer made Lavi stiffen under him, as did the fingers that slowly lifted the material away, leaving the redhead's expression completely unobstructed to Tyki's sight. Lavi kept his eyes closed for a moment, fear spread softly across his features.

Almost shyly, the apprentice Bookman opened his eyes at his lover, his attempts at foreplay forgotten at the moment.

Tyki looked down at his lover and let his eyes flick back and forth between both sides of his lover's gaze, slightly surprised that there was even an eyeball there for him to see. The iris was a faded color between green and yellow, the pupil foggy, but it contracted at the light as if it could see. Slowly, Tyki smiled. "I thought with the patch that whatever was under it would likely be completely useless." He muttered, and ran his finger over the long untouched skin of Lavi's lower right lid.

"It pretty much is. I can make out light and dark with it, but that's it." The redhead whispered back, just as softly. "When I was five I came down with a really awful fever. It spread to my eye, damaged it, and almost went to my brain before Gramps showed up and worked me into fighting it off. After I recovered I became his apprentice, blah, blah, blah, and now I'm here with you." He smiled then, crookedly, and his right eye squinted nearly shut by the expression. "Now gimme the patch back, I'm self conscious."

"You're beautiful."

"And flattered. Eye patch, now."

Tyki held the little piece of fabric in his left hand for a moment before flinging it off of the bed with a grin. He was unsurprised to find Lavi half-glaring at him, lips drawn into a strange, gathered pout. "You are mean to me." The redhead muttered, incapable of saying much else. The touch of lips against the ridge of his right eyebrow, and then the gentle caress of them against the skin just below it made him shudder. "Please, you might think it's nice but…"

The Noah shushed him and kissed a slow, delicate line down to the boy's mouth, aware of the little down turned quality to them. "I love you; there is no reason to hide this. I want… to make love to you like this just once, if you will let me, where I can see every feature and feel them under my hands. You do not have to be afraid of me." He paused long enough to lower himself more surely against the redhead, distributing his weight over the smaller man's hips in something like a horizontal embrace. Lavi still looked frightened beneath him, more so every moment that went by. "You've always had it, every person you've become, but it doesn't matter. I just want _you_ Lavi, no matter how frightening that might be."

"Tyki… how did you… know that?"

"Know what?"

The apprentice Bookman looped his arms around the back of his lover's neck and pulled enough to press the man's weight to his chest. "Know that when I take it off, I worry about turning into my first me." He explained.

Tyki shrugged. "Maybe I knew because you know. That is how it works."

"Ok…" Lavi let an evil little smirk come over his slips. "Then what am I thinking right now?"

"That you will trade me sexual favors for your eye patch?"

"Close enough." The redhead's eyes, the left emerald, the right two shades lighter, moved to his lover's and held them, the left focused, the right oddly seeming to look through the Portuguese man. "If you want to do this without it then ok, we can, that's fine, just… don't tell anyone. Nobody but Panda knows how I lost my eye." No sooner were the words out of his mouth that Tyki was kissing him, his mouth hot and moist and hungry against the younger man's lips, his hand a warm force against the back of the apprentice Bookman's neck. A sweep of the Noah's tongue against his lover's brought a moaning growl to the boy's throat, a sound that vibrated through his lover and cued him to move slowly away, ending the kiss with a soft clip of his teeth.

Lavi was blushing when Tyki looked down at him, half-naked and panting in the dim light.

"Alright, _Amante_," Tyki's voice came out at a low, husky whisper, his mouth moving against Lavi's. "I won't tell as soul."

"Then, can we…"

"There is nothing I would enjoy more." He rocked his hips forward and captured his lover's lips again, the fingers in his hair curled enough to pull what little remained of it in his ponytail down around them, soft dark curls falling in a nearly black curtain. He moved his hands down enough to push the bathrobe down Lavi's shoulders, leaving his chest bare and inviting against the sheets. "Do you want this as much as I do, Lavi? Because I may not be able to draw this out like I normally do." Tyki warned, and sank to lay his teeth on the nub of a nipple. The sound the younger man made at it, completely compromised, drove a soft moan of response from his throat.

Lavi dug his fingers into his lover's flesh and lifted his hips, head sagging against his pillow. "It doesn't matter. I wanna…" As if to convey his desires without speaking he pulled his legs outward and then wrapped them around his lover's hips, grinding his bare arousal against the Noah's pants. "Like this… I wanna… _fuck_ you feel so good." Unable to stand the thought of not returning his lover's touches, he left his right hand on the back of the Noah's head and moved the left to his belt, working it open with an impatience that made Tyki smile into his lips. The Portuguese man rocked his hips; Lavi's fingers clamped on the line of his pants.

"You look lovely like this, Lavi." Tyki breathed into the still wet lobe of his lover's ear. "Would you like it if we did this so I can see your face, dear? I want to watch your expression while I touch you." His lover nodded rapidly at him, both of his eyes half hooded at the gentle rocking rhythm Tyki had started. The redhead dropped the belt on the floor and shoved his right hand into the garment, unsurprised at what he found there. Gingerly he pressed his palm to his lover's rigid length, stroking it harder with every pass of his hand.

"Tyki, what're we gonna do after we've—"

"Lay naked together. Until someone stops us or the sunrises."

"Good. I can do that. Now help get your pants off, I can't wait anymore."

To Lavi's slight surprise Tyki nodded and smiled down at him, brown eyes perfectly human as he ran his right hand through Lavi's hair, his left tracing the curve of his abdomen between them. Needing no more encouragement, the apprentice Bookman yanked the buttons of his lover's pants the rest of the way open, exposing a long swath of flesh to his fingers. With his legs wrapped around his lover's upper thighs, he couldn't very well push down the fabric of the older man's pants. He relinquished his hold on Tyki's legs and moved the material down, touching the newly exposed skin as he went, looking up at the Noah's face with furrowed eyebrows.

"Ne, Ty-chan?" His whispered marked the movement of Tyki's body to help remove the garment entirely. "You having any urges I should know about?"

The Noah shook his head before kissing the redhead firmly on his lips and grinding into his hips, the silky touch of skin narrowing his eyes in pleasure. "I want this to be good for both of us, true lovemaking, not painful to anything but our hearts." Tyki moaned softly at his own movement, shaking slightly with need. "I need that."

Lavi noted the uncharacteristic word in that statement and nodded, understanding. The dark didn't have a very good hold today. There would be no pain to accompany the copious amount of pleasure they would hopefully endure together, no balance of bad with good. Somehow he wasn't disappointed by the news and nodded, rocking his hips in invitation. "Ok, Ty-chan. Whenever you want to start, I'll be ready. Sometime you'll have to just lay back and lemme search your body for erogenous zones, but this is fine for now. I know you like this, so I don't have to find anything else…" The boy felt his lover rock back a bit, taking him by the hands and guiding them to the top of his chest. With a downward motion and a brush of his hair against Lavi's fingers, he pulled the redhead's fingernails across his chest, leaving a long series of pale pink lines in their wake.

"That's one of them." Tyki whispered, and reached out for the nightstand as soon as he saw comprehension dawn on Lavi's eyes. It was odd to see both of the redhead's eyes draw wide with understanding, the right still looking through him, left focused on his face. Tyki's left hand found the drawer, and then the tube within.

The apprentice Bookman took the initiative and repeated the motion across his lover's chest, delicately, leaving a line of marks besides the fading first. The Noah quivered slightly under the touch and rocked into him, sliding him back on his bathrobe with a growl. The sound Tyki made, something like a heated throaty groan, sent a spiral of anticipation down Lavi's spine, his back arched away from the mattress with desire, mouth slightly open to the forceful tongue that pressed against the roof of his mouth. The snap of the cap on the lubricant cued him to push himself away a bit, left hand dragging at Tyki's chest, right fisted on the older man's erection. The Noah lifted the redhead's hips and pulled him forward, placing the backs of Lavi's thighs on the fronts of his own, which in turn gave him access to what he needed without having to take his eyes from his lover's face. The boy understood what he wanted and bent his knees around Tyki's legs, sitting up against the headboard enough to leave his hands where they were.

"_God_, Tyki…" Lavi breathed out slowly as his lungs would allow. "Lemme get my bathrobe off, I don't wanna get—" He cut himself off with a whine as Tyki squeezed a bit of the fluid onto his right fingers, working it across them expertly. The bathrobe suddenly didn't matter, it could be washed at it wasn't like the cleaners had never seen cum stains before, and really it would keep the bed dry. With a hard swallow he tilted his head to the right then jerked it back up again at the touch of cloth against his eye. He didn't have words.

Tyki lowered his hand between them, rubbing at his lover's long untested backside with two exceedingly slick fingers without being intrusive. A soft smile came over the Noah's face. "It's not all that important is it?" He asked, sliding the first finger forward with a groan – his movement tightened Lavi's hand on his length enough to draw the sound from his lips.

"No, it's not." Lavi answered at once, a harsh blush on his features that only grew more intense the farther Tyki pressed into him. _"This _is important, this is… I don't want to rush it, it's so _good…_" Beside the finger that moved slowly back and forth inside of him, a second slipped, stretching his muscles more gently than he had ever felt them. He hardly noticed it, no pain accompanying the sensation, and leaned upward enough to kiss the turn of Tyki's throat and drag his hand down his lover's chest at once, still squeezing at his manhood. The Noah moaned at him softly, scissoring his fingers a bit more quickly, and met the side of his mouth in a soft breath, panting against his skin. Lavi did not care that he wasn't wearing his eye patch anymore, not with how Tyki looked down at him, features almost pained with pleasure.

The Portuguese man bucked his hips into the hand that held him, but didn't increase the pace of his preparations. His fingers brushed the back of Lavi's prostrate and the boy's fingernails bit painfully into his chest, both of his eyes closing the rest of the way as he rocked into the touch. When a third finger joined the other two unnoticed, Tyki concluded that now was the time for what they both wanted. He pulled his hand away, shaking at the touch of a warm hand on the sore places on his chest.

"Lavi, are you fine with things like this?" Tyki asked, and laid his lips on the apprentice Bookman's mouth before he could answer.

The redhead nodded, watching Tyki's hand spread the slick liquid across his length. "Yes. It's good. You know, it's been a long time since I've felt perfectly _sane_ doing this, but right now I do. I just… _need_ you inside of me. The way things should be." He tilted himself back a bit on his spine and held his tongue when his lover took him by the hips and pushed forward slowly, driving into the stretched place he had made with his fingers. Lavi found himself hugging the older man, mouth pressed open and panting to the side of his throat, legs clamped high on his lover's torso, shivering. His mind refused to think of any one thing at that moment, too focused on the sensations running through him. When the ability to form thoughts struck Tyki moved first back and then forward, gingerly putting a stop to the pastime before he could even start.

Tyki breathed heavily against Lavi's right ear, shaking almost inexplicably, leaning half on his own knees and half on his lover's hand. "You're holding your breath, dear."

Lavi let it out in a shuddering moan.

"Right?"

"_Ty-chan…_ lean down a bit so I can kiss you…" Almost at once the Noah did as he was asked, laying his mouth against his lover's and lifting with his hips at once. Lavi responded with a whimper of his own, unable to hold the kiss and take what Tyki offered at the same time, swallowed by the pleasure in his body and the gentle singe of love in his chest. Even when Tyki pulled away from his mouth and pressed their foreheads together, looking down at his lips, Lavi could find no fear or sadness or overwhelming desire within him, no dissatisfaction. It was just the wonderful feeling of closeness coupled with sensual fulfillment.

"More, Lavi?"

"_Sim._" He answered unthinkingly, and hooked his feet a bit higher on his lover's back. At once Tyki increased his pace, first slowly then with more force, until Lavi threw his head back and lifted his hips into the older man's thrusts, thus tilting himself enough to hit the sensitive place within him. With a whine he repeated the motion again and again, clamping his muscles in an effort to share his enjoyment with Tyki. With one had buried in Lavi's hair, the other fisted in the sheets, the Noah leaned down to gasp into the apprentice Bookman's throat, moving as quickly as he was able. The slap of skin and the hiss of air through Lavi's teeth were the only sounds he heard for a time, fire and pressure building in his lower abdomen, the redhead chewing at his lower lip in anticipation. Tyki's eyes fell shut and he dragged them open, looking down at Lavi's two nearly closed eyes with an expression not unlike a smile.

"Lav—"

"Gonna…"

"Do it."

The redhead nodded as best as he could and let out a low, guttural groan as his body seemed to turn into a vice around his lover's length, encasing the older man in a sheath of warmth and pressure. Between that sensation, the sound Lavi made, the splash of something hot against his stomach – unprovoked by his hands – Tyki spiraled down into the oblivion of release. Such things rarely took his breath away, rarely swallowed his thoughts and his reason and left him feel like a drifting thing on a sea of satisfaction and heat, but this time it did. The room narrowed to just Lavi's face turned softly up at him, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open in almost a downward smile. The expression itself was not flattering but rather beautiful in its own right, perfectly vulnerable, enriched by the second eye reflected mutedly green in the dim light.

The Noah didn't collapse at once, instead holding himself over his love with his slightly sweaty tresses hanging over one shoulder and not the other, breathing in deep, hurried breaths, waiting for what would come. Lavi slowly, blinking rapidly, opened his eyes the rest of the way and pulled his lover down against him, shaking in the aftermath of what they had done. Softly, he spoke in a trembling whisper, "I think I'm gonna fall asleep again."

Tyki snorted, half-amused, and leaned down enough to kiss the corner of Lavi's mouth with a smile. "I'll get a rag, you stay up until I'm here to fold you up and hold you until you sleep. And…" The Noah bent enough to kiss Lavi's lips again, more deeply, before he pulled back with another expression of enjoyment. "I love you." He brightened even further when Lavi returned his look, missing eye patch forgotten at the moment.

"Yeah…" The redhead touched the side of his lover's face and tilted his head to the side. "I love you, too. No matter what happens now."

-- -- --

**You see where it's going? It's almost there… it wouldn't be odd to ended it in two chapters, I don't think… feel free to tell me what YOU think and WHY. :)**

**Yes, this is technically 'late'… I'm sorry. D:**

**Reviews are LOVE! 8D Seeya next chapter!**


	102. A New Oath

**[I continue not to own D. Gray – man.]**

**Um… I don't think I can really intro this very well so… I won't.**

**Life is crazy. My sister is pregnant. Updates are slow. Kanda is a prick. Please don't kill me. I love you?**

**WARNING: Typos. I'm sorry. D':**

**-- -- --**

A New Oath

Cross lay with his eyes closed, running his fingers through the back of Hiroko's hair, a serious frown marring his features. Sweat clung to the arm that he kept draped across her bare back, drying now, and stuck in the fringe of his hair, parting it oddly around his forehead. The right side of his face turned instinctually into the mattress, the mask fallen away in the heat of the moment, and Hiroko shifted, sleepy sounds escaping her not-quite closed mouth.

Not only had she bruised his chest with a punch the moment he had even _whispered_ the word love, she had also ridden him like a woman who knew exactly what it was to please a man regardless of how long it had been since she had. Her technique was straightforward, simple, but _definitely_ not what he had expected from a woman of her status and culture – but that was how she was. Even her house, large and expensive, had no servants or people to manage it for her, so it wasn't that surprising that her independence made its way out of her life and into the bedroom. Somehow, Cross felt satisfied. And a little sick with himself. _Defeated_ perhaps. With his mahogany hair spread out across the white pillow and her ebony tresses tangled across his chest, he couldn't think about being with anyone else or walking away before she woke. He didn't want to. Not now that she had seen his face and made his heart sing in his chest just by touching him. It didn't make sense, it irked him, but he didn't care. As independent as she was, as much as she _hated_ the word love, he wanted her close – forever, if not longer.

Hiroko sighed into his skin and her already nearly sleeping eyes drifted shut. She shivered.

Cross lifted the blankets until they covered her shoulders and tucked her head beneath his chin, aware of the second sigh that played across his skin. If she fell asleep entirely he would undoubtedly join her. When they woke too late to go to the meeting things would be awkward. They would talk about love and decide that they should never see each other again. She would hug him one last time and pinch his wallet, he would make a trivial comment about the color of her eyes and how there was someone out there better than him – someone who wasn't a mongrel and a magician and a drunk – and then they would part, feeling dirty and loathsome and wanting noting but a drink.

If that would be the case, he'd rather just go to sleep and not wake up.

If he tried, and didn't think about the plans he had, he could most likely make that happen. Dying in his sleep, however, didn't seem like the way to go. He'd always wanted to go out with a bang.

Hiroko made a very soft sound and _snuggled_ a bit more closely. Asleep. She wouldn't have done that awake.

_I don't regret it, Hiro._ He thought, and let his eyes drift shut a little. _But I don't want to leave._

-- -- --

"Kanda."

The Japanese man growled.

"_Kanda."_

Allen was swiftly becoming annoyed.

"_Kanda. Yuu."_

"Don't talk to me unless you're naked."

"I've _been_ naked for hours."

"Huh?" The samurai, lying on his stomach under the sheet, opened an eye to peer blearily up at his lover, having momentarily forgotten how the boy had acted before the two of them had fallen asleep again, tangled in a mess of limbs. Allen's eyes were swollen, but he seemed normal again, his soft features just inches from Kanda's face. His hair was hanging crookedly, his bangs dangling down the bridge of his nose, and his lips turned up into a pained smile, lingering long in the dim light.

And he was naked. Still. Kanda smiled.

"How are you feeling?" The Japanese man asked, brushing his own bangs from his face as he rolled to lay on his back, the British boy sitting on the mattress beside him. "Better?"

Allen nodded, sighed. "I think… I'll be ok for now. We've… come to a compromise."

"Compromise?" Kanda didn't like how that sounded.

The British Exorcist looked down at his hands, the left black and claw-like, the right smaller, and humanoid. They were both hands, both had fingers, fingernails, both functioned for him, and even when he fought the one didn't work without the other. It made more sense to him, somehow, that they would be so different. "If I do what I have to when I have to, if I fight to destroy the akuma and the Earl, if I Play when the time is right, then… he'll stop trying to be _me_. I mean, he _is_ me, and I'm _him_, but I'll only get that much. He has more than one person inheriting his will, so…" The white haired boy shook his head, a strange expression dimming his features before he smiled. "I don't want to destroy me, so I'll be me even I have to change a little more into myself. I don't lose this way. I'm still human, I'm just… not."

Kanda blinked repeatedly at his lover, not understanding. It was far too much to ask him to understand what Allen was saying on a normal day, and here he was, newly woken and struggling to do just that. "Are you… talking about yourself and the Noah like you're the same person?"

Allen's mouth turned up at the edges in a sad type smile. "We are the same person, Kanda. We're just different _sides_ of the same person. Facets, maybe." He shook his head again and fisted his hands, leaning down toward Kanda's face with a crooked smile. "But that's not why I woke you. We should get dressed and go get food and… if you can stand to, eat with Lavi. Don't roll your eyes, you said you'd _try_ so… try." He stayed still while Kanda reached up and touched the side of his face, combing the hair from his forehead.

"So you're… really ok?"

_I am ok._  
**I'm ok.**_**  
Ok.**_

"Yes, Kanda." His smile bloomed wider. "I might hum when I can't hear the music or cling to you desperately if I'm angry at myself, but I will be fine. No more fighting in my head or crying about my fate. I don't care who I am at the end of this, I'll still be me. I'll still do what I'm supposed to and love you while I do it."

_Right?_  
**To the best of my ability.**  
_I love akuma._  
**So I'll try to love Yuu.**

Kanda pushed himself up enough to teasingly touch his lips to Allen's. The boy responded at once, the way he always had, without a silver of pain or fear or annoyance in his expression. The older man pulled away and waited, not quite understanding, before Allen reached out and touched his chest with the smooth, hard fingers of his left hand.

"You know how… this is my hand but sometimes, when God needs it to be, it turns into a weapon?" Allen went on more softly, thrumming his fingers on Kanda's skin. "It's like that. It's still a hand and most of the time it's _my_ hand, but when the Innocence takes over, it's something else. I'll do that. I become the hand, he becomes the Innocence." He watched Kanda nod in understanding, realizing then what that would mean for the two of them. Allen was Allen – had always been Allen, would always be Allen – but his _use_ had changed. Where the British boy was usually an Exorcist, a martyr, a lover, and a fighter, he would be _used_ as something else at some point, but in exchange he was allowed to remain those things, even to the point of not knowing the difference between those parts of himself.

"You will always, always, be the person I fell for, right?"

"I swear it." Allen nodded, curling his fingers on Kanda's chest. "So get up. I want to do things now that I know that I'm trying not to lose either of my minds, you know?" He tilted his face to the side and grinned the way he always had, and for once the look was genuine. As confusing as his circumstances had become, he seemed perfectly alright with it, and more himself than he had been in a number of days.

Kanda pulled Allen down and placed his lips softly on the British boy's cheek, the way he might have if his lover had been wearing clothes. "No way I can talk you into a day of training with me and meditating in the practice room?"

"No. We need to see Lavi."

"Che." Kanda rolled his eyes again before his face fell into a scowl. "Can't we just spend a _normal day_ together? If you're serious, if I can trust you not lie to me about this, then I want to do something we haven't in a long time – spar or... I don't know…" He pulled Allen downward and the two of them settled against the mattress, the smaller boy slightly resistant but not enough so to pull away from his lover. The British Exorcist settled on Kanda's hips, the blankets between them, and let the older man touch the bare skin of his stomach, tracing invisible lines there. It reminded Allen of how long they had been together. If he could do this naked and not feel even the slightest hint of embarrassment anymore, they had to be doing something right. "I want it to be true, Moyashi-kun. I want you to be ok with this, if only because it will help _me_ be ok with it, but how do I know you're being truthful if you won't do something normal?"

Allen frowned as if to call Kanda in idiot, narrowed his eyes and leaning forward. The samurai cocked an eyebrow and Allen matched it with his own, silver hair falling in front of his right eye. "Normal?"

"Yes."

"Normal?"

"That's what I said."

"Normal." Allen rocked back on his hips and then forward, bringing both of his hands to the pillow under Kanda's head. A sly, devilish smile cracked his mouth and he leaned up onto his hands and knees, effectively forming a barrier between his lover and the edge of the bed. It was obvious by the slight tilt of his head that he had something in mind, but he fought down the urge to let it show from behind his silver eyes. "What did you call me just now, _Koibito?_"

"Mo…yashi…kun?"

The British boy grinned even wider. "Don't mind if I do." He leaned down and kissed Kanda while his right hand tugged away the covers, leaving him to explore the bare skin of his lover's chest with his right hand. His left, slightly shaky, fisted in the older man's hair and pulled his head back, allowing him to nibble down the side of his throat. Almost at once Kanda understood what was happening, understood what Allen wanted, and barked out a soft laugh, hooking his fingers on the hollows of his lover's hips.

"Allen…"

"_No…"_

"Moyashi-kun—"

"_Good."_ With the word Allen leaned upward and kissed the samurai, still smiling, before he returned to the column of his lover's neck, exploring it with a slowness he never showed. By the time his teeth found the corner of Kanda's jaw, eyes half-closed, the older man was breathing heavily up at him, sapphire eyes shining darkly in the light, lips gently parted. It was that kind of face, the expression of utter and complete willingness to go on regardless of who controlled them, that Allen had not seen in longer than he could remember. He took in the look for a moment, watching Kanda slowly pull his eyes open and shiver.

Kanda cleared his throat and reached up to brush Allen's hair aside, no room for a protest on his lips. "You really think this counts?" His inquiry brought a little more of a smile to Allen's face and he couldn't help but return it in a crooked, half scowl, annoyance forced into the lines of his face.

"I haven't lead in a long time."

"Because you don't seem to dislike following."

"I don't dislike it. I just like variety."

"But you seriously think that this counts?"

"Why wouldn't it?"

Kanda lifted his eyebrows as if the answer was obvious. "For starters, it's not normal."

Allen narrowed his eyes and forced his lips into a thin line, emotionless. "Whose fault is that, I wonder? Not mine. Unlike _someone_ I know the idea of taking _turns_ isn't lost on me." With an indignant little huff he bounced a bit on Kanda's stomach, much to the samurai's discomfort, and lifted his left hand to look at his fingers almost indifferently. He wiggled his fingers, pretending that there might have been something odder about them than usual. The act was simply to keep Kanda from looking at his eyes while he spoke, because it was almost impossible to say something that blamed the older man for anything while looking him in the eye. "You're a bit… defensive of yourself when you know that I'm an option."

"Che. That's not true." Kanda said softly, taking a hold of Allen's left hand. "If you really want to then you _can_ lead. Unless we're arguing. When we're arguing… opening up to you is about the last thing I want to do because… just… because." He finished without actually saying anything at all, eyes averted. "Can't we… spend… time… together without being naked?" He growled out at length, irritation heavy in his voice. He didn't want to ask it. He didn't want to be the one to cause problems, but he did it all the same, frowning deeply all the while.

"Absolutely." Allen chimed at once. "We can go and spend time with Lavi."

"_Allen."_

"Because as much as you would like to be, you are not a liar. So choose – we can go see Lavi or I can top you, _right now_." He gave another bounce of his hips and watched Kanda grimace under his weight, aware of just how much of a pickle he had put the samurai in. Kanda's hands moved to his and then up to his shoulders, pausing at the turn of his neck. Allen had enough trust in him to let the samurai draw him downward, ignoring the fact that his lover had tried to strangle him in almost the same position not long before, enjoying the feeling of fingers on his throat. The older man simply embraced him. The British boy allowed the contact, not sure what to expect from his lover's lips.

_**He smells nice.**_

"I'll try." Kanda said into his hair. "For you, I'll try." There was something very soft underneath of that, something he didn't say to Allen, some hidden thing that would likely make the younger man angry. His lips turned down against his lover's scalp, no longer moving, and he kissed the crown of his lover's head softly, curling his arms around him. "I may not like the idea of it but… you _are_ one of them and I _love_ you. So I'll try."

Allen hugged him back, gently, and allowed a smile to creep across his lips. "Thank you, Love. You know though, everything we've decided about me should stay the same. If, for some reason, I _do_ forget who I am or stop loving you or turn on the Order, you should still…"

"I know. But it won't happen – we're growing old together, somehow."

"You're such a contradiction." Allen mumbled into Kanda's chest. "But that's ok. You can say that you'll die with me _if_ that happens, and then say that no matter what happens, we'll find a way to get old together. I can live with that." He looked up at his lover and smiled, pain evident behind the thankfulness written on his face. "Can you do that with a lot of things? Like… can you be angry and forgiving at the same time? Or does it only work for future plans?"

Kanda scowled at him, narrowed his eyes into slits that slowly turned playful. Instead saying something biting about how wrong Allen was about his ability to forgive people, he reached out and covered the boy's entire face with his left hand. The British Exorcist let out a little snort of amusement that Kanda drowned with his voice. "You're such a manipulative little brat. Now get up. If we spend a _normal_ day lying in bed naked together, there's something very, very wrong with us." He bit his low lip to avoid smiling. "Like being addicted to each other. Or something." He thrummed his fingers on Allen's forehead, aware that it couldn't be that comfortable for the younger man, before he pushed the boy up by the face, sitting at a better angle himself.

"You know…" Allen muttered against his palm. "I never thought it would be that easy."

-- -- --

"Ty-chan?"

"Hm?"

"What are you doing in the bathroom and not in bed?"

Tyki turned on the faucet. He slurped water for a few seconds before he doused his face and dried it, turned back to Lavi lying lazily in the covers by poking his head around the door. The redhead lay with both of his arms draped out over his head, hair splattered against the covers like an off-crimson bloodstain, the slightly pale expanse of his chest bared for the Noah's gold-brown eyes. Tyki smirked and Lavi returned the expression, his eye patch still lay on the floor between them, his right eye exposed to the soft light. "I was thinking that we might go out together. Not out of the tower – no matter how _very_ much I'd like to – but rather out of the room. Perhaps you can give me a proper tour. Or show me a place I can move without having to throw you around like a ragdoll – not to say that isn't fun." He smiled lopsidedly as Lavi arched away from the mattress only to sigh and let himself down again, a little knowing grin on his lips. "You're _trying_ to make this hard on me, aren't you?" Tyki complained quietly.

"No… I just feel like stretching." Lavi lied. He reached out with his arms and the Noah wandered almost shyly into the embrace he offered, taking the kiss he proposed as well. When the Noah pulled away Lavi tugged suggestively on his hair, carding his fingers through the tresses almost playfully.

"I'm thinking of cutting it." Tyki mumbled just as Lavi brought a strand down and laid it across his upper lip. "And what are you doing with that?"

"Don't cut it, it's fun." The boy said at once. "And I'm seeing what you would look like with more than two days of rugged, sexy stubble. Grr… you make a sexy hairy man-beast." He winked with his left eye, an expression that looked far more normal than it did when he was wearing something over his right, and pulled down a bit to once again make the Noah kiss him. The contact was so simple and intimate that he didn't question when Tyki let himself sink against his chest, wrapping him in a full body embrace. "Comfy man-pillow…"

Tyki laughed, closing his eyes to the hand that continued to pet through his hair. "Comfy… boy-mattress?"

"Stop with the boy stuff, I'm not Allen."

"Ugh, that Japanese fellow must be a pedophile."

Lavi snorted. "Naw, it's a personality thing. If Yuu likes somebody, a little thing like age isn't gonna stop him from being with them. Same with gender. I'm sure you can kinda equate with that." He paused with his fingers at the base of Tyki's neck and sighed, blinking his eyes shut. "I really should talk to him. I don't think Komui's had a chance to explain why you're here or when you got here or anything, and I don't think he accepts it if he knows." His fingers took up their movement again, slowly, and he tilted his head back with a sigh. "If there's anybody who hates the Noah, it's him. He never wanted to be an Exorcist, but he doesn't blame it on God or fate or the Order – he blames Akuma, the Earl, the other side. The way he sees it, if they hadn't existed in the first place, Innocence wouldn't have been and… well… he wouldn't be an Exorcist."

"He just doesn't know the whole story." Tyki grumbled, running his hands down the sides of Lavi's chest before returning to his previous hug. The boy hugged him back this time. "Humanity was a horrible thing when it all started. They didn't remember anything God had taught them. Neither did we, but… never mind. If he blames Noah he should blame humanity as well." He looked up at Lavi, lifting his eyebrows in curiosity. "Who do you think was at fault?" He questioned quietly.

"I can't blame anyone." Lavi responded at once. "Part of my personality will always think about things like a Bookman – things happened, you can't blame anyone. But really, if I had to pick, the only person I can really think of is God, and I won't do that. If humanity forgot what he taught then you can't say it was humanity's fault – God should have known they would forget, right? From there it gets too philosophical for my taste. I'd rather just not pick a side and not have a war." He tried to smile, the expression felt odd without his eye patch creeping up on his face with it, but he inevitably dropped the look with a soft sight. Tyki was still looking up at him, dark eyes dancing with something like amusement.

The Noah smiled softly. "You're more of an idiot than I thought."

Lavi narrowed his eyes and allowed his lower lip to pout softly. "Meany."

"But you love me anyway."

The redhead sighed and smiled, leaning his head back against the covers, and kept his hands moving through his lover's hair. It was true. After everything the two of them had been through, he doubted that there was a mean word Tyki could stay to make him stop loving the Noah. "You wanna grab lunch? Breakfast? Whatever meal we're supposed to be eating this time in the day?" He asked, and felt Tyki turn his face down to gently kiss the scar left by Judgment, thought the action didn't seem to have been aimed at all.

"I'd love to."

-- -- --

Lenalee sighed softly as she came into the cafeteria, her appetite suddenly encouraged by the smell of what had to be freshly cooked beef stew, complete with black fungus and cabbage. She knew at once that she was in the mood for Chinese food, maybe noodles and soup and pork, and a nice cup of black tea to soothe her. It all sounded decidedly splendid to have before she went and tried to find Cross and her brother and put everything into motion. The way she understood it, with just one lie a great deal of pain and loss could be stopped – her world, everything as it was, could be preserved without further hardship, but if they _didn't _lie…

It was complicated. The only thing she really needed to do was tell Kanda that she understood his hate of the Noah on a personal level and would likely never forgive someone that took part in the death of her brother.

And that was what made him better than her.

She didn't really think it would work, but that had been her brother's plan the last she had talked to him, so she was going to run with it. She only needed to find the opportunity.

While the Chinese girl placed her order at Jerry's window, the door opened and a pair of Exorcists wandered in, the two of them walking closer than most might, the smaller frowning, the taller scowling as if it was the only expression he knew how to properly make. Thus it was that when she turned away, Allen and Kanda came up to her rather than the window, lost in the argument they had likely been having since they had left their room, if not longer.

"You're going to make yourself iron deficient." The white haired boy pointed out, wagging a finger like a concerned mother scolding her child. The Japanese man bristled at the words.

"I will not. Besides, you'll turn into a fucking _whale _before that happens."

"Are you calling me fat, Kanda?"

"Che. You're a stick, Moyashi. It would take years to make you fat."

"A stick?"

"Yes. A scrawny little moyashi."

"Take a look at your arms before you say that, _toothpick._"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean, exactly?"

"Nothing. I like how you look. Skeletor."

"What did you call me?!"

"Scand…alor. It's a new word. It means attractive."

"I'm going to kill—"

"Hey!" Lenalee intruded, bouncing between the two with a bright, genuine smile. She was mildly surprised when Allen looked at her straight on, no longer upward, and pushed his terribly long bangs out of his eyes. He had let his hair grow and, by the way he tossed it out of his face, hadn't grown used to it yet. That didn't dampen his smile in the least, however. Kanda looked down at her with a ghost of a smile on his lips before he forced his face into a soft glare, annoyance evident behind his eyes.

Allen spoke first, reaching out to gently pull her into a hug. It wasn't until he had his arms around her shoulders that he remembered what Cross had told her – what caused him to be how he was, what had made Kanda faint just outside of the library. She didn't let her shoulders tense and instead hugged him as if he needed a hug more than anyone, turning her face into his shoulder.

"_Lenalee – ribcage!"_

"Sorry," Lenalee pulled away with a genuine smile. He was like Tyki – his embrace wasn't at all affected by his natural alignment, not even the slightest little bit. "I just haven't talked to you guys in a really long time, I felt like it. I'd give one to you too, Kanda, but… you've never liked hugging." She said in the samurai's direction, then squinted as a hand came out and patted her hair – it might have been the most willing physical contact the Japanese had shown her since they were very, very young.

Kanda made a little grunt and lifted his lip in a half-smile. "Che." It sounded almost like a laugh.

When he dropped his hand she turned to both of them equally and forced her smile to stay, even if it kind of hurt her face to make it that wide, and tilted her face to the side, clapping her hands behind her back. "So tell me, what brings you both to the cafeteria? Tell me about your lives, are you two still…" Even before she could finish the question Kanda reached out and subtly looped a finger in Allen's, just enough touching that she knew what it meant, even if it wasn't enough to alert the entire room to it. She smiled at it softly. It was good to know that they were still together, especially if Kanda knew what Allen was – that would make things easier, she hoped.

"I'm dragging him along with me to see Lavi." Allen said blandly. "But first there's food. Because Kanda wants to die of kidney failure in less than a year, he refuses to eat anything but soba and tempura, which is what you heard us arguing about."

"Che. Moyashi wants to upgrade himself to udon noodle by eating nothing but cake and mango pudding."

"I'm actually aiming for human being, thank you very much."

"I figure he'll pass right over udon and go straight to _zou._"

"I am _not_ turning into an elephant!"

"Stop stealing my Japanese!"

"Stop thinking I'm _genkinai!"_

"Stop changing how I eat!"

"Quit yelling!"

"It's not my fault _beans_ don't have _ears!"_

"_Kisama wo satsu ze!"_ Allen clapped his hands over his mouth and took a step backward, his eyes going from Kanda to Lenalee and back again in horror, aware that almost every eye in the cafeteria was on him. To his surprise Kanda mirrored the action for a moment before he reached out and placed a hand on Allen's wrist, holding his hands in place while the other touched the back of his neck, turning his face up so they could look each other in the eyes. The British boy stayed exactly still, staring up at him almost frightfully.

Kanda bit his lip at the little ring of gold around the pupil of the boy's right eye before Allen tried to look away. _"Dare da."_ He asked plainly who he was speaking to, holding his lover's gaze perfectly. He saw the color falter, saw Allen's fingers part away from his mouth, and simply waited for an answer.

"_Aren desu. Demo… anata no atama ni."_

"What?" Lenalee put in, and Allen closed his eyes before she could see, sagging against Kanda's hold. The samurai guided him against his chest, glaring at everyone who tried to stare at the display, narrowing his gaze even at Lenalee.

"It's fine. Just… say a word."

"What for?"

"I'll explain later." He said, and guided them to a table without even ordering food. Allen leaned on his chest, eyes still closed, and fisted his hands in Kanda's shirt. Neither of them had jackets at the moment, ruined in any number of recent battles, but their matching white shirts made it less obvious to observers just where one began and one ended. "Just give me a word, damn it." He repeated as Lenalee sank down across from them.

"Ok… um… apple."

"Elephant." Kanda responded at once. He continued to look at her expectantly and she cleared her throat, before she realized he wanted her to go on.

"Toad."

"Donkey."

"Yoke."

"Emu."

"Under."

"Rat."

"Tot."

"Tickle."

"Enlarged."

"Door."

"Rim."

"Milk."

"Kite."

"End."

"Dip—" Lenalee stopped short as Allen opened his eyes and looked first at her and then up at Kanda, blinking as if he were thankful. He pushed himself up enough to sit without leaning on his lover and them smiled at them both, ran a hand through his hair, and sighed softly. Kanda reached under the table and touched the boy's knee.

Allen looked up at him with soft silver eyes and cocked his head to the side. "How did you do that?" He asked vaguely enough that he didn't think Lenalee would be able to follow.

Kanda shrugged a little, allowing himself a somewhat triumphant smile. "You were in my head. I thought it might have happened because we were thinking about the same thing, so I just… tried to think about something that had nothing to do with what we had been fighting about." He explained with an obvious attempt not to touch his lover more intimately. His hand squeezed on Allen's knee. "The game was an easy way to do it."

Allen nodded, silver hair sliding over his shoulders with the motion, and sighed heavily before he leaned his head on Kanda's side, uncaring that they were in the middle of a room filled with people. With a slow breath he closed his eyes and curled a little closer, pressing his hands on the fabric of his lover's shirt. "I guess that… this is going to take some getting used to. I'm not used to being able to lose myself in your head. Which reminds me," Allen seemed to have forgotten that Lenalee was there, what with how he was going on. "I'm sure that you'll hate the idea, but would you hate me if I asked Tyki what happened to him when he changed? Do you think… he would tell me if this is what it was like?" His whispered question made Kanda touch the back of his head again, pulling him into a position that didn't quite lead to a kiss, the older man's face pressed to the smaller boy's hair. Allen's fingers began to pick at the invisible lint on Kanda's shirt while the samurai rubbed his back soothingly – anyone who saw might have thought the British boy in need of a hug and the Japanese man oddly willing to give it, which was more than half true. Kanda's silence eased his lover no small amount.

"I don't know, Moyashi. I really don't know."

-- -- --

Lavi looked at himself in the mirror and turned slightly, blinking at his face for a moment without paying heed to the swath of naked chest he was showing without his shirt buttoned. He could see Tyki behind him with a hair brush, scowling at his wavy tresses, and smiled at his reflection. It was rare for him to see himself without the eye patch – he slept in it, bathed in it, took it off on occasion to wash his face but never looked in the mirror not wearing it. It was strange. The eye looked normal to him, if the wrong color, but he didn't think about it as his at all. It took up space. It made him feel uneven. And, when he covered his left eye, it could barely make out the shine of the sun through the window. The fact that it was nearly useless didn't make him dislike it at all, but it did irritate him a little for the first time he could remember as _Lavi_ – he didn't want a broken eye, even if _Lavi _had only ever had one working one.

The pair of arms that circled around his chest and up into his unbuttoned shirt made him laugh softly, and the press of warm, wet teeth to his throat made him shiver. Without thinking about his face, Lavi reached up backward and touched his hands to Tyki's shoulders before the curled around the Noah's neck in a very crooked sort of embrace. That way, with Tyki leaning over him, he could see both of their faces reflected in the mirror.

The Noah was wearing black today, his hair braided down slope of his right arm, held together with a very familiar looking width of green fabric. Lavi smiled at it, having thought the headband lost somewhere in the mess of his life and glad to see it again, even not on his forehead. The scars weren't on Tyki's face at the moment, but his eyes stayed a color between brown and gold.

When the Noah smiled his unnaturally sharp teeth were almost all evident in his smile.

"Ne, Lavi…" He lowered his face to the boy's left year, watching their faces in the mirror. The Apprentice Bookman lifted his left eyebrow. "It's too bad I didn't know you had this mirror in your closet. It might have been fun to fuck you in front of it instead of beating you." Lavi watched the blush sweep up from his neck to his cheeks and observed Tyki's face break into a shark-like smile. His fingers tightened on his lover's back and the Noah leaned a bit more forward, pressing his lips to the boy's ear. "I might still want to sometime," Tyki breathed, "Just so you can watch yourself enjoy it." His teeth, pointed and warm and knowing exactly what they were doing, trailed down the side of the redhead's neck, making him shiver, making his lips part and his eyes hood themselves, his tongue lifted from the bottom of his mouth just between his teeth. Lavi let out a small, shaky moan.

"Don't tease me…"

"You like it so much though, it's hard not to."

Lavi rocked backward into the hand that touched the small of his back. "You're just so _good_ at it…"

Tyki chuckled at the redhead and kissed across the boy's jaw line to his slightly parted lips, his hands running wild all the while. Lavi did what he could to respond, growling, but he couldn't reach near the expanse of skin that Tyki could at the moment. With a wicked grin and the hope that it worked in an upward direction, Lavi moved both of his hands up his lover's chest, nails downward to catch the skin ever so lightly as they went. The goosebumps he was awarded with let him know that it did, even with the black shirt between them.

Lavi frowned a little when Tyki pulled away panting. He didn't care if the Noah's plan had backfired, that wasn't what mattered at the moment. Slowly the boy turned on his chair and pulled the Noah closer to him until the older man had to kneel, arms twined around the younger man's back, face buried in the turn of Lavi's throat. The apprentice Bookman squeezed gently, holding his lover with a surety that had nothing to do with the teasing from only moments before.

"You know I love you, right? Still? Not just the parts I see all the time but the whole thing, even the annoying parts?"

The words brought something like a chortle to Tyki's lips. "Of course I do. Now… if only I could fill my stomach with love…"

"Eh?"

"We're supposed to be having brunch."

"Pfft. Not important. Hold me."

"Yes dear."

-- -- --

Kanda was watching Allen eat soba for what appeared to be the first time in his life. It was strange but – regardless of how the argument had ended – the two of them had ordered plates that weren't ordinarily things they wanted. Allen had soba, Kanda asked for the same with a side of _steamed vegetables_ and _salmon sashimi_ and _cabbage salad_ before he knew that he had named four things and not his usual two. When the plate came, however, everything smelled just fine to him and he ate it enthusiastically, indifferent to the fact that his veggies were not fried, his fish not fried, and he was eating cabbage at all.

Allen, meanwhile, ate his first plate of soba at a pace that might have been _methodical_, dipping every noodle with equal care. It had never occurred to Kanda that his lover never took the time to taste his food but, when Allen picked up his second meal with just as much leisure as he had the soba, Kanda had to wonder if that was something that was forever changed.

The samurai didn't mind that they ate in silence, nor did he mind that Lenalee ate beside him, but he was slightly bothered by how the girl constantly brought up Tyki and Lavi, acting as if they were something to be cherished and understood. But Kanda didn't lash out at their mention. Instead he watched Allen eat with the knowledge that both Tyki and Allen, somehow, were the same thing – that it had been Mugen ripped from his own hand that had killed Hitori, and his lover's assault on the Portuguese man that had started it all. He thought of it and tried to force down the urge to kill someone. Lenalee was wrong about the level of respect the Noah and the apprentice Bookman deserved, but she was _right_, no matter how much he didn't want her to be, about two little tiny annoying things.

They could no more change how they felt than he could change how he felt about Allen. And Tyki, no matter how much Kanda wanted to believe otherwise, wasn't an evil force lurking in headquarters.

The more he thought about it the less inclined he became to killing Lavi on sight. The less inclined he became the more he began to wonder what it was, beside foreknowledge, that differentiated the two of them. And if it was, if that was the only thing that had made him so angry, if he could really blame the redhead for ignoring it for the sake of love, for the sake of his _heart_ and his reason. The question was there, buried behind all of his anger and his fear – what would Kanda have done it he had known Allen was a Noah to begin with? A good Noah, but still one of them? The instant Mugen had cut the boy from hip to shoulder he had thought he had killed the white haired boy and worried about him, felt guilty – _cared_ for whom he was and his life, 'his' poetry and thoughts. He hadn't thought about the curse. He hadn't thought about anything. He doubted that he would have thought _Noah_ in that instant anymore than he had thought about the akuma smoldering on the floor around them.

He would have crawled into bed with the boy the way he had before in the hope of keeping him warm through the night. He would have healed Allen. The selflessness, the British Exorcist's desire to help him, it all would have been exactly the same.

Kanda would have fallen for a Noah and known exactly what he was doing all the while.

It had to be fate.

It was while he was thinking such things that Lenalee noticed he was no longer listening and grew quiet, watching him. Kanda didn't care. He looked across the table at Allen, who was methodically munching his way through a slice of cherry pie, and reached halfway over the table.

"Moyashi-kun." Kanda said almost forcedly.

"Hm?" Allen paused with the fork in his mouth, pulling a cherry from the end of it with a soft suction before smashing it on the roof of his mouth with his tongue. Kanda thought that was a slow way to go about eating a piece of fruit if he had ever seen one.

"Hurry up. I need to see Lavi."

Allen tried not to inhale the cherry. _"Why?"_

Kanda looked down at his plate for a moment and decided that, in this case, it was just best to be honest. The dressing from his salad wasn't all that interesting to lie to anyway, and there were fingers just barely touching his, hard despite the fabric of Allen's glove between them, clacking when he felt it curve around his knuckles. Kanda realized that he would have rather Allen just took off the glove and touched him palm too palm – forget the Finders who didn't understand and the scientists who had never seen the blackened flesh before, it was what he wanted. The Japanese man moved his hand forward and pulled away the white material before he weaved their fingers together, still slightly surprised that the younger man's left hand was larger than his, though the fingers were about the same in diameter. He could have been a child, hiding his hand in the palm of a sibling.

"Because I would have loved you anyway," Kanda whispered to those midnight-red fingernails, running his thumb up the side of Allen's hand. "If I had know that day in Sweden and nearly killed you like I did then, I wouldn't have acted any different, and I wouldn't have let you die. Knowing it… it doesn't make him and me any different." He glanced sideways at Lenalee and found her unsurprised and so went on, looking up at the British boy's wide silver eyes with a half sad expression on his face. Allen smiled softly around the fork in his mouth and squeezed his fingers back ever so softly. "Things might have turned out differently if you had been trying to kill me, but it wouldn't have mattered if you wanted to be good. I would have… I'd still…" He tapered off at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, an expression not quite of surprise coming across his face. Allen hadn't warned him someone was there. Lenalee hadn't either. They both just smiled little knowing grins at him and Allen lowered his utensil to his plate.

The hand moved across his shoulders and a chin settled into the turn of his neck, a chest pressed against his spine. He only knew two people he knew who would be so bold, but one was sitting in front of him, and his sister would have had boobs to smash into his back. He felt his lip starting to curl into a snarl.

"You don't hate me, Yuu-chan? Really? _Really,_ really?" Lavi's cheery, enthusiastic voice came over the Japanese man's shoulder, carrying with it the timber for a smile. "Because I love you, too. Like a brother, Allen-chan, before you fork me in my good eye."

For a moment, Kanda just sat there, completely unmoving. Slowly, almost so Lavi didn't realize it, the samurai turned to face him, lifting a leg over the seat bench to turn completely. The redhead moved slightly back to see his expression before he decided if it was time to run or not, his smile never quite leaving his face.

Kanda punched him so hard the apprentice Bookman crashed into the neighboring table, spilling food and drinks and scattering people. Lavi held the middle of his face with his left hand, blood seeping between his fingers. The commotion brought Tyki into sight, as well as a halt to almost all conversation in the room, Finders and scientists staring alike. The redhead looked up at the Japanese man, blinking tearful, narrowed eyes for a moment until he reached up and touched the right side of his face with his clean hand. His eye patch was flipped up into his hair. His mouth twitched downward as he pushed himself to standing and Kanda followed suit, everyone perfectly still around them, even the poor young scientist whose beef ramen Lavi spilled. The redhead moved his blooded hand from his undoubtedly broken nose and flicked the blood at the floor, breathing from his mouth.

"Did you just want to hit me, or do you hate my fucking guts now that I'm within earshot?" Lavi spat, blood dripping down to his chin and starting on his neck, splatters of gore ruining another of his shirts. This was nothing – _nothing_ to his pain tolerance anymore, but it hurt to think it was Kanda that had done it to him. Part of him, a part he normally ignored, wanted him to do it back. He held out his arms to either side and smiled, forcing his hands to open despite his anger and frustration. "What, Yuu-chan? That's it? No answer? You're not going to go for Tyki with Mugen are you? God knows you should. He's only saved my life since I ran into him on the ship in the North Sea, and that's a capital offense you know? Fuck, if a hug gets me pummeled, saving a life should get him flogged to death."

The Japanese man blinked very, very slowly, the fingers of his right hand twitching at his side. Lavi didn't understand. Half of _Kanda_ didn't understand. There were too many emotions – fear, hurt, love, anger, all gathered in the center of his chest, each one demanding that he do something violent against the redhead. He didn't want to be violent. That strange new bond that he and Allen shared, the one that had made him want to be polite to his sister, made him want to be passive and understanding, to step forward and pull the redhead against him despite his ordinary inclinations. This was his best fried. This was the man he had, for a short time, blamed for his brother's death. Kanda turned his face down to breathe. If that punch had been for his own feelings then he owed the redhead two more – one for Hito, and one for being his idiotic self. But he couldn't do it. He wouldn't hit the apprentice Bookman again, not with his fists, not with another idea entirely forming in his head.

Kanda began softly, "I can't… hit you anymore, even though I want to. I shouldn't. It pisses me off." He pulled his head up and glared at the redhead with a snarl, his hands quaking between fists and claws, breathing frantic. His eyes closed and he took in a deep breath before letting it out again, as if the act might soothe him. "It fucking pissed me off!" His voice rose to a yell, echoing off the vaulted ceiling, bouncing back to him. It added to his fire. "How did it turn out this way?! You think I wanted my brother to die here?! You think I wanted to blame you for it?! Bullshit! Before everything went to shit, you were my friend! I _cared_ about you! But that doesn't mean I understand what you do!" Kanda turned his face to Tyki, not glaring so much as locking eyes with the man, swallowing the sudden burning sensation in his throat. This was no exception. He didn't want to be doing this. He didn't want to scream to the room what he thought, but it was happening. It was happening and he was starting to feel like he might cry because of it. "Tell me, you Goddamn _savior_, what it is that I'm missing?! Is it God who's set us all against each other? Because it sure as fuck wasn't Noah's fault all of this happened!" When he was finished the room stayed still, completely, and Tyki blinked at the Japanese man, an expression of utter shock painted across his features. After a moment he rocked on his feet, dark eyes a shade closer to gold.

"What… exactly do you mean, Kanda?"

Kanda growled at the use of his name and thumped his chest, the emotion under the anger – the pain – showing in his eyes. "Is it fate?" He asked simply. "Is everything we do, is everything that Lavi has done – falling in _love_, leading you here, not mentioning that you were with him – is all of that what he _chose?_ Or does none of it matter anyway? Do we all just do what we do because we have to?" Kanda shook his head, both of his hands falling to his sides for a moment, the anger melted from his face. He didn't let Tyki answer. "My brother died, so I picked the two of you to blame for it, then it's your words that let Allen know what he is, you that gives him hope." He laughed quietly, mirthlessly, and he smiled ironically, tilting his head to the side so that his hair fell over his left shoulder and down his chest, contrasting with the ivory of his shirt. "If I misjudged Tyki and this… Fourteenth because of what they are… does that make this whole fucking mess of a friendship my fault?"

Lavi made a short sound of shock before he turned to Tyki, and then to Allen, before looking back at Kanda and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. The redhead moved slowly forward until he was within arms reach of the samurai and then stopped, watching Kanda watch him, feeling the older man's gaze on his right eye. It didn't matter. Lavi offered he right hand palm up, fingers slightly curved in relaxation, his gaze directed at his palm rather than Kanda's face. "I still want to be your friend, Yuu-chan. I wanna help you. Tyki wants to help Allen. If it's fate, if all of our choices have already been made for us, then who gives a shit? Do what you want, it's fate anyway." He offered a lopsided sort of smile that blinded him, left eye squished shut, right slightly open.

The man in front of him was very quiet this time, his eyes turned to Lavi's hand. "Che. Just accept it? Just… close my eyes and pretend that I don't _want_ them to be what they are? Pretend that that part of me doesn't hate you?"

"You don't have to pretend you never hated me, you don't have to pretend that Allen isn't a Noah. Just observe, remember, and go on. Forgive me, forgive yourself, and we can put his own ugly mess behind us forever."

"Myself? I'm not angry with me." Kanda answered without moving his eyes from Lavi's hand. It gave him something to focus on, narrowed the room to just the small area around them. He was calmed by it. It was odd to explain but he didn't mind it, not at the moment.

Lavi chuckled. "Aren't you though? You've always hated Noah. Since we knew what they were, you've hated them more than you've hated anything else. And now you've been fucking one for almost a year? I'd be pissed if I cared. But you shouldn't be, not really. Love is more important than the war. And me—" His voice became suddenly chipper. "I'm just your bestest friend in the whole wide world, and that alone should make you forgive me."

Kanda snorted almost like a laugh. "I said I would try."

"Then _do it_, Yuu-chan." Lavi offered his hand again, more closely, and lowered his voice to little more than a whisper. "We didn't mean for any of it to happen, but now that it has things will be easier together, right?" He added, and when he glanced up he found Kanda looking at his face, large, dark blue eyes brimming with moisture. Before the redhead could think to dodge or to block or to maybe punch the Japanese man first, the samurai moved closer, engulfing Lavi in an embrace that threatened to shatter his ribs with its tightness. For a moment the apprentice Bookman was too shocked to respond, his hands exactly as they had been before. Timidly he returned the hug with one arm, holding his bloody hand away from Kanda's pure white shirt.

"I hate being wrong." A voice whispered up at his ear. Kanda's finger's curled into the redhead's back almost painfully and Lavi began to stroke his spine slowly, feeling him shiver. The eyes that looked at them didn't seem to understand what was going on. "But I _want_ my friend back. If I can love Moyashi, then I can at least start _acting_ like I give a fuck about you. Maybe I'm spinning a lie so I can believe it; I don't know, but I don't see any other way to make things…" He tapered off as Lavi began to slowly rock them, perfectly aware that it might have been the motion that soothed him into silence. The apprentice Bookman kept rhythm well. Kanda felt distantly like humming. In the back of his mind the samurai wondered if he looked like a boy throwing a tantrum, but he didn't care, not with his eyes pressed to the fabric of his friend's shirt and his fingernail's nearly biting skin. He remembered that smell – Lavi's smell – and that day in China when it had engulfed him, the day the redhead had died if only for a moment. He didn't want that to happen again, no matter who the younger man loved.

"A lie like that is just a truth that doesn't stand up without belief, Yuu-chan." Lavi whispered between them. "If you say that you forgive me and you say that you accept us enough times, and you really want it to be true, someday it will be. Then you won't have to say it anymore."

"Che."

"I get it, now. You don't hate me." Lavi grinned and patted Kanda's back, gave the room a good sweep with his smile. A few people looked away to start conversations about what had happened, others continued to stare mutely, mystified my Kanda's seemingly sudden change of heart. Lavi felt his smile falter. "How long we gonna be like this?"

"Until the flood stops."

-- -- --

It was six hours later, when the sun had just sank below the turn of the Earth and the thumb nail of the moon had come up to rest on the top of the tower, that Kanda found himself leaning on his bedroom window, Allen gathered against his chest in a sleeping lump, the boy's hands snuggled beneath his chin. On occasion the British boy would make a small, sleepy sound against him and shift a little, but he never quite woke himself. Even when he whispered little words they were never quite fully voiced. His lips would part and sound would come out, just enough to make Kanda look down at him and run a hand across his spine, and then he would still again, only a single word or so distinguishable from his breath. Kanda leaned his head forward and buried his face in the white haired boy's hair, breathing deeply. Allen sighed softly and curled more closely. The older man didn't mind at all – the more he touched his lover, the more Allen leaned on him and held him close, the less it mattered what or who they were, the less it mattered that Tyki was the same.

With a soft sigh Kanda leaned his head back and looked up at the frame of his window. The moonlight caught the glimmering silver of a spider web and within it, bobbing slightly as if to test the strength of its silk, was a large gray spider. The reflection of its eyes, inky black and white in the semidarkness, might have showed him his own face and his lover pressed desperately to his chest. As he watched it, the eight legged creature wobbled its way to the wall like a toddler, unsure of its feet, and then started down the perfectly horizontal surface. It was half way down when it stopped suddenly, hanging by its black feet and a length of web, front feet twitching in the breeze from the window.

"It's the twenty-sixth floor, otherwise I'd offer to let you out." Kanda whispered to the spider that now occupied the stone directly in front of his eyes. It did not move in response. "Maybe you'd float, but I don't know enough about spiders to just throw you down there. Fuck, how does a spider _get_ to the twenty-sixth floor in the first place?" He chuckled a little, very softly, as the creature turned and crawled up to where it had started almost in answer, leading his eyes to the dark orb on an old, empty egg sac in the very corner by the glass. It had hatched here, spent all of its life in that little corner of his room, and yet he had never noticed it before. A frown pulled down at his features. "Che. Whatever works for you."

Allen shifted at his voice. A knock sounded at the door. Kanda placed a hand on his lover's more exposed ear and turned to the door before he informed the person on the other side that it was unlocked.

The face that peered inside was perhaps the least likely that he had expected. The darkly colored braid and the golden eyes made him stiffen for a moment before he relaxed forcedly and the Noah pushed the door open completely, looking down at the floor for a moment. Kanda didn't stare even though he felt the instinctive need to. Instead he looked down at Allen, carding his fingers through the boy's hair, and told himself that maybe – maybe – it wasn't Allen who was like Tyki, it was Tyki who was like Allen. Both of them traitors, both of them somehow, despite it all, good.

"I…" Tyki hadn't stepped into the room, nor had he looked at much of it, he just stood in the doorway as if it would make his intrusion somehow less intrusive. Kanda shook his head at it before he looked up at the Portuguese man blinking very slowly.

"Sit."

"Oh… um…"

"Che."

Tyki took two almost shy steps forward before he closed the door very softly, then stepped a few more times before he sank into the desk chair – as far away from Kanda as he could be and still be in the room with the Exorcist. For a moment his eyes wandered the room, noting little things, the lotus among them, before they settled on the boy in Kanda's arms and a small, thoughtful smile came across the Noah's face. The Japanese man let his hands settle on Allen so he could put his face on the boy's head again and slowly, knowing that he wouldn't have done it before, close his eyes in the presence of someone he regarded very much like an enemy.

"You really do love him, don't you?"

The question didn't even make the samurai flinch. He simply nodded, an act that was nearly invisible with the British boy tucked to his chest.

"Then why is it so hard for you to accept what he will become?"

Kanda bit his lip and pulled slowly away, not looking at Tyki. His fingers, shaking slightly, came to the base of Allen's skull and rested there, playing in his hair. "I don't know." He said softly. "I want to. I want to accept it and say that it doesn't matter – I chant it in my head when we're close because I _want _to believe it. But I'm lying. I won't ever leave him, but…. Maybe I'm too much of an Exorcist, but every time he looks at me with golden eyes I…" His eyes fell shut and he shook his head slowly, swallowing thickly. He was talking to _Tyki_, the Noah of Pleasure, and yet he felt somehow at _ease_. He didn't much like the thought but it didn't matter. There were words in his mind that he needed to say, commitments he needed to make. There were promises made that had to be kept. "There's always a moment that I doubt him. I want to trust him, more than anything. It's…" He turned his face to Tyki and let his face crack into a lopsided smile. "The same with you and Lavi I suppose."

"Oh?"

"I needed to blame someone. I needed to be angry. Now, I don't want that."

Tyki nodded but his eyes went to Allen rather than Kanda for a moment. His sideways smile was back again, subtly. "I think we woke him."

Allen rolled awkwardly until his was almost horizontal, his head pillowed in Kanda's lap. _"Itsy bitsy spider…"_ He mumbled before dropping off to sleep again, his left thumb hooked into one of Kanda's belt loops. The samurai smiled before he reached down and shook the boy until his eyes came slowly open, blinking blearily to the side before he looked up at him, smiling. The Japanese man smiled back before he wrapped his arms around the younger man and closed his eyes, rocking forward slightly. "Kanda? I was napping… what's with the hug?"

"I'm…sorry."

"It's ok. If you really need a hug you can wake me."

"Not that, you moron. For… being stupid." Kanda turned his face down into Allen's neck and closed his eyes. It _did_ matter. It had _always_ mattered. It always would. But that didn't mean he was about to stop loving the boy in his arms because of it. Komui had been wrong – there was no difference between loving someone he loved and loving his enemy, only the wording. He understood that now. "I just… it will be hard for me, I see that now. But I should be honest. As much as I love you, as much as I want to be with you, if you're a Noah I'll never be able to make myself… make myself…"

"Wait, I just woke up, don't try to make me cry yet."

"Moyashi…"

Allen pushed himself back and turned his sideways legs until he was straddling the older man, both of his hands on the Japanese man's chest. He had yet to notice Tyki. The Noah waited in silence, slightly surprised by the familiarity of their pose, the way that Allen cupped the sides of the older boy's face and smiled. Even the words had a memorable topic, though he couldn't honestly say when it was that he and Lavi had broached it without agreeing at once.

"What, Love?" Allen questioned quietly. "What can't you make yourself do?"

Kanda closed his mouth for a moment before he wet his lips to speak. "Think of you the same way. Even if you don't change anymore than you already have, you're different. I don't know if… if I can _trust _you. I don't mean that I think you'll turn to the Earl, and I don't mean that I think you'll betray me, I mean that there's something _wrong_ with me. If you asked me to, I would do anything you want. Go anywhere. But I'd doubt you. Even if I did it… I would wonder if—" Kanda was cut off by the press of black fingers to his lips, holding them perfectly still and silent. His lover moved the fingers away and kissed him very softly, almost teasingly, before he pulled away with an expression that Tyki couldn't see. To the Noah's surprise, the Player laid his fingers on the samurai's chest and _tuned_ himself to him, almost as if he had done it a thousand times over. He watched as Allen found the note, only vaguely recognizing the process, and blinked as the boy closed his eyes and leaned forward again, not close enough to touch his face to the older man's, but close enough for his breath to move the strands of hair that fell into his lover's face.

"There's nothing wrong with doubting, Love. If you didn't doubt me, I'd be worried that no one was. I _did_ work for them, even if you don't remember it. But…" When he opened his eyes there was a slight _pull_ that Tyki felt, something that reminded him vaguely of what it was like to engulf himself in the dark. "The song hasn't changed, you know. You're still the same, even if the key is lower." When he turned his head slightly to the side and Tyki caught the flicker of gold in his eyes, almost soft in the evening light. "And you're right, it will be hard. I'm something you hate, even if you don't hate me, and that's not something that you can just ignore, no matter how much we both want to. I want to. I really want to. But that won't work."

"Moyashi…"

"It doesn't matter if it's fate, or God's will, or just an accident. Just swear with me." Allen held out his right hand palm facing his lover. "I swear by my life that I will love you and never betray you, that there will never be a reason to doubt me or a cause to hate me, I will stay with you no matter the mean, unfair things you say to me in a fit of childish rage. So help me God, I do."

Tyki had to fight down a laugh.

Kanda lifted his right hand and touched it to his lover's, his face deadly serious. "I swear by Mugen that, regardless of what my mind thinks without me wanting it to, I will still accept you for who and what you are, continue to love you, and forgive those who are the same as we are. I will not hold past crimes against any of them, even you. And I will admit to any doubt or fear that I feel regardless of its lack of evidence so you can treat me like a stupid needy child once I do." He paused and wove his fingers into Allen's, pressing their palms flush rather awkwardly. The starlight made his slightly tanner fingers almost the same color as the pale boy on his hips and he felt his lips twitch upward at it – the illusion that his lover's fingers and his own where confused was somehow reassuring. "Do I have to include the _so help me_ part?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow at the younger boy, his face rather incredulous.

"I don't think so. It just seemed formal."

"Che. Whatever."

"It'll be work, Love."

"I know," Kanda answered softly, "But we have to start somewhere."

**-- -- --**

**You like?**


	103. Following Through

**It has to be some kind of scheme of the cosmos that has made this the last chapter of TFL. If you're wondering, there is indeed room for me to write a sequel, but we'll give it some time before I think about it. I'd rather not ruin what I've done with a shitty second helping, you know?**

**I don't think it needs an epilogue. I like where it leaves off. But if you ask for one, I might deliver?**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of D. Gray – Man. If I did… they would likely all be gay. But Cross. He's too straight to be gay.**

**WARNINGS: Allen's last attempt at being seme.**

**PLEASE DO NOT HATE ME! I'M SORRY! :'O**

**-- -- --**

Following Through

_Name: Kanda, Yuu_

_Mission Date: June 11, 1889_

_Mission: None_

_Status: N/A_

_Report Significance: The events of the date in question [June 11, 1889] pertaining to the  
destruction of the main entrance hall, the deaths of [116] Finders, [84] Scientists, and  
[1] Civilian [official counts]._

_Report:_

_The members of my party entered through the front of the building. Once inside, we were  
greeted by a small number of comrades. Hiroko Kanda [protectorate order enforced] left  
for a tour of the main felicities while Hitori Kanda [protectorate order  
nullified/deceased] was taken by Exorcist Sable Adair to see Supervisor Komui Lee about  
recruitment to the Science Department._

Kanda stopped typing. Not only was strange to _type_ a report, it was also strange to _type_ a report about something that had happened more than three months ago. Most of all, it was strange to be _typing_ about his brother's death. Almost as soon as the sigh was out of his mouth Allen was behind him, mismatched hands pressed to the samurai's shoulders, leaning over the top of him. Kanda closed his eyes to the touch and tilted into it as the younger man began to knead at his muscles with bruising force, driving out the knots that ran the length of his spine, and pulling a very soft sound from his lips. Pleasant pain danced from the sides of his shoulders to the base of his neck, and Kanda growled, more than enjoying the press of hard fingers against his sore, tired muscles.

The hands stopped abruptly and he opened his eyes, curious.

"You wrote _facilities_ as _felicities_. Might want to change that," Allen remarked with a little downward glance that showed soft silver eyes and an annoyingly wide smile, strangely short hair that Kanda hadn't yet grown used to. He looked even stranger upside down, his hair all sideways and sticking out and foreign. The Japanese man had never had a preference for hair, not really, but he like familiar things – _this_ look was unfamiliar. "Kanda?"

"Che. I haven't read through it. I'll do it later." He reached up and rubbed at his eyes, sore from staring at the screen. "Like after I write the rest of it."

"You've got _that much_ after four hours?"

"Shut up. I don't know where to start."

Allen smiled lopsidedly and slithered forward, running his palms down the samurai's chest until his chin came into contact with his lover's shoulder, hands resting on the keys. Kanda looked up at the computer screen, lifting his head from the back of the chair in the processes, and waited for a moment to see what the boy would do.

One by one letters began to pop up on the screen as Allen's fingers wandered across the keys, punching lightly.

_Work faster! I can't say lewd things to you with all of these scientists lurking around  
wanting to know if I'm ACTUALLY encouraging you or just taking up time._

Kanda snorted and scooted Allen's hands away from the keyboard and started up two lines lower.

_I don't like writing. I don't like TYPING. Give me some insentive. Insendive? Incentive?  
That's it._

Allen chuckled into the samurai's ear before responding.

_Honey never expires. P:_

"Allen-kun—"

"_Hya! Yes!?"_ The British boy turned and rocked against Kanda's seat, smashing the Japanese man into his keyboard as he fought to compose himself in front of one of the newest additions to the staff, a Chinese man Allen couldn't remember the name of. He heard lots of clicking behind him, though he guessed that most of it was the _delete_ or _backspace_ button, obliterating what he and Kanda had unwittingly put out for others to see. It was the best he could hope for.

"What are you doing at the moment?"

"Spell checking!" He chimed at once, and threw a glance over his shoulder to find Kanda typing _GET OFF MY CHAIR_ in slightly too-large letters. Allen did just that, leaning slightly forward, still grinning idiotically, and waited for the sound of clicking to pause before he turned back to Kanda, leaning slightly less low than before.

A new paragraph had materialized while he had had his back turned.

_During this time, a seismic event of unknown cause or proportion collapsed a large  
section of the hall and a number of basement floors below it. Thinking that we might have  
been under attack, I drew my weapon [Equipment Type: Sword: Mugen] in preparation.  
The blade was removed from my hand by a means I do not understand: I had suffered a  
head injury. To my understanding, the Innocence in question eventually caused the death  
of Hitori Kanda [Civilian]._

"Wow… that's so… boring…"

"Shut up."

"Allen-kun…"

He turned back again, smiling at the scientist one more time. "Yes?"

"Thank you for your assistance today."

"Oh…" Allen cocked his head to the side, knowing that he was lying. "You're very welcome."

Kanda continued to tap at the keys until the scientist moved away and Allen turned back to him, placing his hands once more on the Japanese man's shoulders. The room was more than half-filled with people typing at computer terminals (due to the shortage of report paper), those who had already finished proctoring their comrades and checking for consistencies. It might have been the largest cover-up scheme since the disaster with the Fallen, and even that had had the approval of those above. Now, with more people writing false reports than there were pens in the Order, Kanda couldn't feel terrible about lying like the rest of them, though he found himself a bit reluctant to lie about his brother's death. Telling the truth, however, seemed like an absolutely horrible way to be sure that Allen and Lenalee murdered him – and the word of every other 'witness' was against him. It just wasn't worth it.

He kept telling himself that.

_Shortly after, the commotion stopped. I was moved to the medical ward and treated for my injuries. I returned to full duty the following day._

_These are the events of June 11, 1889 and are, to my knowledge, completely true._

He looked at the last part and rolled his eyes. He was supposed to write some kind of promise to suffer in Hell for all eternity if he was perjuring himself, to make the whole thing ring true, but he didn't particularly feel like writing it out as planned. What did it matter? He was damned by the Vatican's standards at least three times over – between Allen, his own lack of belief, and sex, _this_ really was a very idiotic thing to try and make him worry over. He felt his lips lift into a soft smile.

_And I don't give a fuck if you think Hell is a good threat to make people tell the truth, this is the truth. Learn to trust your God given subordinates, you stupid assholes._

That was perfect.

"Kanda, you _cannot_ turn it in that way." Allen said from behind him, glancing back and forth to be sure that no one read it over his shoulder.

"Why not?" Kanda shot back at once, not looking at him.

"Because…"

"I've worked here for thirteen years, I'm the only one who can use Mugen, and you _really_ think I'll get in trouble for this?"

"They might stick you on rations."

"Che." Kanda tilted his head to the side, rereading the line again. "Whatever." He typed the word _please_ before _learn_. That was nice. It kind of screwed up the flow, but he wasn't being _as_ rude as before, not really. He smiled crookedly to himself and made to print it, only Allen took a gentle hold of his hands and pulled them away from the keyboard. He looked up at him, curious what he wanted.

"You can have some of my soba, if they only let you have rice for three weeks." Allen said with a smile. Kanda smiled back at him a little, just enough for the British boy to see the little lifting of his lips on the sides, an appreciative expression. "And now I want to kiss you… I think that might make everyone who still thinks we're touchy-feely friends see the truth though." He whispered, and Kanda reached up to take him by the back of the neck and pull him lower. Allen resisted slightly, looking both ways with eyes that showed his reluctance, cheeks slightly blushing. "Yuu…I'm not an exhibitionist…"

"Neither am I."

"Liar."

"I _do_ like to make you blush."

"Prick." Allen half-growled, but his eyes stayed the same soft silver. That was a part of Allen that had only showed itself in the past few weeks, the part that said things beyond the realm of teasing and more toward the side of mean. Kanda didn't mind it – he knew that there was some part of his lover that wanted to be just as selfish and rude as the rest of the world – it gave him a small incite into just how much cursing the British Exorcist retained. Besides, eing called a prick, a bastard, or a campy nancy was perfectly fine – it was the word _pretty_ that he didn't enjoy.

Kanda pulled down a little further, though still not close enough to touch lips. "After I hit print what are we going to do?" He asked, very softly, running his fingers through the back of Allen's hair.

"Leave the room. Kiss you in the hall. Skip around like we're newlyweds again."

"Che."

"Lavi wanted the four of us to get together for exercise; apparently he's tired of having Tyki beat the living crap out of him and wants a new partner."

"It's not like he doesn't enjoy it."

"I know." Allen made an awkward face, curling his lips back from his teeth. "Or we can go have a quiet meal in the forest and…" He paused, pushing his lips together, and narrowed his suddenly slightly golden eyes, an expression that no longer made Kanda tense against his palms. "I'm getting the mental image of a blindfold, a tree, and a rope – which part of that is you and which part of that is my own twisted idea of what you want?" He went on, eyebrows pushed together over his eyes.

"The blindfold and the tree are mine, if that gives you an idea." Kanda admitted, but he still grinned back at him. "Not a bad idea though. Knock Lavi around for a few rounds before we go outside and—" He narrowed his eyes suddenly and his hand closed almost painfully on the back of Allen's neck. "And you're still too close, Walker. I can't work with you hovering."

For a moment Allen thought about being hurt, and then his eyes wandered to the side, spotting a pair of medium-sized slipper-clad feet next to them. "Sorry, Kanda." He chimed at once and pulled away, expecting to see some scientist looking at him with large, scandalized eyes.

He almost ran into Sable's stomach as he made to step away.

"Well, if it isn't the obviously gay duo wasting time on a bullshi—er—_erroneously important_ report." She sighed at them, a long, thin smile spread across her lips.

"Hello, Sable."

"Che."

The blonde, now more pregnant than looked comfortable, rocked on her feet for a moment, laying her hands over her belly. Without explanation she reached out and took Allen's right hand in hers and placed it there also, the little smile widening by the moment, almost creepily. "I was walking – because I'm supposed to walk, they won't let me proctor – and the baby started poking me with it's feet when I saw you, so why not have a feel of your soon-to-be-relative, hm?" As soon as she said it Allen's eyes widened dramatically, his mouth slightly open in surprise. "See? I think it likes its uncles."

Kanda hit the print button and moved to straddle his chair, looking up at the shocked white haired boy and the grinning blond with a lifted eyebrow. Sable looked down at him and continued to smile. The hair of her bangs fell around her eyes and, for a moment, he saw a little flicker of something besides happiness behind her expression – an insight he never would have made before – and then it was gone, erased by the little sound Allen made of absolute delight. Kanda looked back to his lover and watched his face split into a grin so wide it negated the fact that the samurai knew he had a brain – too happy to be logical.

"It kicked me!" Allen chimed with no lack of enthusiasm whatsoever. "Kanda, don't make that face, you want kids, I'm sure. Feel it." His encouragement was nothing short of predatory.

"Che. I'll _feel_ it when there isn't a layer of Sable between me and it." He growled at once, eyeing the bulge in Sable's shirt wearily. It wasn't as if such things were strange to him, and it wasn't the white fabric of her baggy men's shirt that stopped him – it was something entirely indescribable and freaky that he could not explain.

Allen frowned. "You are no fun. Really, it feels like it's flicking me." He turned back to Sable and showed all of his teeth, letting his hand fall slowly away from her stomach. She didn't seem to notice, so he let his eyes wander back to his lover accusingly. "How about you talk to it then? It _is_ genetically related to you, after all. For all we know, it will have your eyes, hair, and Hitori's temperament. Maybe Sable's wit, I hope." He took Kanda's rather unresponsive left hand in his right and pressed it to the top of the blonde girl's stomach, aware that his lover sighed almost dejectedly. "Or it could have _Sable's_ looks, _your_ wit, Hitori's frame, and be _male_."

"Kanda has wit?"

"Che."

"If he doesn't want to he doesn't have to. Some people think pregnancy is creepy." Sable offered, but Allen continued to hold his lover's hand in place, ignoring the deep scowl that took his Kanda's features.

Silence settled between them for a moment. Allen pretended that it wasn't awkward.

With a curse, Kanda yanked his hand back, his eyes widened and his mouth open as if mystified. He drew his hand into his lap, rubbing at his palm, blinking. _"Blegh…"_

Allen laughed softly. "You're cute, Lo—er…Kanda."

-- -- --

Lavi signed his name, taking care to dot the i with a small, shaded heart before he closed the logbook and scooted it across the table, watching it move as if it wasn't his hand that pushed it. It was strange. The library, where he had spent many hours reading books that pertained to the current state of the world, where he had studied newspapers and learned at least one new language, now held this memory, of the last log he would ever write, the last one he would ever sign. It was odd to write it all down in detail, bias, if only because it had been _him_ that went through it, but it was even stranger to watch the old man pick it up and glare at him without menace. A hand came down on Lavi's shoulder; Bookman's face did not react at all.

"_Fool."_ It was something he'd been called a lot in his life, the nickname that surpassed all other personas. It made him smile.

"I know." Lavi breathed, and cocked his head slightly to the side. The hand, large and tan in the yellowish overhead lights, that had come down on his shoulder from behind squeezed lightly and he touched it, his way of reassuring his lover that this was all they could have hoped for. The set of eyes in front of him, ringed in black, looked at that hand before going back to his face, studying his smile. Lavi didn't let it waver for even a moment. "It's not your fault, Gramps." He said very quietly, even though the words wouldn't mean much to the Bookman. Couldn't. "Really, if you did anything else, you'd screw up the war." He added with a softer expression.

The old man just looked once again between the Noah and the once apprentice Bookman, face unreadable. "You could have been good at this." It was the only regret he would show. "Very good."

Lavi only shook his head as if defeated. "No, I couldn't. You might think it's a problem with this me, but it's not anymore. Even if you made me, _me_ again… I might walk away from this war, but the next one would hit me just as hard." He bit is lip. "Maybe I wouldn't fall in love with someone… but memories…"

Bookman narrowed his eyes at the redhead and the boy shut up at once. Tyki lowered his hand a little, pressing it to his lover's chest.

"Don't do anything else this stupid, Fool." The old man said almost indifferently, and pulled the log book into his lap. He'd already read it upside down as Lavi laid each painful letter into place, and growled when the thought the words picked didn't convey what had happened, but rather _why_ or _how_ it happened. Just writing down what _did_ occur left those things to be obvious – conjecturing, writing about how frightening things were – it added unnecessary details that could be interpreted to mean pointless things in the future.

"I'll do my best, Gramps," Lavi nodded, and pushed back his chair. Tyki moved aside slightly, allowing him to stand up and hold his arms out the terribly short man in front of him. "Can I get a goodbye hug?"

"Idiot!" That was another term of endearment. "You think I can leave this war unrecorded? Don't be preposterous!" Bookman turned, clutching the book to his chest, and made to walk out, moving abnormally fast on his short legs and tiny feet.

Lavi waved with something like a sad expression. "Yeah…" He breathed, as the library door swung shut. "I'll miss you, too." He sat slowly back down.

Tyki's hand came back upward, touching the top of his head, and then tilted it slowly back, curling in his hair. The kiss was crooked, though not upside down, and Lavi closed his eye to it. The Noah's hand slithered to the skin of his neck. When they pulled away it was mutual, and forced by the need for air rather than the want of less touching, and Lavi held the older man in place, eye still softly closed.

"Are you sad, dear?" The Noah questioned against his lips in a breath. "I can't feel that you are."

Lavi shook his head softly, drawing his lower lip tenderly between his teeth for a moment before he spoke again. "I'm… relieved. He didn't even try to order me to leave you." His hands shook slightly as he pressed them to his lover's back. Tyki moved closer gradually, then finally pulled the boy out of the chair to lean against him, arms wrapped around the redhead's ribcage.

"If he had—"

"He didn't. Leave it."

Tyki nodded, his hands slipping down Lavi's back a bit until he touched the small of it, holding him loosely yet firmly, face turned down into his hair. It reminded the Noah a bit of standing together in Durnshire, holding each other with enough emotion that he soon forgot where one part of Lavi ended and another began. It was as close as they could be with clothes on, and here, in the library, that was enough. "What now, _Amante_? How do you think the reports are going?" He questioned into his lover's scalp, then snickered lightly at the brush of a tickling breath against his throat, released from Lavi's nose.

"Komui said that no one they talked to seemed to insist on telling the truth. There were three Finders who saw what you turned into – he threatened to make them MIA if they insisted on sticking to that story." Lavi chuckled, a sound that didn't usually go with that sort of story. "It's strange. He wouldn't normally say something like that unless he was defending Lenalee."

Tyki smiled a little wider. "It's a good thing then. I hear his sister complex needs to be dissipated."

Lavi snorted but didn't answer, continuing to lean on his lover with his face just where his breath touched skin. It was comfortable for some reason, to let his weight rest like that. "Allen and I were thinkin' of going down and hitting each other around a little, if you wanna come. If Yuu's there he might try and put you in the hospital wing though, so… I suggest not letting him fight you." He smiled at the little tightening of Tyki's arms around his back.

"And you know this how?"

"The one time I beat him – the _one time_ – he kicked my feet out from under me during my victory dance and I sprained my ankle."

The Noah laughed.

"Not funny."

"Really? I think it is." Tyki continued with a soft _oof_ at Lavi's left fist hitting him softly in the gut. It hadn't even been a real attempt to cause harm, but he reigned in his amusement to a near silent chuckle. After a few short moments of simply leaning, Tyki guided the boy back a bit, looking him in the eye rather than studying his hair. "I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you can beat him, surely I can also."

Lavi mumbled something that might have been _jerk_ before pulling completely away, only to take the Noah by the hands a moment later. He swung his arms back and forth almost childishly, holding firmly to Tyki's fingers. "In any case, let's go. I don't feel like moping. Wanna see if we can walk down to the practice rooms without having anyone glare at us? Or go outside for a little. I think we can go outside. If we ask nicely." A very enthusiastic look came to his face then, bright and almost boyish, an echo of one of his old smiles, before anything had happened to him. Those looks had become more common as time went on, no longer rare now, no longer haunted, no longer remotely forced. It made Tyki lift the corner of his mouth just thinking about it. That expression was for him, no matter how he looked at it.

"Something tells me you'd like to go outside," Tyki observed, and lifted his right hand to run it through the boy's hair. It was something he never tired of, watching it play in the yellowish lights. "You could use some sun, you're loosing that wonderful tan you had when I met you."

"Are you mocking me?"

"I can kind of make out your freckles."

"You _cannot_. I don't have any."

"What are these then?" The Noah questioned, touching the bridge of his lover's nose. He traced a slow pattern to the boy's cheek bones, grinning at his lover's frown. "Fairy kisses?"

"I _don't_ have freckles!" Lavi insisted, shaking his head back and away from Tyki's fingers. "Not since I was tiny. They faded."

His lover rolled his eyes. "Or they turned into one giant freckle from being in the sun."

"Not possible."

"Are you flushed dear? Why would that be?"

"Your fingers tickle." Lavi said at once, which was half true, the touch was too light to qualify as anything but a tickle. He pulled his head back and batted away Tyki's hand before capturing it once more, his grin somewhat dimmed with irritation. "So, can we go? Or you wanna stay here and tease me some more?" There was a little cock of his eyebrow when he said that, just enough to be seen, and Tyki laughed at him softly, and Lavi found himself swept up in a kiss, deep and seeking. The tongue that pressed teasingly into his, the hand that cupped the underside of his jaw, none of it surprised him, not even the brush of the taller man's hair against his face. When they parted, he smiled again, just as wide as before.

"Shall we?"

-- -- --

Kanda let out a deep, tired sigh and looked down at the things Allen had handed to him, curious if he was expected to carry everything himself. A blanket, a short length of soft, black cloth, a basket Kanda didn't know the origin of, food that he had watched come out of places in his room that he hadn't known existed – it was getting ridiculous. When two extra shirts, a bottle of oil, a rag, and Mugen were added to his hands, he shifted his weight and shook his hair back from his face, choosing to look at the ceiling rather than at his lover when he spoke.

"Che. Is this a picnic or a fucking camping trip?"

"Well, that depends how much oil we have left and what you can do with the supplies." Allen responded at once, flashing him a smile before wandering off to some other dark place in the room where he most likely had food.

"Moyashi…"

"Call it a fucking picnic if you want?" The British boy suggested as he appeared again, holding both of their coats. What they would need those for in the forest behind the tower was well beyond Kanda's understanding, but he didn't do anything but give his lover an incredulous look that, if directed at anyone else, might have been mistaken for a glare. "Love, it'll be fun! It's not raining, only mildly cool, and you know as well as I do that we're not going to have this opportunity again before missions start…" He reached out, coats in his left hand, and hooked Kanda in an awkward standing hug, the stuff between them, his fingers on the back of the samurai's neck.

Kanda didn't have to think when he leaned down just a bit and brushed his lips across his lover's, almost teasing. When he pulled away the boy smiled, memories dancing behind his eyes. For only a brief moment, the samurai tried to understand what memory it was that Allen was recalling, but wasn't quite sure – he couldn't be sure without putting more concentration into it than he was willing to at the moment. Plus there was always the off chance that Allen would notice him trying and say something teasing, which was never what the samurai wanted. He felt himself frown at the thought.

"Our first mission together…" Allen said softly, toying with the tassels of Kanda's ponytail. "That was the first time I saw you with your hair down, wasn't it?" He almost giggled, but the sound lacked the proper volume. "If I'd only known then what I know now – when you were resting and didn't seem to care what was going on unless you could hear it – I would have braided it. Though you might have killed me, I think."

"Che." Kanda couldn't repress the quirk of his lips but he could keep from smiling like an idiot if he tried. Their first mission – now _that_ was a memory. If _he'd_ known the things he knew now, he doubted he'd have believed them. Sleeping with and loving such a naïve, stupid, pigheaded, annoying person? He might have laughed. "I would have. Or tried. Where is this coming from, anyway, just feel like reminiscing?" The hand in his hair moved higher, pressing at the curve of his neck.

Allen's mouth found the middle of his throat them moved in a slow, warm line to his pulse, then up to the turn of his jaw. Those movements were purposeful, and the little touch to the Japanese man's windpipe it not go unappreciated, nor did the sound he made, a little sigh of encouragement in the back of his throat. The British boy pulled his mouth away but left his lips touching skin, Kanda's arms seemed to shake with the weight they still carried. "I was thinking that your bangs would hang to your nose if they weren't all wet. You used to keep them right by your eyebrows. I noticed that about you when we on our first mission – they were the same as they had been even when I first met you. But now…" He reached up and pulled his lover's fringe forward, a little crooked smile curling his lips as it fell to Kanda's nostrils.

"Your laziness has rubbed off on me."

"I think my everything has rubbed off on you."

"Mostly _that_."

"Kanda! Don't knee me there, you might break something!"

"Che. You'd still have the important part."

Allen scowled playfully, "My heart, right? If you say it's my ass I'll kick you."

Kanda matched the boy's expression with a soft grin, shifting the bundle in his arms a bit, the better to lean closer to his lover. "Well, I suppose that makes two important parts, doesn't it. Now… you're…" He stopped, head tilted to the side, eyebrows pressed together in an expression of curiosity. Whatever it was that had been on his mind leaked right out of his open mouth and he started to say something entirely different. "Much closer… to my face when you were then. I can just…" He leaned a bit more until his mouth found Allen's in smiling kiss, the British boy still flat on his feet, Kanda hardly lean at all. It was a touch just for the sake of it, fast and deliberate, and the older man shook his bangs from his face when they parted, slightly hunched forward still. "I'll quit calling you _Moyashi_ and start calling you _tatenaga_ if you keep getting taller."

The British boy frowned, but didn't say a word, only leaned forward to nuzzle his face into the warm turn of his lover's throat. He kept himself that way for a long moment, regardless of how Kanda became against him. "Still love you, Kanda." He breathed, a little laugh on his lips. "And I will, no matter what you call me. Even if it's _oblong_ or _beanpole._" He emphasized with a touch of his mouth against his lover's Adam's apple.

The Japanese man shivered and rocked back on his feet, looking down at the British Exorcist with something like regret behind his eyes. "If you keep doing that we won't even make it outside."

"You taste nice…"

"Fuck, Allen—" Mugen clattered at his feet as the boy pushed him backward, pressing him against the dresser. Kanda grappled with his burden, trying to keep all of it in his hands as the younger man sucked and nibbled at his throat, undoubtedly leaving bruises, humming appreciatively in his throat. The Japanese man didn't used to like that, but now he did, liked it to the point that his knees felt weak at the press of teeth on the tendon on the left side of his neck. "Mo…yash…i…"

Allen pushed the bundle in his lover's hands downward, as if encouraging him to drop it, and, when the burden toppled to the floor, sank with it, dragging his open mouth down the length of his lover's chest, breathing through the fabric of his shirt, his hands looped up in the back of the samurai's clothes. At once Kanda knew what he was thinking and pulled him up again, or tried to, before a rough hand – _that_ hand – slipped into his pants, knowing exactly what it wanted.

"Love…"

"Wasn't the idea – outside – not—"

"Let me taste you," Allen had never been so bold. He pushed himself up and kissed his lover wetly on the mouth before sinking down to his knees, pulling at Kanda's belt. "Four hours in that stupid lab… pretending not to be thinking about this… and—" He moved from belt to buttons and coaxed Kanda's manhood from within the folds in his pants, already half-aroused. "I haven't done this for you in _forever_, you're too bad about taking turns." His fingers cupped his lover's erection and brushed his lips over the skin of Kanda's right him, breathing from his nose so the air spread downward, threading through his fingers and playing against the heated skin beneath them. The Japanese man groaned softly, and leaned back on the dresser with a shiver.

Kanda's hands tangled in the British boy's hair in an effort to drag him closer. He choked out a moan at the slow brush of a tongue on the inside of his left thigh, between leg and arousal, teasing him harder. It made him quake again, head tilted against the dresser behind him. "Allen—_fuck_, the door's not—" Kanda silenced himself at the slow, moist heat suddenly wrapped around the head of his length, a tongue swirling at the edges. How long _had_ it been? He honestly couldn't recall. All he knew was that the British Exorcist wasn't paying attention to him, his words and instead devoting his attention to what he was doing – and where he was putting his fingers. The samurai looked down at the soft silver eyes of his lover and watched the boy's reddened lips slip forward, wet, warm, _knowing_ exactly where to stop to leave him under satisfied. Kanda felt his mouth fall open, a half-silent plea for more in his throat.

The white haired boy smiled without use of his mouth and moved forward, at the same moment he played his tongue against the vein at the front of his lover's erection, fluttering, and made a short hum in the back of his throat at the low, hungry sound it got him. Kanda, with his low ponytail fanned out over his shoulders, long bangs hanging wetly over his right eye, and fire burning behind his gaze, might have been one of the most magnificent things Allen had laid eyes on. Over the last few months, as summer grew warmer and then faded into fall, the younger boy had discovered his own like for spontaneous moments like this, and his enjoyment of that look on Kanda's face – complete and utter enjoyment. It didn't matter how often it happened really, or even if Kanda helped him with the unavoidable repercussions of his actions: the sight of his lover's face, so completely lost in sensation, was enough for Allen.

"Allen…" His name sounded so very different when spoken by those lips. "God—your mouth is so—" The British Exorcist hummed and Kanda shivered, fighting his legs for a moment as they threatened to drop him. "Mo…ya—"

The younger man pushed his lips as far forward as he could, and let his right hand slip down his own chest, across his stomach, and down to the bulge in his own pants, something that it seemed Kanda had yet to notice. A shaking whimper escaped the older man's lips as Allen stroked himself through his clothes and languidly worked his left hand and his mouth as one on his lover, matching pace with his hand. Even after nearly a year together he had never done this – pleasured himself in front of the samurai – but the reaction it got him – the wide quality to Kanda's eyes, the color rising in his cheeks, the curse words falling from his lips – made him think that it surely would again. It helped, of course, that Kanda could hold his hips more or less still and allow him the free hand with which to do it.

The button and zipper of his pants were hardly an obstacle, and soon Kanda found himself watching his lover do two very not-Allen-like things at once. As lecherous and lewd as he was in conversation, Kanda had never before imagined his lover getting off on getting him off – especially not in front of him. It was like something from a dream he would never have told Allen about – not in all of his life.

The younger man began to pull back and slid forward, a motion that made Kanda curse under his breath. Allen hummed at the words and rocked his hips against his own hand; his lover let out a sound that let the younger boy know that he didn't mind watching, his mouth open in a silent groan of desire. With an evil cock of his eyebrow, Allen bobbed his head forward and back, matching the movement with his hand, aware of just how well Kanda was blushing at him. It was all he could do to keep from asking the samurai if he liked watching, liked the thought of Allen enjoying him so fully.

"Allen…" Kanda's thighs twitched with the name, his back arched from the dresser, and his fingers dug into his lover's scalp, the rogue to his cheeks so dark the boy kneeling in front of him had to fight down a smile. The swirling motion of Allen's mouth, coupled with the push of his tongue, the drag of his teeth, the motion of his hand – Kanda shivered. All he had to do was watch that hand to make himself harder. "If it wouldn't..." The vibrating hum in the back of his lover's throat stole away his words and he bucked from against the boy's mouth, holding Allen's head with slightly too tight fingers. He reined himself in and the British boy pulled completely away, left hand still working at his lover's wet length.

Allen wiped his lips on his shoulder before he spoke in a cracked sort of voice. "You like to watch me, Love? I can see in your eyes that you do…" His red-black fingers worked the Japanese man's length, his thumb twirled over the top of it, moved down again, turned, moved up, the same pattern he had done with his mouth. "Should I finish it? Or would you like—"

"_Yes," _Kanda breathed down at the white haired Exorcist. "Do it. I want…" He swallowed, obviously fighting down a blush. "I want to see you do it."

The British boy smiled and kissed first the right and then the left of his lover's erection, then whined as if that wasn't enough for him, annoyed. Earnestly he pulled Kanda's heated flesh into his mouth and began to move his head back and forth, up and down, in a steady rhythm, matching it with his hand, looking up at the Japanese man with interested eyes. The press of his Kanda's arousal was impossibly hot in his mouth, and the whine in his throat so desperate and appreciative that Allen would have been a fool to ignore it, ignore the shallow, desperate way that the Japanese man breathed. His bangs, billowing out from his breath, caught the light in little ebony and blue streamers, shadowing his eyes, contrasting with the rouge of his cheeks. Allen hummed as low and loud as he could and watched those tangles of hair arch into the air as Kanda threw his head back, nearly banging it on the dresser.

There was a low, quavering sound in the back of Kanda throat, a sort of preamble to an actual verbal warning, and Allen moved his left hand down the base of his lover's erection and then to his neglected tentacles, pulling them away from the Japanese man's body and then pressing them back again, very carefully, aware of his fingernails.

"Gonna—"

Allen cut him off with a hum and stroked himself faster, as much as he could without losing concentration on what he was doing with his left hand and with his mouth. In the very back of his mind, beyond the part of him that just _loved _doing this and adored the little mewl of appreciation on Kanda's lips, he felt very grateful to be ambidextrous. And then the thought was gone, devoured by the salty taste of precum and the brush of his own thumb over the throbbing head of his erection.

Kanda looked down at him, mouthing words that had to air, and tugged at his hair almost painfully, arching away from the dresser.

_**He's beautiful like this… my Kanda…**_

"Al—" Kanda cut himself off at the encouraging movement of Allen's left hand and a sudden, undeniable increase in suction that made him squint his eyes shut and roll his hips, teetering on the edge of release. His lover hummed again, and the tight, hot pressure in his lower abdomen seemed to compound it self into a single too-strong knot, too much to bear. A strangled word – his lover's name – seeped through his lips as his arousal jerked in Allen's mouth, filling it with his release. The boy, to Kanda surprise and slight embarrassment, made a low sound of enjoyment as he swallowed what was given to him, pumping his right hand at a mad, deliciously needy pace. The samurai felt his knees buckle and slipped to the floor without thinking about it, and landed with his panting, flushed lover between his knees, bruised lips parted, left hand pressed to the floor to hold him up better.

The sight of it, Allen's hair sticking to his forehead with effort, his soft eyes raking Kanda's features as if for inspiration, was almost enough to make the older man hard all over again.

Almost.

The British boy moaned out _Yuu_ as he came and spilled partly into his right hand and partly onto the stone beneath his knees – mercifully missing the black rug just a foot behind him. He worked himself dry, holding Kanda's eyes, and finally let out a low, shuddering sigh when he was finished, left panting at the Japanese man's round dark eyes. For a moment, an awkward moment, he wondered if his lover was embarrassed for him. It was the only thing Allen could think to explain the painfully obvious blush on his lover's cheeks.

After a moment, the samurai reached out to him and gingerly, without touching the mess he had made or fumbling with his pants, Allen moved to his side, curling against the older man's chest without protest. It was cold and uncomfortable between the dresser behind them and the floor under them, but the younger boy could not find it in himself to care when Kanda folded him in an embrace, warm face on the side of his own. The brush of lips on his pulse, and the gentle, soft play of breath on his nape – they made him sigh.

"Where the fuck did that come from?" Kanda breathed against his lover's ear in an attempt to find a proper place to rest his head. They didn't fit quite perfectly anymore, not now that Allen was turning into a beanpole instead of a sprout. Inevitably the smaller teen leaned his head on Kanda's shoulder and Kanda in turn leaned his own against Allen's forehead. That, it seemed, still worked.

"Where did what come from?"

The question, spoken so innocently, almost made Kanda move to give his lover a disbelieving look. "The… touching yourself and… asking me if I…" His voice became very small, obviously flustered, "Want to watch you and… fuck..."

"I don't know…" Allen admitted with a little shrug, a smile on his lips. Part of him wanted to turn and look at his lover's face, just to see the color, but instead he reached out and took the samurai's hand in his clean one, squeezing it gently. "Why? Does it bother you?" He asked, though he already knew what Kanda would say, he thought.

"It was just…" The older man searched for words for a moment. "Kinky and strange and… hot… and very embarrassing—"

Allen nodded a little. "Ok. I won't do it anymore then."

"That's not what I meant…" Kanda mumbled, but didn't go on, obviously at his limit for sexual discussion at the moment. With a grumble that didn't quite drowned out Allen's giggle, he turned his face enough to press his lips to his lover's hair as he spoke. "So are we going to go outside or just sit here for a little?" He inquired, and his lover's thumb circled the back of his hand very softly, as if he wasn't even thinking about the touch.

"You know… I wonder, too."

-- -- --

It was well after lunch when Cross looked out the window and saw something he never thought he would lay eyes on, besides the sun shining in England in fall. The forest behind the tower was still green, being composed mostly of pines it was all year round, so the spot of blue against the earth toned ground stood out like a small island of sky in the middle of a sea of plants and dirt. On that spot of sky, shimmering in the warm sunlight, was the cloud of Allen walker's hair, and beside him, spread out like a long dark snake sunning itself, was the coil of Kanda's. The strangest part, however, wasn't that the two of them seemed entirely content to just _sit_ there, as if enjoying their lawn, it was who – a few minutes ago – had joined them.

He hadn't imagined that the Noah would be let out of the building any time in the next a few thousand years, and yet there he was, with his redhead idiot, chatting it up with the brat. The idiot, the brat, the woman, and the Noah – within the same six feet of each other – and no one was dying.

Well, that was arguable. _Everyone_ was dying. Some just went faster than others.

"You're looking awfully low for someone who's cloud gazing."

Cross ignored the words and brought a cigarette out of his pants pocket, scowling. What made the four of them able to do that – _talk_ like completely neutral individuals? How come the Japanese boy, when Lavi hugged his lover, just sat there watching without even the slightest show of what he had thought only a few months ago? It didn't make sense. It made _some_ sense for Allen to get along with Tyki, but Kanda? No. There was no good reason for him to make room on the blanket for the Portuguese man, nor was there reason for him to move away from the sword he had laid out beside him.

And then the samurai was pulling the brat into his lap, and he could almost hear the four of them laughing when Allen made a fuss over spilling the dango.

"Are you fucking deaf?"

"No," he smiled softly as the woman rolled up the brat's shirt sleeves and they settled down to cards – all four of them. If they thought rolling up Allen's sleeves would stop him from cheating, they had something else coming. "But I'm watching the four buggering boys play cards outside, if you'd like to watch." He shot a crooked glance over his shoulder but didn't focus on the room, then turned his eyes back out the window, lips crooked. Lavi had dealt.

"Che! Why would I care?"

"Because it's very human, Hiro." Such a simple answer, she didn't even respond while he took the time to drag from his cigarette and breathe the smoke out against the glass. "I think the four of them are just stupid enough to be smarter than all of the Grand Generals combined," he chuckled, and a pair of slim, warm hands curved around his stomach from behind, one of the few displays of caring that he had come to expect. His white button down wasn't much to wear with her body pressed against his back, but he didn't (for once) let his mind linger on things of that nature, too intent on what he was watching.

Hiroko watched with him. "Whore-chan looks taller."

"Your boy-daughter doesn't seem to mind."

"I… wonder how it is… that my Yuu can be _that_ Yuu…" She trailed off and, as if on cue, Kanda gathered the cards he had in his hand and the deck and threw them at Tyki, who seemed to be winning too much for his own good. His mother almost laughed. "Playing cards with those two… but…"

"But?"

"It isn't as if they haven't atoned for it, so I suppose it's alright."

Without thinking too much about what he was doing, Cross subtly switched her positions, draping his arms around her shoulders, completely indifferent to the fact that she had draped a sheet around her in a travesty of modesty. It made him smile a little, to see her doing things like that. It made him frown when she caught the tobacco from between his teeth and ground it out on the window sill.

"It's a bit depressing to think about, isn't it? The four of them," Cross observed softly. "They have this little shred of understanding, of forgiveness, and yet they aren't going to be able to enjoy it much longer."

"That's how things are, idiot." Hiroko stated quite clearly, touching his arm with her fingers of her own will. "Every time you say something that makes me happy, you do something stupid that pisses me the fuck off about three minutes later." Her smile reflected oddly against the glass of the window, very crooked, yet perfectly sincere. "But then… you always make it right again, only to fuck it up the next time the chance comes along."

He turned his face against her hair and smelled it, but went no further than that. Perhaps it was a bit silly of him to lean down to place his chin on her head, but he didn't particularly care – couldn't. The warmth of her skin, the touch of her hair, the scent of her – those things reined in his urge to run and his knowledge that _this_ wasn't something that he would have indulged in before. He was tired. It was the only explanation he could think of that proved to him why it was that she made him want to just be together for days on end – no adventure or mystery. Whether she noticed or not, he couldn't be certain.

He could be certain that outside, Allen was being beaten to death with a picnic basket, wielded awkwardly by Kanda's hands.

"I'm sorry."

"What the hell for?"

Cross let his lips curve up in a large, crooked smile that he aimed at nothing. _Temporarily taking away their happiness, among other things._ "I'll be leaving soon, and so will you."

"Yeah but…" Hiroko did not say sappy things but, at this moment, it seemed she was willing to make an exception. "You'll come crawling back to me. I'm just that good."

"Of course, Hiro. I'd be a fool not to."

-- -- --

"Ow! Ow! Yuu-chan!"

"_Stop. Calling. Me. _Yuu-chan!"

It seemed rather easy for them to fall back into their old roles, for Lavi to do the little things that would always _annoy_ Kanda and for the samurai to retaliate with something like a grin on his lips, slightly less violently than he used to. For the most part the Japanese man stuck to punching his fellow nineteen year old, which resulted in bruises but not blood loss, which seemed to be more to Lavi's enjoyment at the moment. Quietly, as the two once again evacuated the picnic blanket in a flurry of suddenly freed hair, flying fists, playing cards, and giggles, Allen cocked his head to the side and watched, completely at ease with the situation. Beside him Tyki let out a sigh, face turned up toward the sunlight.

Lavi wasn't much of a card player, so it was a bit more fun to watch him wrestle with Kanda on the grass beside the blanket, even if the redhead generally lost. He was still a little thin, gawky even, but it didn't decrease his spirit at all – or the Japanese man's obvious willingness to crush him like a bug beneath his boot. Allen winced in sympathy when Kanda hit the larger framed Exorcist in the gut just hard enough to rid him of his air, then stood up, taking his hair tie back in the process.

"Fucking _moron_."

"But you love me, _Yuu-chan!"_

"Are you deaf as well as stupid?!"

"If I am will you hit me again?" There was a pause in which Allen watched the once-apprentice Bookman start to smile. "Please?"

Kanda made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. Casually he situated himself to his lover's right, which left him sitting across from Tyki – something he was gradually becoming used to – and worked his hair into something resembling a ponytail, fly-aways sticking out around his face. A deep, meaningful scowl took his features as Lavi, grinning from ear to ear, settled back in his place, picking up his cards and forming them into the hand he had flung himself away from only moments before. He laughed at the connection of a very loose fist to his right arm, Kanda having hit with his left.

"Um… what was I doing? Oh, that's right. Losing." Lavi said more to himself than to Allen, and smiled over the top of his cards. The British boy smiled back, more than satisfied with his own hand, sure he would win. Kanda and Tyki remained without cards however, both knew better from personal experience and had lost earlier in the day – when Allen's sleeves had been rolled up. The boy was a demon in more ways than one when it came to the card game, they both had to admit.

That left who they supposed to be the dumbest among them to play against any unbeatable foe.

Allen made a meaningless bet. Lavi met it. Allen drew a card. Lavi drew three. Allen called. Lavi raised him nothing. They spread their cards between them.

"You're taking care of my dirty dishes for three weeks." The white haired boy chimed, collecting the deck to shuffle. Lavi made a pouting face at him. They both knew he wouldn't really take care of the dishes – it was just the idea of betting that attracted the British Exorcist and so they did. It was pointless when nothing could be gained or lost at least in words.

The redhead made a face at him. "If I win the next one, you have to do something horrible with Yuu-chan."

"I am not a part of this." Kanda protested at once, and glared deeply at the redhead, eyes narrowed. The Noah in front of him smiled a little but he ignored it. "I'm not playing the game, I'm not something you can bet, and like _hell_ I'm doing anything with _him_ after what he pulled in the room today."

"That was half your fault." Allen shot in with a flip of the deck between his hands. "Standing there with all of that _stuff_ in your arms… I swear it was as if I'd seen a burdened angel newly fallen from heaven." Tyki snicker at the words only because of the terribly cheesy tone with which the British boy produced them – dreamy eyed, as if he knew how silly he sounded. As the Noah watched, Kanda turned to his lover with his eyes narrowed, dark bangs hanging over his eyes until he swept them out of his way with his hand.

"Che. You suck off every _angel_ you come across, Moyashi-kun?"

Lavi made a sound between a laugh and a gag before he made a show of fanning himself with his cards. _"Moyashi-kun, it might seem odd for me to write you like this, but I do not see what else to do. You and I have not grown closer in your time at the Order and —"_

He did not dodge Kanda's fist when it came for his face but it didn't land anyway, stopped by the Japanese man's willpower alone. The redhead frowned at it. "You stupid masochist. If you say anything else, I'll fucking _hug _you and see how you like it." He warned, and dropped his hand to his side.

Lavi grinned. "Really?"

"If you _touch _me—"

"C'mere, Yuu!"

"Don't you dare—!"

Allen sighed when the two went down in another fluttering of cards and fists and – this time – splayed, accepting arms. Kanda went down, Lavi landing on top of him, face pressed into the curve of the Japanese man's shoulder, eye patch threatening to move askew.

"In another universe very similar to our own," Tyki said softly, gathering his lover's cards so they would be prepared for when he returned to the game. He grinned at the sound Lavi made with his arms wrapped firmly around the samurai's waist – like a giggle, almost. "Our two troublemakers might have fallen into a more intimate relationship than the one they currently enjoy I think. Or at least how they flirt makes me think so."

"Che. We do _not _flirt! Get your Goddamn rabbit off of me!"

"Of course we flirt!" Lavi responded at once. "I flirt with _everyone_."

"And it's disgusting! Get off of me, you… slut!"

"Oh, Yuu-chan, that was pretty hot. You should call me names more often…"

Allen couldn't take it anymore and laughed outright, pulling the cards over his mouth to muffle the sound. It was not until Kanda finally stopped fighting off the redhead that Lavi let go, looking pleased with himself, and made his way back to the game, rubbing his sore right shoulder even as the samurai punched it one more time for good measure. The redhead grinned at the British boy, who shook his head, half disbelieving. "It's a good thing I love you both at least a little, or I'd castrate one of you," Allen chimed, and shuffled his hand a bit until he like the order of his royal flush. Lavi frowned at his hand, suddenly despondent.

"You know it's just fun to fuck with Yuu-chan. I'm sure you do it all the time." The redhead grinned, and put down four cards, needing to replace them.

"Oh yes." Allen's face took on a distinctly evil expression, his eyes glimmering with mischief. He ignored Lavi as he the redhead started to give himself new ones and instead let his eyes drift to his lover, who didn't seem to notice. "I do fuck with him all the time, though it would be more _often_ if _someone_ could _remember_ what a _turn_ is." He bit out, and then turned back to find his opponent shuffling none-too-subtly through the deck, building what might have been a winning hand.

"There are only thirty-six cards…" Lavi muttered, sifting through them. "There should be forty-two… we each have…five…"

"That's cheating!"

"As if you're not!"

Kanda let out a soft sigh and rolled his eyes, completely under amused by the other two. "The day you don't cheat at poker is the day I'll let you have your _turn_, Moyashi."

"I fold." Allen said at once, putting his cards down and shoving them haphazardly into the deck. Kanda and Lavi both paled. Tyki made a short choking, laughing sound beside him. "I wasn't cheating, I don't cheat against friends. Really. So…" He rolled up his sleeves – now empty – and grinned at the Japanese man to his left. "I'll be counting from ten…"

"Fuck you! I know as well as you do that you—"

"Nine."

"Were cheating you little—"

"Eight."

Kanda reached out and clapped his left hand over Allen's mouth, glaring when he felt the little countdown continue against his palm. Lavi took to snorting loudly, still counting cards, while Tyki just looked amused from his side, shaking his head. "I get it! Fine!" The samurai said loudly, shaking his lover a little. "It's not fair to cheat you out of your turn and it's not fair for you to cheat us either! Stop cheating and I'll let you be seme!" He blared and then, slowly, starting at the base of his throat, turned very, very red. It occurred to him that he shouldn't be embarrassed – not really – but that he had, indeed, not only admitted to being seme (which was still a long lasting debate between the two of them) but had also said it loudly in front of Lavi and Tyki. Behind his palm, Allen's mouth opened in something like a nearly silent snicker. Kanda began to growl very low in his throat.

A hand – a hand that wasn't Allen's – ruffled through the front of his hair and he stilled, confused for a moment. He realized with a little start that it was Tyki touching him, trying to calm him, and he felt anger well in his gut for a moment before it settled again and the fingers in his bangs withdrew.

The Noah shifted awkwardly in the silence that followed, a strangely human expression spreading across his features. "I apologize," he said softly. "It's just—"

"Che." Kanda cut him off as he turned his head to the side. His messy ponytail bounced behind him and his eyes shut, irritation written on his face, determination squaring his jaw. "Don't worry about it." He hissed, and looked down at the cards that Lavi had slowly, in the stillness, gathered awkwardly in his hands, holding them like some sort of lifeline in a gale. With a narrowing of his eyes the Japanese Exorcist rounded on the redhead, annoyance still burning like black fire in his gaze. "What the fuck are you waiting for? Are you going to deal or what?"

"Oh…" Lavi said, and shuffled while he let his eye wander over to Allen a slow, knowing smile on his lips. "Well…" He grinned outright, "Place your bets ladies!" He chimed encouragingly.

"_Baka_ there are no bets."

"And none of us are ladies, either."

-- -- --

**The end.**

**I hope that you saw the themes and the foreshadowing and the stuff I wanted everyone to notice, as well as the underlying message that hid itself in all of those pages of smut. If not… well… I hope you missed the typos and liked it anyway! 8D**

**Is it ironic that this ended on the same number as the anime has episodes? I wonder…**

**Thank you all for reading and reviewing! From now on, I'll be slowly replacing and fixing typos. So if you remember any, please tell me. :)**

**And if you'd like to know the gender of Sable's baby, being I don't plan on writing it, I'll reply it back to you if you ask. 8D**

**Please no flaming for the sorta happy ending?**


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